1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
8 You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
20 ** Emacs includes now support for loading image libraries on demand.
21 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
22 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
23 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
26 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the following
27 languages: Brasilian, Bulgarian, Chinese (both with simplified and
28 traditional characters), French, and Italian. Type `C-u C-h t' to
29 choose one of them in case your language setup doesn't automatically
33 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
34 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
35 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
38 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
41 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
44 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
45 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
49 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
50 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
51 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
52 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
53 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
54 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
55 in each user's home directory.
58 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
59 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
63 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
65 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
66 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
67 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
68 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
71 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
74 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
75 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
76 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
77 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
80 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
83 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
86 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
89 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
90 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
93 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
96 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
97 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
98 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
101 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
104 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
105 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
108 * Changes in Emacs 22.1
110 ** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
111 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
112 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
113 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
117 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
118 M-t (transpose-words)
121 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
124 ** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
125 The default value forthe user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
126 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
127 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
128 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
130 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
133 ** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
134 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
135 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
136 This change may result in using the different coding systems as
137 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
140 ** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
141 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
142 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
143 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
144 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
145 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
148 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
149 M-o M-o requests refontification.
152 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
154 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
155 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
156 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
159 ** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
160 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
161 The default value is 1.
164 ** C-u M-x goto-line now switches to the most recent previous buffer,
165 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
167 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
168 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
171 ** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
172 display margin, when run in an xterm.
175 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
176 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
179 ** Control characters and escape glyphs are now shown in the new
183 ** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now prefixed with an escape
184 character, unless the new user variable `show-nonbreak-escape' is set
188 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
189 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
190 you don't want the .type-break file in your home directory or are
191 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
194 ** display-battery has been replaced by display-battery-mode.
197 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode, which is available when
198 `calculator-output-radix' is non-nil. In this mode a separator
199 character is used every few digits, making it easier to see byte
200 boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the variable
201 `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
204 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
206 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
207 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
208 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
209 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
210 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior.
212 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs may do much
213 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
214 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
215 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
216 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
217 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
218 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
219 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
220 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
222 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
223 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
224 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
227 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
228 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
230 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
231 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
234 ** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
236 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
237 when visiting the file.
239 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
240 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
241 when saving the file.
244 ** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
245 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
246 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
247 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
248 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
252 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
253 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
257 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
260 ** In Outline mode, hide-body no longer hides lines at the top
261 of the file that precede the first header line.
264 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
265 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
269 ** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
270 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
273 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
274 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
277 ** global-whitespace-mode is a new alias for whitespace-global-mode.
280 ** There are now two new regular expression operators, \_< and \_>,
281 for matching the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
282 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
283 specified by the syntax table.
285 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
288 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
289 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
290 existing values. For example:
292 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
294 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
295 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
298 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved, it can
299 run most curses applications now.
301 ** New features in evaluation commands
304 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
305 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
308 *** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
309 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
310 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
311 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
312 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
315 ** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
319 ** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
320 in the current input method to input a character at point.
323 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left and
324 (prev-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and C-x right
328 ** Commands winner-redo and winner-undo, from winner.el, are now bound to
329 C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an incompatible change.
332 ** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
333 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
334 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
335 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
338 ** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
339 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
340 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
341 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
342 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
344 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
345 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
347 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
348 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
349 lines, including any prompts.
351 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
352 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
353 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
354 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
355 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
356 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
357 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
360 ** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
361 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
364 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
367 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
369 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
370 the fancy startup screen.
373 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
375 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
379 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
380 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
383 ** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
384 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
387 ** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
388 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
389 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
392 ** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
393 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
394 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
395 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
396 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
397 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
398 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
401 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
402 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
403 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
407 ** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
408 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
409 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
410 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
411 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
412 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
413 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
414 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
415 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
418 ** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
419 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
420 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
421 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
422 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
425 ** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
426 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
430 ** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
432 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
433 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
434 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
435 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
437 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
438 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
439 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
441 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
442 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
443 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
444 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
445 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
447 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
449 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
452 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
453 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
454 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
455 subprocesses inherit.
458 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
461 *** There's a new separate package grep.el.
464 *** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
466 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
467 can be saved and automatically revisited with the new Grep mode.
470 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
473 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
474 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
477 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
478 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
479 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
482 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
483 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
484 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
485 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
486 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
487 source line is highlighted.
490 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
491 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
492 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
493 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
494 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
495 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
499 ** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
500 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
501 in new face `next-error'.
504 ** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
505 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
506 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
507 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
508 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
512 ** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
515 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
516 resync points in both windows.
519 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
520 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
521 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
522 using strokes as an input method.
527 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
528 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
532 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
533 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
539 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, desktop-save-mode. Variable
540 desktop-enable is obsolete. Customize desktop-save-mode to enable desktop
544 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
548 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers immediately,
549 remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
553 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
554 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
555 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
557 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
558 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
561 *** New customizable variables:
562 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
564 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
565 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
566 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
567 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
568 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
570 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
571 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
572 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
573 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
576 *** New command line option --no-desktop
580 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
581 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
584 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
585 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
586 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
587 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
588 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
589 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
593 ** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
595 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
596 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
597 % emacsclient -s foo file1
598 % emacsclient -s bar file2
601 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
602 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
603 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
604 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
605 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
607 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
608 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
611 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may
612 now be marked with angle bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and
613 down arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the left or
614 right fringe if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
616 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
617 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
618 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
620 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
621 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
623 Value may also be an alist which specifies the presense and position
624 of each bitmap individually.
626 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
627 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
628 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
629 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
632 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
633 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
634 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
635 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
636 keyboard oriented alternative.
639 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
640 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
641 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
642 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
643 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
646 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
647 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
648 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
649 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
652 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
653 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
654 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
655 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
656 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
657 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
658 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
661 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
662 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
665 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
666 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
667 an interactively callable function.
672 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
673 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
674 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
675 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
676 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
678 The following values are supported:
680 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
694 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
697 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
698 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
699 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
701 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
703 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
704 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
705 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
706 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
708 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
709 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
711 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
712 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
713 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
715 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
716 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
717 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
718 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
719 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
722 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
723 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
724 credentials to authenticate the user.
726 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
727 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
728 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
730 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
731 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
733 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
734 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
737 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
738 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
742 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
743 with special modes such as Tar mode.
745 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
748 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
749 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
750 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
754 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
755 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
756 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
757 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
758 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
762 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
763 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
764 the operating system or your X server.
767 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
768 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
769 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
772 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
773 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
776 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
777 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
780 ** A prefix argument of C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-printifies the
781 list starting after point.
786 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
787 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
788 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
790 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
791 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
794 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
795 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
798 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
799 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
800 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
801 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
802 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
803 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
806 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
807 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
813 *** Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode. The mode toggling
814 command is bound to M-o. A new command dired-mark-omitted, bound to M-O,
815 marks omitted files. The variable dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the
816 mode toggling function instead.
819 ** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
820 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
823 ** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
824 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
829 *** New ffap commands and keybindings: C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
830 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
831 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
832 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
835 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default. C-x C-f passes
836 it to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS argument, which visits
837 multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
842 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
843 with the number appended to the *info* buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
846 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
847 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
848 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
849 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
850 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
851 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
852 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
855 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
856 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
857 search without prompting for a new search string.
859 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
860 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
861 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
863 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
865 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
866 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
868 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
869 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
872 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
873 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
874 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
877 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
878 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
880 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
881 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
884 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
885 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
886 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
889 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
890 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
891 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
892 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
895 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
898 *** Info-index offers completion.
901 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
905 *** The new command bibtex-url browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
906 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
908 *** The new command bibtex-entry-update (bound to C-c C-u) updates
909 an existing BibTeX entry.
911 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
913 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
914 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
915 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
916 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
917 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
918 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
920 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
921 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
923 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
924 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
926 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
927 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
929 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
930 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
932 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
933 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
934 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
936 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
937 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
939 *** The new variables bibtex-files and bibtex-file-path define a set
940 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
942 *** The new command bibtex-validate-globally checks for duplicate keys
943 in multiple BibTeX files.
945 *** The new command bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill pushes summary
946 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
949 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
950 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
951 at the edges of the window.
954 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
955 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
957 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
958 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
959 or when the frame is resized.
962 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
964 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
965 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
968 ** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
969 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
970 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
973 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
976 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
977 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
979 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
980 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
983 ** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
986 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
989 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
990 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
993 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
994 Emacs prompts her for confirmation.
997 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1000 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
1001 and other common debugger commands.
1006 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
1007 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
1010 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
1011 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
1012 keep in the recent list.
1014 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
1015 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
1016 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
1017 recent list with different symbolic links.
1019 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
1020 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
1021 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
1024 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
1028 ** Init file changes
1030 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
1031 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
1034 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
1037 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
1038 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
1039 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
1040 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
1041 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
1042 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
1047 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.82. There have been major changes since
1048 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
1051 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
1052 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
1053 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
1056 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
1059 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
1060 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
1061 appears between the position information and the major mode.
1064 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
1065 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
1068 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
1069 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
1070 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
1071 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
1075 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
1076 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
1077 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
1081 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
1082 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
1083 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
1087 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1088 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1091 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1095 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
1097 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
1098 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
1099 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
1102 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1103 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1104 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1106 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1107 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1108 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1109 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1110 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1112 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1113 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1114 t, and the status is shown.
1116 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1117 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1120 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1121 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1122 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1126 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1127 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1128 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1129 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1130 automatically according to the locale.)
1133 ** Indian support has been updated.
1134 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1135 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1136 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1140 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1141 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1142 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1143 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1144 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1148 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1149 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1150 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1153 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
1154 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
1155 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
1156 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
1157 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
1158 latter is used by GNU locales.
1161 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1162 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1163 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1164 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1165 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1166 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1167 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1168 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1169 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1170 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1171 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1172 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1175 ** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1176 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1179 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1180 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1181 fontset appropriately.
1184 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1188 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1189 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1190 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1191 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1192 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1193 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1194 mule-unicode-... ones.
1196 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1197 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1198 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1201 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1202 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1203 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1204 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1205 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1208 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1209 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1210 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1211 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1214 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1215 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1216 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1220 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1221 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1222 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1225 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
1226 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
1229 ** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
1230 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
1231 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
1234 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
1235 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
1238 ** Dialogs and menus pop down when pressing C-g.
1241 ** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
1242 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
1243 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
1246 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
1247 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
1250 ** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
1251 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
1255 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
1256 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
1257 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
1261 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
1262 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
1264 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1265 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1266 program files that include other program files.
1268 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1269 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1273 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1274 when Emacs visits them.
1277 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
1279 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
1280 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
1281 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
1284 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1285 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1286 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1287 and use the more appropriately result.
1290 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
1291 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
1292 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
1293 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
1295 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
1296 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
1297 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
1298 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
1299 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
1300 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
1302 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
1303 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
1307 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
1310 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
1311 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
1312 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
1313 TeX commands to use at startup.
1316 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
1317 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
1320 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
1323 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
1324 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
1325 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
1326 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
1327 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
1328 feature is not enabled.
1331 ** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
1332 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
1333 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
1334 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
1335 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
1339 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
1340 description various information about a character, including its
1341 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
1342 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
1343 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
1346 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1347 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1348 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1349 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1350 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1353 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1354 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1355 in Indented-Text mode.
1358 ** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
1359 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1360 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1363 ** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
1364 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
1365 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
1366 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
1367 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
1368 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
1369 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
1370 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
1371 can be edited for each replacement.
1374 ** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
1375 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
1378 ** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
1379 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
1382 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1383 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1384 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1385 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1386 also disable mouse highlighting.
1389 ** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1390 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1391 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1394 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
1395 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
1396 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
1397 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
1398 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
1401 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
1402 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
1403 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
1407 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
1408 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
1409 the mode line of the currently selected window.
1411 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
1412 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
1415 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
1416 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
1417 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
1418 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
1419 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
1420 current date and time, current line and column number in the
1424 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
1427 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
1428 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
1429 `display-time-mail-directory'.
1432 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
1435 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
1436 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
1437 argument it toggles the mode.
1439 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
1440 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
1443 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
1444 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
1445 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
1446 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
1447 `inhibit-splash-screen').
1449 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
1452 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1453 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1454 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1455 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1456 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1457 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1458 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1459 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1460 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1463 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1464 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1465 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1466 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1467 all of these colors.
1470 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1471 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1472 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1473 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1477 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1480 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
1482 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
1483 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
1484 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
1485 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
1488 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
1492 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1493 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1494 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1495 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1498 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
1500 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
1502 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
1505 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
1506 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
1508 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
1509 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
1511 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
1513 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
1514 run by the key sequence.
1516 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
1517 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
1520 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
1521 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
1523 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
1524 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
1526 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
1527 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
1529 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
1530 new-kill-line is on C-k
1533 ** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
1534 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
1535 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
1536 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
1540 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
1541 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
1542 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
1543 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
1546 ** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
1547 at the end of a line.
1550 ** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
1551 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
1552 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
1555 ** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
1556 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
1557 search string used as the string to replace.
1560 ** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
1561 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
1562 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
1565 ** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
1566 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
1567 elements are deleted.
1570 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
1571 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
1572 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
1573 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
1576 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
1577 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
1578 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
1579 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
1582 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1583 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1584 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1585 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1586 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1587 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1590 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1591 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1592 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1593 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1594 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1595 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1596 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1599 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1600 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1601 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1602 under the "[State]" button.
1605 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
1606 point (no integers are allowed).
1609 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
1610 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
1613 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
1615 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
1616 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
1617 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
1618 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
1619 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
1621 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
1622 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
1623 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
1626 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
1629 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
1630 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
1631 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
1633 Added Customization Variables
1635 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
1637 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
1638 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
1639 java sources (previous method).
1641 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
1642 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
1647 *** The STARTTLS elisp wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
1648 instead of the OpenSSL based "starttls" tool. For backwards
1649 compatibility, it prefers "starttls", but you can toggle
1650 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
1653 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
1656 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
1657 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
1658 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
1661 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
1662 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
1663 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
1664 is only rarely needed.
1668 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1670 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1671 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1672 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1673 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1675 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1677 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1678 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1679 refontification takes place.
1682 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
1683 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
1684 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region extends each time, so
1685 you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC, for example.
1686 This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to
1687 a key. It also extends the region when the mark is active in Transient
1688 Mark mode, regardless of the last command. To start a new region with
1689 one of marking commands in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the
1690 active region with C-g, or set the new mark with C-SPC.
1693 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
1694 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
1695 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
1696 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
1697 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
1700 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
1701 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
1702 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
1705 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
1706 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
1707 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
1711 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
1712 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
1713 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
1716 ** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
1717 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
1718 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
1721 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1722 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1726 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
1727 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
1728 affects the initial frame.
1731 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
1732 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
1733 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
1737 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1738 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1739 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1740 directory listing into a buffer.
1743 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1744 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1747 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
1748 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
1749 This behavior can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1750 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1753 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1754 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1755 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1756 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1757 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1758 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1759 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1760 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1763 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
1764 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
1765 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
1766 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
1767 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
1770 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
1771 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
1775 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
1776 of the recognized cursor types.
1779 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
1780 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
1781 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
1784 ** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
1785 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
1788 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
1789 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
1790 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
1791 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
1792 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
1793 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
1794 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
1795 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
1796 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
1799 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
1800 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
1801 count backward from the end of the year.
1804 ** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
1805 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
1806 day of that ISO week.
1809 ** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
1810 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
1813 ** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
1814 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
1815 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
1816 `christian-holidays' simpler.
1819 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
1820 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
1821 and `diary-header-line-format'.
1824 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
1825 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
1826 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
1827 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
1830 ** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
1831 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
1832 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
1833 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
1840 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
1841 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
1842 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
1843 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
1844 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
1846 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
1848 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
1851 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
1852 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1853 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1854 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1855 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1859 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1864 *** When comparing directories.
1865 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1866 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1867 from one directory to another.
1870 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1871 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1872 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1873 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1876 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1877 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1878 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1883 *** New regular expressions features
1885 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1886 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1887 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1888 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1889 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1890 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1891 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1892 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1893 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1894 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1895 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1897 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1898 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1899 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1902 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1903 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1904 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1905 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1907 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1908 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1909 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1911 *** New language parsing features
1913 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1914 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1916 **** The gnucc __attribute__ keyword is now recognised and ignored.
1918 **** New language HTML.
1919 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1920 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1922 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1923 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1924 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1926 **** New language Lua.
1927 All functions are tagged.
1929 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1930 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1931 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1934 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1936 **** New language PHP.
1937 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1938 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are variables also.
1940 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1941 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1944 *** Honour #line directives.
1945 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1946 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1947 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1948 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1949 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1951 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1952 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1953 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1954 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
1960 *** Font lock support.
1961 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1962 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1963 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1964 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1965 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1966 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1968 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1969 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1970 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1971 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1972 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1973 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1974 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1975 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1976 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1978 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1979 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1980 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1981 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1982 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1983 take the better part of a minute.
1985 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1986 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1987 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1988 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1989 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1990 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1992 **** Support for documentation comments.
1993 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1994 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1995 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1996 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1998 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1999 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
2000 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
2001 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2003 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2004 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2005 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2006 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2009 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2010 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2011 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2012 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2013 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2015 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2016 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2017 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2018 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2019 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2021 *** Support for the AWK language.
2022 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2023 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2024 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2027 **** Indentation Engine
2028 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2030 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2031 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2032 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2033 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2034 definition, or structured statement.
2036 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2037 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
2038 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2040 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
2041 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
2042 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
2043 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
2046 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2047 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2048 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2049 the AWK language itself.
2051 **** Comment Commands
2052 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
2053 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
2055 **** Movement Commands
2056 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
2057 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
2058 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
2060 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
2061 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
2062 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
2065 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2066 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
2067 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
2068 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
2070 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2071 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2072 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2073 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2074 composition-close, and incomposition.
2076 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2077 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
2078 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
2079 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
2081 *** Better control over require-final-newline. The variable that
2082 controls how to handle a final newline when the buffer is saved,
2083 require-final-newline, is now customizable on a per-mode basis through
2084 c-require-final-newline. That is a list of modes, and only those
2085 modes set require-final-newline. By default that's C, C++ and
2088 The specified modes set require-final-newline based on
2089 mode-require-final-newline, as usual.
2091 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2092 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
2093 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
2094 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2095 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2097 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2101 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2103 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2106 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
2107 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
2108 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
2109 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
2111 *** API changes for derived modes.
2112 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2113 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2114 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2115 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2116 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2118 **** New language variable system.
2119 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2121 **** New initialization functions.
2122 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2123 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
2124 c-init-language-vars.
2126 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2127 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2128 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2129 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2131 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2132 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2133 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2134 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2135 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2137 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2138 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2139 its substatement. E.g:
2145 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2147 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2148 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2149 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2150 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
2151 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
2154 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
2155 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2156 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2157 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2158 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2159 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
2160 empty lines within the macro better.
2162 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2163 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2164 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
2166 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2167 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2168 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
2169 backslashes can be moved.
2171 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2172 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
2173 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
2174 inserted in auto-newline mode.
2176 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2177 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2178 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2179 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2180 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2181 backslash) in the macro.
2183 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2184 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2185 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
2186 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
2187 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
2188 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2190 *** New function c-context-open-line.
2191 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
2193 *** New lineup functions
2195 **** c-lineup-string-cont
2196 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2199 result = prefix + "A message "
2200 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2202 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
2203 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2205 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
2206 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2207 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2209 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
2210 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
2213 **** c-lineup-argcont
2214 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2215 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
2217 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2218 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2219 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2220 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2221 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2222 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2224 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2225 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2226 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2227 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2230 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2231 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2232 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2233 happen when macros are involved.
2235 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
2236 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2237 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2238 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2239 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2240 line is left untouched.
2242 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2243 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
2244 syntactic indentation.
2247 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
2248 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
2251 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
2252 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
2255 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
2256 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
2257 whose names begin with space are omitted.
2260 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
2261 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
2262 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
2264 We provide two sample predicates, fill-single-word-nobreak-p and
2265 fill-french-nobreak-p, for use in the value of fill-nobreak-predicate.
2268 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
2269 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
2270 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
2273 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2274 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2275 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2276 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2277 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2278 from the file name or buffer contents.
2281 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2284 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
2287 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2290 ** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2291 highlighting for the old default.
2294 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2295 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2296 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2299 ** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2300 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2301 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2302 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2305 ** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for hs-minor-mode (hideshow).
2306 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2310 ** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2311 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2314 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2315 to support use of font-lock.
2318 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
2319 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
2323 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
2324 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
2325 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
2328 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
2329 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
2330 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
2331 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
2332 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
2333 candidate is a directory.
2336 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
2337 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
2338 it remains unchanged.
2341 ** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
2343 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
2344 have in common and where they begin to differ.
2346 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
2347 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
2348 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
2349 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
2350 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
2351 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
2352 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
2353 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
2356 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
2357 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
2358 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
2361 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2364 ** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2365 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2366 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2367 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2368 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2369 used instead of the native one.
2372 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
2373 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
2374 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
2377 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
2378 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
2381 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
2382 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
2383 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
2384 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
2385 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
2386 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
2387 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
2390 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
2391 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
2392 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
2393 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
2394 sound support for those formats.
2397 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
2398 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
2401 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
2402 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
2403 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
2404 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
2407 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
2408 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
2409 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
2410 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
2411 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
2412 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
2413 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
2414 you wish to use them in other faces.
2417 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
2418 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
2419 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
2420 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
2421 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
2425 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
2426 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
2427 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
2428 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
2430 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
2431 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
2434 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
2436 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2437 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2438 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2440 P: annotates the previous revision
2441 N: annotates the next revision
2442 J: annotates the revision at line
2443 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2444 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2445 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2446 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2449 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2450 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2454 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2455 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2456 "checkout", "update" or "commit". That means using cvs diff options
2460 ** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
2461 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
2462 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
2463 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
2466 ** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
2469 ** On Mac OS, the value of the variable `keyboard-coding-system' is
2470 now dynamically changed according to the current keyboard script. The
2471 variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
2472 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
2473 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
2475 * New modes and packages in Emacs 22.1
2478 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
2479 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
2480 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
2481 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
2482 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
2483 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
2484 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
2485 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
2486 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
2489 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
2490 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
2491 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
2492 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
2493 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
2497 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
2498 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
2499 to increment the SOA serial.
2502 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
2503 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
2505 ** The library tree-widget.el provides a new widget to display a set
2506 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
2507 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
2510 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
2511 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
2514 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
2515 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
2517 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
2518 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
2521 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
2523 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
2526 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
2527 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
2530 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
2533 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2535 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
2536 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
2537 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
2538 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
2541 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2543 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
2544 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
2545 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
2546 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
2547 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
2548 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
2550 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
2551 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
2552 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
2553 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
2555 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
2556 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
2557 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
2558 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
2559 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
2560 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
2561 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
2563 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
2564 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
2565 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
2567 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
2568 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
2570 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
2571 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
2572 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
2573 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
2575 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
2576 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
2577 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
2578 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
2580 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
2581 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
2582 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
2583 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
2586 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
2587 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
2588 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
2589 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
2590 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
2592 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
2593 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
2594 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
2595 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
2596 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
2597 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
2599 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
2600 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
2601 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
2602 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
2603 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
2604 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
2605 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
2606 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
2607 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
2611 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
2612 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
2614 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
2615 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
2616 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
2617 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
2619 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
2622 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
2623 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
2624 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
2625 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
2626 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
2629 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
2630 the keyboard macro ring.
2632 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
2633 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
2635 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
2636 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
2637 this behavior via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
2638 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
2640 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
2641 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
2642 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
2645 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2646 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2647 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2648 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2650 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2652 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
2653 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
2654 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
2655 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
2656 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
2657 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
2660 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2662 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
2663 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
2664 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
2665 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
2668 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
2670 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
2671 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
2672 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
2673 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
2674 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
2675 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
2676 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
2677 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
2678 `rsync' to do the copying).
2680 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
2681 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
2683 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
2685 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
2688 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
2689 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
2690 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
2691 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
2692 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
2693 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
2696 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
2697 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
2698 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
2702 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
2703 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
2704 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
2705 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
2707 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
2710 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
2711 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
2714 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
2715 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
2716 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
2717 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
2718 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
2719 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
2722 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
2723 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
2724 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
2725 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
2728 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
2729 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
2730 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
2731 mode-lines in inverse-video.
2734 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
2737 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
2738 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
2741 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the appearance of fringes.
2744 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
2745 configuration files.
2747 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
2750 ** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
2751 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
2752 it returns just the directory name.
2755 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
2756 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
2757 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
2761 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
2762 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
2763 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
2765 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
2767 ** New functions, macros, and commands
2770 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
2771 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
2772 the filtered substring. It is used instead of `buffer-substring' or
2773 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
2774 data structure, like the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register. The
2775 list of filter function is specified by the new variable
2776 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode uses
2777 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
2781 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
2782 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
2783 quit had occurred. while-no-input returns the value of BODY, if BODY
2784 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted.
2787 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
2788 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
2789 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
2792 *** New functions `make-progress-reporter', `progress-reporter-update',
2793 `progress-reporter-force-update', `progress-reporter-done', and
2794 `dotimes-with-progress-reporter' provide a simple and efficient way for
2795 a command to present progress messages for the user.
2798 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
2799 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
2802 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
2803 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' did: it returns t if the
2804 calling function was called through `call-interactively'. This should
2805 only be used when you cannot add a new "interactive" argument to the
2809 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
2810 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
2811 been declared obsolete.
2814 *** New function quail-find-key returns a list of keys to type in the
2815 current input method to input a character.
2818 *** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y return
2819 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
2820 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
2823 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
2824 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
2828 *** The new function syntax-after returns the syntax code
2829 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
2830 of text properties as well as the character code.
2832 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
2836 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns line number of current
2837 line in current buffer, or if optional buffer position is given, line
2838 number of corresponding line in current buffer.
2841 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
2842 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
2843 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
2844 if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
2847 *** New macro with-local-quit temporarily sets inhibit-quit to nil for use
2848 around potentially blocking or long-running code in timers
2849 and post-command-hooks.
2852 *** The new function `rassq-delete-all' deletes all elements from an
2853 alist whose cdr is `eq' to a specified value.
2856 *** New macro define-obsolete-variable-alias to combine defvaralias and
2857 make-obsolete-variable.
2860 ** copy-file now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
2862 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
2865 ** easy-mmode-define-global-mode has been renamed to
2866 define-global-minor-mode. The old name remains as an alias.
2869 ** An element of buffer-undo-list can now have the form (apply FUNNAME
2870 . ARGS), where FUNNAME is a symbol other than t or nil. That stands
2871 for a high-level change that should be undone by evaluating (apply
2874 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
2875 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
2876 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
2879 ** The line-move, scroll-up, and scroll-down functions will now
2880 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
2881 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presense of
2882 large images. To disable this feature, Lisp code may bind the new
2883 variable `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
2886 ** If a buffer sets buffer-save-without-query to non-nil,
2887 save-some-buffers will always save that buffer without asking
2891 ** The function symbol-file tells you which file defined
2892 a certain function or variable.
2895 ** Lisp code can now test if a given buffer position is inside a
2896 clickable link with the new function `mouse-on-link-p'. This is the
2897 function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link' functionality.
2900 ** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
2901 precedence over the file name. Likewise an <?xml or <!DOCTYPE declaration
2902 will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new var
2906 ** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
2907 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
2908 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
2909 several versions ago.
2912 ** read-from-minibuffer now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
2913 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
2916 ** The new variable search-spaces-regexp controls how to search
2917 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
2918 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
2919 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
2921 Spaces inside of constructs such as [..] and *, +, ? are never
2922 replaced with search-spaces-regexp.
2925 ** list-buffers-noselect now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
2926 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
2929 ** set-buffer-file-coding-system now takes an additional argument,
2930 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
2933 ** An interactive specification may now use the code letter 'U' to get
2934 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
2935 previous 'k' or 'K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
2938 ** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
2942 ** Major mode functions now run the new normal hook
2943 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode hooks.
2946 ** `auto-save-file-format' has been renamed to
2947 `buffer-auto-save-file-format' and made into a permanent local.
2950 ** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
2951 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
2952 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
2955 ** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
2956 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
2957 the usable window height and width is used.
2960 ** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
2961 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
2964 ** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
2965 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
2966 During that following command, the value of transient-mark-mode
2967 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
2971 ** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
2973 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
2974 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
2977 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
2980 ** The sentinel is now called when a network process is deleted with
2981 delete-process. The status message passed to the sentinel for a
2982 deleted network process is "deleted". The message passed to the
2983 sentinel when the connection is closed by the remote peer has been
2984 changed to "connection broken by remote peer".
2987 ** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
2988 undo-outer-limit, garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
2989 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
2992 ** skip-chars-forward and skip-chars-backward now handle
2993 character classes such as [:alpha:], along with individual characters
2997 ** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
2998 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3002 ** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3005 ** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
3006 supported on text terminals.
3009 ** Support for displaying image slices
3011 *** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
3012 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
3014 *** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
3015 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
3017 *** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
3018 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
3021 ** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
3023 A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text or overlay
3024 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
3026 If the line-height property value is t, the newline does not
3027 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
3028 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a line-spacing property on this
3029 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
3030 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
3032 If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
3033 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
3034 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
3036 If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
3037 is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
3040 If the line-height property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
3041 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
3042 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
3044 If the line-height property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
3045 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
3047 If the line-height value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
3048 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
3049 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
3050 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
3051 exactly that many pixels high.
3053 If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
3054 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
3055 overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
3056 the line-spacing variable.
3058 If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
3059 is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
3062 ** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
3063 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
3066 ** Enhancements to stretch display properties
3068 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
3069 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
3070 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
3072 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
3073 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
3076 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
3077 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
3078 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
3079 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
3081 POS ::= left | center | right
3082 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
3085 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
3086 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
3087 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
3088 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
3089 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
3090 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
3091 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
3094 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
3095 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
3096 corresponding area of the window.
3098 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
3099 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
3100 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
3101 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
3102 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
3103 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
3104 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
3105 the width of the area.
3107 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
3108 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
3110 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
3111 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
3112 header-line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
3114 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
3115 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
3116 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
3117 height) of the specified image.
3119 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
3120 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
3123 ** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
3124 text property string that may be present at the current window
3125 position. The cursor may now be placed on any character of such
3126 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
3128 ** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
3129 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
3130 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and may be overridden
3134 ** New face attribute `min-colors' can be used to tailor the face color
3135 to the number of colors supported by a display, and define the
3136 foreground and background colors accordingly so that they look best on
3137 a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This is now the
3138 preferred method for defining default faces in a way that makes a good
3139 use of the capabilities of the display.
3142 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
3144 *** New function 'define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
3145 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
3147 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
3148 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
3150 *** New function 'destroy-fringe-bitmap' may be used to destroy a
3151 previously created bitmap, or restore a built-in bitmap.
3153 *** New function 'set-fringe-bitmap-face' can now be used to set a
3154 specific face to be used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is
3155 automatically merged with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face
3156 should only specify the foreground color of the bitmap.
3158 *** There are new display properties, left-fringe and right-fringe,
3159 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
3160 bitmap of the display line.
3162 Format is 'display '(left-fringe BITMAP [FACE]), where BITMAP is a
3163 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
3164 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
3165 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
3166 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
3168 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
3169 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
3172 ** Multiple overlay arrows can now be defined and managed via the new
3173 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'. It contains a list of
3174 varibles which contain overlay arrow position markers, including
3175 the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
3177 Each variable on this list may have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
3178 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
3179 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
3180 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
3181 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
3182 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
3185 ** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3186 variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
3187 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3190 ** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
3191 the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
3192 then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3193 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3194 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3197 ** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
3198 `format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
3199 implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
3202 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
3203 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
3204 the first one is kept.
3207 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
3208 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
3211 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
3212 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
3213 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
3214 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
3217 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
3218 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
3219 string. The old behavior is available if you call
3220 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
3223 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
3224 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
3225 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
3226 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
3227 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
3231 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
3232 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
3233 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
3234 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
3235 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
3238 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
3239 :pointer image property.
3242 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
3243 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
3246 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
3248 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
3249 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
3250 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
3251 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
3252 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
3253 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
3254 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
3255 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
3257 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
3258 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
3259 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
3260 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
3261 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
3262 for possible pointer shapes.
3264 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
3265 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
3266 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
3268 ** Mouse event enhancements:
3271 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
3272 events, rather than a text area click event.
3275 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
3276 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
3277 corresponding text row.
3280 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
3283 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
3286 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
3289 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
3293 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
3296 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
3299 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
3302 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
3303 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
3306 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
3307 (image or character) clicked on.
3310 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
3311 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
3312 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
3313 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
3316 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
3317 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
3318 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
3319 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
3320 forcing an explicit window update.
3323 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
3324 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
3327 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3328 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3329 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3330 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3331 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3334 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3337 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
3338 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
3339 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
3342 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
3343 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
3347 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
3348 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
3352 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
3353 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
3356 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
3357 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
3358 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
3360 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
3361 does that, this value may not be accurate.
3364 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
3365 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
3366 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
3370 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
3371 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
3374 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
3377 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
3381 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
3382 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
3385 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
3386 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
3387 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
3390 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
3394 ** VC changes for backends:
3395 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
3396 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
3397 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
3398 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
3399 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
3402 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
3403 as a dynamic completion table.
3405 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
3407 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
3408 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
3409 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
3410 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
3411 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
3412 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
3415 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
3416 as a lazy completion table.
3418 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
3420 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
3421 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
3422 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
3423 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
3424 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
3425 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
3428 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
3431 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
3432 for all (existing and future) frames.
3435 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
3438 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
3441 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
3444 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
3445 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
3446 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
3447 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
3448 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
3451 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
3452 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
3453 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
3454 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
3457 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
3458 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
3459 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
3460 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
3463 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
3464 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
3467 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
3468 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
3469 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
3470 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3473 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
3474 of a string given to a process's filter.
3477 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
3478 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
3481 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
3482 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
3483 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
3484 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
3487 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
3488 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
3489 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
3490 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
3491 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
3494 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3495 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3498 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
3499 on garbage collection.
3502 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
3503 it is read from a file without decoding.
3506 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
3509 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
3510 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
3511 by calling `select-window'.
3514 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
3515 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
3516 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
3517 need to have a name.
3519 ** Byte compiler changes:
3522 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
3523 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
3524 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
3525 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
3526 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
3530 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
3531 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
3532 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
3533 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
3536 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
3537 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
3539 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
3540 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
3541 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
3542 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
3543 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
3544 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
3547 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
3548 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
3551 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3552 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3553 be inserted is translated through it.
3556 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
3557 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
3558 current file redefined it).
3561 ** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
3562 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
3565 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
3566 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
3567 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
3568 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
3569 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
3570 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
3572 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
3573 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
3574 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
3575 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
3576 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
3578 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
3579 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
3580 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
3581 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
3582 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
3583 returns differing values.
3586 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
3587 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
3588 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
3591 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
3592 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
3593 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
3594 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3596 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3597 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3600 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
3601 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
3604 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
3605 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
3608 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
3609 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
3610 can start with this line:
3612 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
3615 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
3616 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
3617 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
3619 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
3621 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
3622 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
3625 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
3626 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
3629 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
3630 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
3633 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
3634 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
3638 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
3639 and `display-warning'.
3642 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
3643 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
3644 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
3645 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables may be either
3646 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
3649 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
3650 much pure storage it will approximately need.
3653 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
3654 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
3655 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
3656 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
3659 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
3660 of one coding system from another coding system.
3663 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3664 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3665 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3666 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3670 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3671 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3672 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3673 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3674 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3675 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3677 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3678 confirmation as before.
3681 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
3683 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
3684 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
3685 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
3686 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
3688 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
3689 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
3690 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
3691 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
3692 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
3693 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
3695 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
3696 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
3697 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
3698 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
3701 ** Per-window fringes settings
3703 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
3706 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
3707 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
3708 `set-window-fringes'.
3710 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
3711 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
3712 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
3713 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
3715 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
3716 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
3717 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
3718 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
3719 an update of the display margins.
3722 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
3724 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
3725 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
3727 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
3728 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
3729 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
3730 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
3731 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3732 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3733 of the display margins.
3736 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
3737 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
3738 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
3741 ** Renamed hooks to better follow the naming convention:
3742 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
3743 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
3744 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
3745 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions,
3746 x-lost-selection-hooks to x-lost-selection-functions,
3747 x-sent-selection-hooks to x-sent-selection-functions.
3748 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
3751 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
3752 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
3753 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
3756 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
3757 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
3758 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
3759 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
3760 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
3763 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
3764 to override the internal read-file-name function.
3767 ** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
3768 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
3769 `read-file-name' function.
3772 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
3773 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
3774 will only show directories.
3777 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3778 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3779 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3780 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
3783 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
3784 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
3785 (require 'cl) when loaded.
3788 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
3789 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
3790 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
3792 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3794 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3795 declaration specifiers supported are:
3798 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3801 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3802 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
3805 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
3807 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
3808 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
3809 binding and lookup functionality.
3811 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
3812 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
3816 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
3817 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
3818 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
3819 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
3822 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
3823 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
3824 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
3825 map using define-key:
3827 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
3828 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
3830 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
3831 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
3833 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
3834 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
3835 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
3837 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
3839 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3840 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
3841 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
3842 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
3844 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
3845 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
3847 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
3848 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
3850 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
3851 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
3852 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
3853 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
3854 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
3855 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
3857 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
3858 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
3859 command was not remapped.
3862 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
3864 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
3865 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
3869 ** Atomic change groups.
3871 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3872 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3873 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3875 (atomic-change-group
3877 (delete-region x y))
3879 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3880 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3881 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3882 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3884 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3885 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3887 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3888 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3889 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3890 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3892 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3893 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3896 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3897 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3898 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3899 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3901 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3902 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3903 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3904 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3905 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3906 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3909 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3910 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3911 returned values, like this:
3913 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3914 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3916 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3917 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3918 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3920 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3921 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3922 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3923 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3927 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
3929 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
3930 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
3931 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
3932 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
3935 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
3937 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
3938 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
3939 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
3940 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
3943 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
3945 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
3946 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
3947 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
3950 ** New function insert-for-yank.
3952 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
3953 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
3954 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
3955 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
3956 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
3959 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
3961 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
3962 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
3965 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
3967 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
3968 text properties from the inserted substring.
3971 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
3972 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
3974 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
3975 elements with the following format:
3976 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3978 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3979 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3980 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
3981 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3983 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3984 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3985 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3986 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3987 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3989 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3990 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3991 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3992 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3993 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3994 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3995 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3996 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3999 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
4000 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
4004 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4005 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
4006 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
4007 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4008 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
4011 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
4012 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4014 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4015 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4016 defined with defface.
4019 ** The function face-differs-from-default-p now truly checks whether the
4020 given face displays differently from the default face or not (previously
4021 it did only a very cursory check).
4024 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
4025 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
4026 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
4029 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
4030 help with handling relative face attributes.
4033 ** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face-list is reversed.
4034 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4035 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous releases
4036 of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made so that
4037 :inherit face-lists operate identically to face-lists in text `face'
4041 ** Enhancements to process support
4043 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4044 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
4046 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
4047 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
4048 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
4050 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
4051 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
4053 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4054 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4056 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
4057 and modify elements on this property list.
4059 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
4060 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
4062 *** Function accept-process-output now has an optional fourth arg
4063 `just-this-one'. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4064 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4065 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4066 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4070 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4072 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4073 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4074 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4075 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
4076 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4077 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
4078 emacs tries to read it.
4081 ** Enhanced networking support.
4083 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
4084 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4085 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4087 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4088 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4089 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4090 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4091 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4092 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4093 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4094 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4096 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4097 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4099 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
4101 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
4103 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
4104 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
4105 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
4106 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
4107 matching "open" or "failed".
4109 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
4111 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
4112 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
4113 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
4114 is called for the new process.
4116 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
4118 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4119 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4121 *** New function format-network-address.
4123 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
4124 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4125 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4126 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4127 string for other formatting options.
4129 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
4130 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
4131 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
4133 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
4134 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
4135 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
4136 the fifth is the port number.
4138 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
4139 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
4140 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
4141 no input is received in the stopped state.
4143 *** New function network-interface-list.
4145 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4146 current network addresses.
4148 *** New function network-interface-info.
4150 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4151 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4154 ** New function copy-tree.
4157 ** New function substring-no-properties.
4160 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
4163 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
4166 ** New function `process-file'.
4168 This is similar to `call-process', but obeys file handlers. The file
4169 handler is chosen based on default-directory.
4172 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
4173 are now always lower case. If you specify the
4174 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
4175 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
4177 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
4178 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
4181 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
4182 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
4183 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
4184 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
4187 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
4188 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
4190 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
4191 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
4192 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
4195 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
4196 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
4199 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
4200 (function (lambda ()
4202 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
4203 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
4204 (function (lambda ()
4205 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
4208 ** File local variables.
4210 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
4211 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
4214 ** New function window-body-height.
4216 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
4220 ** New function format-mode-line.
4222 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
4223 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
4226 ** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer signals an error for
4227 a malformed property list. They also detect cyclic lists.
4230 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
4232 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
4233 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
4236 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
4238 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
4239 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
4240 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
4241 you specify the map to use as an argument.
4244 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
4246 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
4247 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
4248 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
4251 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4253 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4254 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4255 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4256 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4257 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4260 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
4261 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
4262 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
4263 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
4266 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
4267 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
4270 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
4271 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
4275 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
4276 cl-indent package. The new user options
4277 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
4278 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
4279 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
4282 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
4283 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
4286 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
4288 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
4289 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
4290 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
4293 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
4295 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
4296 the time it takes to convert the format.
4298 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
4302 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4303 over minor mode keymaps.
4306 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
4307 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
4310 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
4311 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
4312 image or composition property.
4314 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
4315 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
4316 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
4317 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
4318 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
4321 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
4325 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
4326 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
4327 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
4328 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
4332 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
4335 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
4338 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
4339 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
4340 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
4341 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
4342 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
4343 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4346 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4347 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4348 bindings of the parent keymap.
4351 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
4352 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
4353 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
4354 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
4355 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
4356 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
4364 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
4365 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
4366 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
4367 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
4370 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
4371 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
4374 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
4375 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
4378 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
4379 it receives a request from emacsclient.
4382 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
4383 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
4384 than 3 levels of nesting.
4387 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
4388 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
4392 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
4393 properties from surrounding text.
4396 ** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
4397 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
4398 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
4401 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
4403 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
4404 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
4405 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
4408 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
4409 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
4413 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
4414 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
4415 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
4416 other properties than `face'.
4417 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
4418 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
4421 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4422 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4423 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4424 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4425 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4428 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
4429 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
4430 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
4433 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
4434 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
4437 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
4438 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
4441 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
4442 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
4443 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
4446 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4447 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4448 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4451 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
4452 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
4453 accepts a float as UID parameter.
4456 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4459 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
4462 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
4463 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
4464 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
4465 the output of other GNU tools.
4468 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
4471 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
4474 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4475 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
4478 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
4480 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
4482 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
4483 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
4484 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
4485 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
4487 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
4488 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
4490 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
4492 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
4493 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
4494 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
4496 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
4497 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
4500 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
4501 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
4504 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
4505 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
4508 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
4509 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
4512 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
4513 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
4514 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
4517 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
4518 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4519 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4522 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
4526 ** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
4527 all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
4532 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
4533 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
4534 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
4535 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
4536 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
4537 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
4539 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
4541 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
4542 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
4544 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
4545 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
4549 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
4550 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
4553 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
4554 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
4555 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
4556 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
4557 as help and apropos buffers.
4560 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
4562 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
4566 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
4568 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
4571 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
4574 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
4577 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
4578 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
4579 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
4580 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
4581 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
4582 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
4583 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
4584 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
4585 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
4586 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
4588 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
4589 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
4591 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
4592 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
4593 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
4594 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
4595 contrary to the compound text specification.
4598 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
4600 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
4602 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
4605 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
4607 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
4609 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
4610 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
4611 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
4612 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
4613 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
4615 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
4618 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
4619 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
4621 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
4622 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
4623 instead of using default-major-mode.
4625 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
4626 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
4627 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
4628 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
4629 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
4630 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
4631 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
4633 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
4637 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
4639 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
4640 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
4641 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
4643 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
4644 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
4647 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
4649 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
4650 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
4651 charsets in this release.
4653 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
4655 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
4657 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
4658 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
4661 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
4662 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
4663 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
4664 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
4665 necessary changes to unexec.
4667 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
4668 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
4670 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
4671 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
4673 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
4674 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
4676 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
4677 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
4678 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
4679 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
4680 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
4682 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
4683 new display features described below.
4686 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
4688 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
4690 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
4691 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
4692 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
4693 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
4696 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
4698 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
4699 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
4700 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
4701 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
4704 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
4705 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
4706 under Lisp changes, below.
4708 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
4710 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
4711 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
4712 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
4713 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
4714 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
4715 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
4718 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
4719 supported on character terminals.
4721 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
4722 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
4723 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
4724 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
4726 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
4730 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
4731 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
4732 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
4733 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
4736 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
4738 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
4739 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
4740 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
4741 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
4743 - User option: max-mini-window-height
4745 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
4746 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
4747 specifies a number of lines.
4751 - User option: resize-mini-windows
4753 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
4754 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
4755 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
4758 Default is `grow-only'.
4762 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
4763 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
4765 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
4767 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
4768 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
4771 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
4773 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
4774 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
4775 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
4777 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
4779 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
4780 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
4781 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
4782 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
4783 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
4786 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
4787 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
4788 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
4789 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
4790 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
4791 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
4793 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
4794 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
4795 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
4796 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
4797 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
4798 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
4800 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
4801 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
4802 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
4803 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
4804 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
4806 ** Tool bar support.
4808 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
4809 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
4810 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
4811 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
4812 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
4815 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
4816 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
4820 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
4821 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
4822 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
4824 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
4825 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
4826 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
4827 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
4829 ** Automatic Hscrolling
4831 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
4832 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
4835 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
4836 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
4837 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
4838 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
4839 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
4841 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
4842 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
4843 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
4844 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
4845 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
4846 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
4848 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
4849 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
4850 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
4851 customizing face `fringe'.
4853 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
4854 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
4855 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
4856 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
4857 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
4858 the window to be partially obscured.)
4860 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
4861 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
4862 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
4863 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
4865 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4867 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
4868 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
4869 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
4870 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
4871 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
4874 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
4876 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
4878 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
4880 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
4881 `*') toggles the status.
4883 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
4885 ** Hourglass pointer
4887 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
4888 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
4892 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
4893 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
4894 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
4897 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
4899 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
4900 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
4901 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
4904 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
4905 have to do anything to activate it.
4907 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
4909 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
4910 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
4912 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
4913 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
4914 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
4915 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
4916 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
4917 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
4918 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
4919 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
4921 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
4922 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
4923 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
4924 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
4925 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
4926 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
4928 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
4929 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
4931 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
4932 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
4935 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
4936 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
4937 beginning and end of the buffer.
4939 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
4940 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
4943 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
4944 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
4946 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
4947 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
4950 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
4951 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
4954 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
4956 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
4957 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
4958 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
4960 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
4961 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
4962 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
4964 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
4967 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
4969 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
4970 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
4971 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
4972 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
4973 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
4976 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
4977 all frames except the selected one.
4979 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
4980 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
4982 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
4983 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
4984 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
4985 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
4986 `Info-use-header-line'.
4988 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
4989 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
4990 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
4992 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
4994 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
4995 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
4998 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
4999 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5000 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5001 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5003 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5005 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5006 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5007 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5008 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5010 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5011 point in a pop-up window.
5013 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5014 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5015 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5017 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5018 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5020 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5021 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5022 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5023 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5025 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5027 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5028 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5030 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5031 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5032 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5034 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5035 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5038 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5039 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5040 file that is already visited under a different name.
5042 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5043 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5045 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5046 and displays information about that.
5048 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5049 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5051 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5052 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5053 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5054 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5055 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5056 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5058 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5059 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5061 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5062 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5063 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5064 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5065 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5066 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5067 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5069 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5070 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5072 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5073 system for keyboard input.
5075 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5076 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5077 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5078 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5079 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5080 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5081 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5082 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5083 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5085 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5086 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5088 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5089 displays all characters in that character set.
5091 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5092 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5094 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5095 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5096 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5098 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5099 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5100 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5101 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5102 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5103 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5106 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
5107 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
5110 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
5111 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
5112 Lisp Coding Convention".
5114 new command old-binding
5115 --- ------- -----------
5116 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
5117 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
5118 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
5120 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
5121 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
5122 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
5124 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
5125 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
5126 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
5127 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
5128 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
5129 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
5131 ** There are new Leim input methods.
5132 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
5133 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
5136 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
5137 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
5138 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
5139 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
5140 "`", you must type "=q".
5142 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
5143 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
5144 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
5145 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
5146 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
5149 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
5150 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
5151 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
5152 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
5154 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
5155 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
5156 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
5157 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
5159 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
5160 on the display using several methods
5162 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
5163 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
5164 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
5166 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
5167 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
5169 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
5171 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
5172 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
5174 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
5175 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
5176 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
5177 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
5179 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
5180 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
5181 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
5183 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
5184 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
5186 ** New X resources recognized
5188 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
5189 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
5190 is useful for debugging X problems.
5194 emacs.synchronous: true
5196 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
5197 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
5198 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
5199 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
5200 visual class names are
5209 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
5210 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
5213 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
5214 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
5215 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
5220 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
5222 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
5223 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
5224 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
5225 resource values are `true' or `on'.
5229 emacs.privateColormap: true
5231 ** Faces and frame parameters.
5233 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
5234 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
5235 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
5236 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
5237 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
5238 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
5239 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
5241 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
5242 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
5243 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
5244 `default' face and vice versa.
5248 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
5250 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
5252 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
5253 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
5254 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
5255 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
5257 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
5258 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
5259 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
5261 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
5264 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
5266 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
5267 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
5268 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
5269 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
5271 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
5273 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
5275 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
5277 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
5280 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
5283 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
5285 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
5286 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
5287 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
5289 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
5290 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
5292 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
5293 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
5294 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
5296 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
5298 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
5299 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
5300 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5301 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
5303 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
5304 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
5305 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5306 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
5308 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
5309 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
5310 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
5313 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
5315 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
5316 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
5317 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5319 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
5320 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
5321 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
5322 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
5323 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
5324 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
5326 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
5328 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
5329 notably at the end of lines.
5331 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
5332 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
5334 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
5336 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
5337 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
5339 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
5340 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
5341 after each match to get the replacement text.
5343 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
5344 you edit the replacement string.
5346 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
5347 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
5348 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
5350 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
5352 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
5353 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
5355 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
5356 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
5357 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
5358 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
5361 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
5362 read mail from the menu etc.
5364 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
5365 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
5366 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
5367 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
5369 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
5370 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
5372 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
5373 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
5374 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
5375 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
5376 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
5379 ** Customize changes
5381 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
5382 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
5383 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
5384 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
5385 earlier versions of Emacs.
5387 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
5388 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
5391 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
5392 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
5393 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
5394 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
5397 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
5398 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
5399 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
5400 already in your init file.
5402 ** New features in evaluation commands
5404 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
5405 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
5406 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
5407 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
5408 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
5410 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
5411 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
5412 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
5413 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
5416 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
5417 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
5419 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
5420 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
5422 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
5423 code when called with a prefix argument.
5427 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
5428 current user setups (although it's believed that these
5429 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
5430 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
5431 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
5432 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
5435 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
5436 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
5437 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
5440 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
5441 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
5442 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
5443 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
5445 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
5446 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
5448 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
5449 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
5451 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
5452 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
5453 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
5454 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
5456 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
5457 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
5458 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
5459 earlier statement. An example:
5461 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
5463 res += a[i]->offset;
5466 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
5467 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
5468 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
5469 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
5472 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
5475 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
5476 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
5477 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
5478 documentation or other natural language text.
5480 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
5481 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
5482 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
5483 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
5484 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
5485 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
5486 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
5488 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
5489 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
5490 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
5491 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
5493 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
5494 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
5495 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
5496 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
5499 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
5500 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
5501 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
5502 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
5503 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
5504 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
5505 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
5506 is reported afterwards.
5508 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
5509 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
5510 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
5512 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
5513 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
5514 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
5515 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
5516 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
5517 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
5520 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
5521 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
5522 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
5523 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
5524 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
5527 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
5528 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
5529 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
5530 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
5531 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
5532 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
5534 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
5535 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
5536 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
5537 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
5538 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
5539 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
5540 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
5541 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
5543 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
5544 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
5545 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
5546 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
5549 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
5550 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
5551 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
5552 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
5553 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
5554 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
5555 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
5556 function documentation for more info.
5558 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
5559 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
5560 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
5561 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
5562 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
5563 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
5564 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
5565 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
5567 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
5569 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
5570 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
5572 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
5573 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
5574 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
5575 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
5576 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
5579 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
5580 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
5581 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
5584 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
5585 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
5586 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
5587 chapter about this in the manual.
5589 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
5590 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
5591 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
5592 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
5593 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
5595 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
5596 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
5597 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
5599 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
5600 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
5602 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
5603 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
5604 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
5607 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
5608 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
5609 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
5610 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
5613 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
5614 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
5615 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
5616 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
5617 they were before the filling.
5619 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
5620 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
5621 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
5624 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
5625 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
5626 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
5627 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
5630 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
5631 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
5632 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
5633 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
5634 Thanks to Eric Eide.
5636 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
5637 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
5638 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
5640 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
5642 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
5643 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
5644 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
5645 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
5647 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
5648 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
5649 the column specified by comment-column.
5651 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
5652 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
5653 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
5654 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
5655 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
5656 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
5658 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
5659 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
5662 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
5664 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
5665 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
5666 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
5667 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
5670 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
5674 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
5675 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
5676 is, delete only empty directories.
5678 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
5679 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
5680 copy directories recursively.
5682 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
5683 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
5684 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
5686 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
5687 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
5690 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
5691 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
5692 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
5693 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
5694 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
5696 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
5699 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
5700 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
5701 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
5702 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
5706 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
5707 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
5708 internationalization and mail-fetching.
5710 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
5711 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
5713 If you used procmail like in
5715 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
5716 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
5717 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
5718 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
5720 this now has changed to
5723 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
5726 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
5727 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
5729 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
5730 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
5731 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
5732 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
5734 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
5735 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
5736 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
5738 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
5739 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
5740 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
5741 now just a compatibility layer.
5743 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
5746 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
5747 called to position point.
5749 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
5750 summary buffers and NOV files.
5752 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
5753 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
5755 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
5756 subtly different manner.
5758 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
5759 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
5760 ever-changing layouts.
5762 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
5764 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
5766 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
5768 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
5772 -------------------------
5776 C-c C-c q @quotation
5778 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
5781 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
5783 ** Changes in Outline mode.
5785 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
5786 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
5787 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
5789 ** Changes to Emacs Server
5791 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
5792 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
5793 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
5794 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
5795 buffers to kill, as before.
5797 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
5798 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
5801 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
5802 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
5804 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
5806 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
5807 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
5808 use. Default is 1000.
5810 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
5811 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
5813 ** Changes to hideshow.el
5815 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
5817 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
5818 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
5819 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
5820 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
5822 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
5823 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
5824 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
5827 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
5828 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
5829 the normal block-hiding function.
5831 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
5833 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
5834 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
5835 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
5836 for `hs-minor-mode'.
5838 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
5839 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
5841 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
5843 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
5844 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
5845 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
5847 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
5850 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
5853 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
5854 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
5855 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
5856 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
5857 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
5858 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
5860 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
5862 ** Changes to cmuscheme
5864 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
5865 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
5867 ** Changes in Font Lock
5869 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
5870 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
5872 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
5873 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
5875 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
5876 the face used for each string/comment.
5878 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
5879 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
5881 ** Changes to Shell mode
5883 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
5884 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
5885 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
5886 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
5888 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5890 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
5891 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
5893 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
5894 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
5895 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
5896 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
5897 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
5898 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
5900 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
5901 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
5902 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
5903 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
5904 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
5905 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
5906 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
5907 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
5909 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
5910 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
5912 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
5913 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
5914 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
5916 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
5917 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
5918 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
5920 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
5921 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
5922 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
5924 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
5925 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
5926 argument, it appends to the file.
5928 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
5929 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
5932 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
5935 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
5936 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
5937 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
5939 ** Changes to Rmail mode
5941 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
5942 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
5943 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
5944 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
5945 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
5948 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
5949 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
5950 regexp matching your mail addresses.
5952 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
5953 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
5954 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
5955 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
5956 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
5958 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
5961 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
5962 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
5965 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
5966 in which folder to put messages automatically.
5968 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
5969 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
5970 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
5972 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
5973 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
5975 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
5976 use the -f option when sending mail.
5978 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
5979 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
5980 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
5981 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
5982 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
5983 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
5985 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
5986 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
5987 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
5989 ** Changes to TeX mode
5991 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
5994 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
5996 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
5998 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6000 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6002 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6003 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6004 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6005 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6006 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6007 can be edited from that buffer.
6009 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6010 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6011 `A' to use all marked entries).
6013 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6014 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6016 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6017 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6018 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6021 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6022 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6023 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6024 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6026 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6027 has the following new features:
6029 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6030 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6031 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6032 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6034 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6035 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6036 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6037 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6038 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6041 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6046 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6047 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6048 spell-checks the current buffer.
6050 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6053 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6054 correction is made and re-checked.
6056 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6058 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6061 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6064 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6067 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6069 ** Makefile mode changes
6071 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6073 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6074 Fontlock mode is active.
6078 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6079 so that searches can be resumed.
6081 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6082 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6083 that started the search.
6085 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6086 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6088 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6090 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6091 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6092 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6093 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6094 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6095 `secondary-selection'.
6097 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6098 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6099 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6100 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6101 usual snappy response.
6103 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6104 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6105 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6106 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
6110 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
6111 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
6112 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
6113 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
6114 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
6115 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
6116 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
6117 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
6118 file is registered in that backend.
6120 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
6121 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
6122 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
6123 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
6124 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
6125 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
6127 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
6128 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
6129 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
6130 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
6131 where it doesn't make sense.)
6133 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
6134 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
6135 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
6139 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
6140 checks are always done now.
6142 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
6145 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
6146 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
6147 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
6149 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
6150 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
6151 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
6152 the working file (``merge news'').
6154 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6155 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
6158 *** Multiple Backends
6160 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
6161 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
6162 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
6163 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
6166 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
6167 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
6168 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
6169 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
6171 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
6172 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
6173 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
6174 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
6175 current revision number from the more remote backend.
6177 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
6178 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
6179 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
6180 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
6182 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
6183 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
6184 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
6185 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
6189 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
6190 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
6191 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
6192 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
6193 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
6194 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
6195 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
6197 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
6198 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
6199 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
6200 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
6201 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
6202 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
6203 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
6204 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
6205 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
6206 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
6207 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
6210 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
6211 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
6212 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
6213 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
6214 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
6215 entire directory tree.
6217 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
6218 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
6219 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
6220 "watched" by other developers.)
6222 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6223 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
6224 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
6225 starting at the given directory.
6227 *** Lisp Changes in VC
6229 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
6230 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
6231 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
6232 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
6233 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
6234 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
6235 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
6236 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
6237 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
6239 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
6240 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
6241 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
6242 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
6244 ** New modes and packages
6246 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
6247 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
6248 the default is not applicable.
6250 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
6251 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
6252 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
6256 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
6257 drawn, like this: | \ /
6261 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
6262 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
6263 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
6264 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
6265 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
6268 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
6269 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
6271 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
6274 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
6275 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
6276 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
6277 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
6279 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
6280 also do without the mouse.
6282 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
6283 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
6284 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
6285 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
6286 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
6288 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
6290 lines straight-lines
6292 poly-lines straight poly-lines
6294 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
6295 spray-can setting size for spraying
6296 vaporize line vaporize lines
6297 erase characters erase rectangles
6299 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
6300 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
6301 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
6304 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
6305 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
6306 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
6307 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
6309 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
6312 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
6313 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
6314 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
6315 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
6316 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
6317 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
6318 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
6319 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
6320 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
6322 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
6323 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
6324 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
6325 on certain projects.
6327 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
6328 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
6330 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
6332 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
6333 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
6334 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
6335 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
6336 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
6337 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
6338 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
6339 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
6341 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
6344 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
6345 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
6347 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
6348 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
6350 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
6351 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
6352 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
6353 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
6354 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
6356 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
6357 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
6358 separate Texinfo file.
6360 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
6361 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
6362 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
6363 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
6364 enter check-in log messages.
6366 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
6367 without invoking external programs.
6369 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
6370 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
6371 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
6372 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
6373 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
6375 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
6376 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
6378 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
6379 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
6381 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
6382 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
6383 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
6384 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
6385 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
6388 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
6389 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
6390 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
6391 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
6393 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
6394 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
6395 actually modifying content of a buffer.
6397 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
6400 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
6402 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
6404 ; comment (until end of line)
6408 $A default non-terminal
6409 $"C" default terminal
6410 $?C? default special
6411 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
6412 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
6413 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
6414 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
6415 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
6416 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
6417 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
6418 C+ one or more occurrences of C
6419 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
6420 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
6421 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
6422 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
6423 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
6424 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
6425 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
6427 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
6429 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
6430 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
6431 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
6432 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
6433 equal signs of assignments.
6435 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
6436 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
6438 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
6439 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
6440 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
6442 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
6444 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
6445 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
6446 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
6447 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
6448 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
6449 which answers different needs.
6451 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
6452 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
6453 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
6454 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
6455 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
6458 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
6459 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
6461 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
6463 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
6464 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
6465 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
6467 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
6469 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
6470 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
6471 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
6472 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
6473 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
6474 and background colors.
6476 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
6479 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
6482 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
6484 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
6486 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
6487 whitespace in a file.
6489 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
6490 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
6491 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
6492 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
6493 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
6494 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
6495 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
6497 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
6499 Here is an example of columns:
6502 dog pineapple car EXTRA
6503 porcupine strawberry airplane
6505 Doing the following settings:
6507 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
6508 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
6509 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
6510 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
6513 Selecting the lines above and typing:
6515 M-x delimit-columns-region
6519 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
6520 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
6521 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
6523 delim-col has the following options:
6525 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
6528 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
6529 between each column.
6531 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
6534 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
6537 delim-col has the following commands:
6539 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
6540 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
6542 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
6543 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
6544 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
6545 recent file list can be displayed:
6547 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
6548 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
6549 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
6551 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
6552 dynamically change the menu appearance.
6554 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
6557 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
6558 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
6559 specific to Message mode.
6561 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
6562 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
6563 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
6565 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
6566 interface to access directory servers using different directory
6567 protocols. It has a separate manual.
6569 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
6570 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
6572 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
6574 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
6575 minibuffer with completion.
6577 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
6578 with the diary features.
6580 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
6581 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
6583 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
6586 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
6587 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
6588 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
6589 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
6591 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
6592 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
6595 ** Changes in sort.el
6597 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
6598 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
6599 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
6602 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
6604 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
6605 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
6606 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
6608 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
6609 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
6611 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
6612 output ^M at the end of lines.
6614 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
6615 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
6617 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
6618 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
6621 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
6624 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
6625 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
6628 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
6629 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
6630 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
6631 nil -- just delete one character.
6633 Default value is `untabify'.
6635 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
6637 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
6638 symbol, not double-quoted.
6640 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
6641 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
6642 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
6643 moved to lisp/obsolete.
6645 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
6646 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
6647 `auto-compression-mode' command.
6649 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
6650 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
6651 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
6653 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
6654 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
6656 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
6657 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
6659 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
6660 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
6662 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
6663 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
6664 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
6665 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
6666 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
6667 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
6669 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
6670 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
6672 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
6674 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
6675 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
6677 ** Shell script mode changes.
6679 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
6680 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
6681 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
6685 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
6687 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
6688 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
6689 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
6690 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
6691 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
6693 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
6694 declarations when given the --declarations option.
6696 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
6697 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
6699 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
6700 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
6701 `template' keywords.
6703 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
6704 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
6706 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
6709 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
6711 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
6713 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
6716 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
6718 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
6719 variables are tagged.
6721 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
6723 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
6726 ** Changes in etags.el
6728 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
6729 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
6730 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
6732 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
6733 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
6735 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
6736 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
6737 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
6738 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
6740 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
6742 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
6743 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
6745 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
6747 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
6748 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
6749 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
6751 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
6752 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
6754 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
6755 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
6757 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
6758 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
6759 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
6760 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
6761 point will go to the beginning of the file.
6763 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
6764 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
6765 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
6767 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
6768 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
6769 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
6771 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
6772 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
6773 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
6775 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
6777 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
6779 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
6780 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
6781 expression from that list, are not checked.
6783 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
6784 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
6785 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
6786 the buffer, just like for the local files.
6788 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
6790 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
6791 displays local abbrevs, only.
6793 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
6794 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
6796 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
6797 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
6798 is measured in pixels.
6800 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
6801 to be visited as images.
6803 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
6804 were added to compile.el.
6806 ** Withdrawn packages
6808 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
6809 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
6811 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
6813 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
6816 * Incompatible Lisp changes
6818 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
6819 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
6820 See the sections below for details.
6822 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
6823 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
6824 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
6825 to remove the properties of the copy.
6827 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
6828 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
6829 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
6830 these properties are active.
6832 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
6833 ranges may affect some code.
6835 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
6836 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
6837 make a difference to some code.
6839 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
6840 operates on the minibuffer.
6842 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6843 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
6844 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
6845 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
6846 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
6847 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
6848 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
6849 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
6850 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
6851 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
6852 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
6853 the buffer as multibyte characters.
6855 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
6856 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
6857 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
6859 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
6860 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
6861 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
6863 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
6864 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
6865 such as `mapconcat'.
6867 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
6870 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
6871 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
6872 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
6873 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
6874 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
6875 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
6876 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
6877 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
6879 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
6880 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
6881 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
6882 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
6883 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
6884 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
6885 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
6886 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
6887 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
6888 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
6891 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
6892 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
6894 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
6896 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
6897 allows the animated display of strings.
6899 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
6900 interactive form of a function.
6902 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
6903 between custom options. Example:
6905 (defcustom default-input-method nil
6906 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
6907 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
6908 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
6910 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
6911 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
6913 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
6914 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
6915 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
6917 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
6918 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
6919 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
6920 (signal or normal termination).
6922 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
6923 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
6925 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6926 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6928 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
6929 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
6931 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
6933 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
6934 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
6937 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
6939 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
6940 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
6941 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
6942 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
6943 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
6946 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
6947 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
6950 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
6951 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
6953 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
6954 with the more general `:mask' property.
6956 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
6958 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
6961 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
6962 is running in batch mode. For example,
6964 (message "%s" (read t))
6966 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
6969 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
6970 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
6972 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
6973 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
6976 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
6979 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
6981 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
6982 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
6984 - Function: remq ELT LIST
6986 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
6987 comparison is done with `eq'.
6989 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
6991 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
6992 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
6993 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
6995 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
6996 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
6997 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
6999 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7000 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7002 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7003 function was declared obsolete.
7005 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7006 retained as an alias).
7008 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7009 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7011 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7013 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7015 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7016 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7017 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7018 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7019 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7020 means never include the minibuffer window.
7022 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7024 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7026 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7028 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7029 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7030 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7031 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7034 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7035 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7036 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7037 minibuffer even if it is active.
7039 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7040 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7041 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7042 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7043 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7044 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7046 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7047 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7048 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7049 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7050 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7051 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7052 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7054 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7055 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7056 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7058 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7059 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7060 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7061 Default value is nil.
7063 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7066 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7067 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7068 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7070 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7071 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7072 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7074 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7075 list of a primitive.
7077 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7079 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7080 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7081 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7082 than replacing the local map.
7084 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7085 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7086 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7089 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7091 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7092 as promised long ago.
7094 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7096 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7097 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7098 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7101 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7103 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7104 regular expressions.
7106 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
7108 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7112 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7114 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
7118 matches string STRING literally.
7121 matches character CHAR literally.
7124 matches any character except a newline.
7127 matches any character
7130 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
7131 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
7137 matches any character not in SET
7140 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
7141 in the text being matched
7144 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
7147 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7148 string being matched against.
7151 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7152 string being matched against.
7155 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7156 buffer being matched against.
7159 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7160 buffer being matched against.
7163 matches the empty string, but only at point.
7166 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7170 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
7173 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7176 `(not word-boundary)'
7177 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
7181 matches 0 through 9.
7184 matches ASCII control characters.
7187 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7190 matches space and tab only.
7193 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7197 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7201 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7202 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7205 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7206 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7209 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7212 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7215 matches anything lower-case.
7218 matches anything upper-case.
7221 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7222 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7225 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7228 matches anything that has word syntax.
7231 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
7232 of the following symbols.
7234 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
7235 `punctuation' (\\s.)
7238 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
7239 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
7240 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
7241 `string-quote' (\\s\")
7242 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
7244 `character-quote' (\\s/)
7245 `comment-start' (\\s<)
7246 `comment-end' (\\s>)
7248 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
7249 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
7251 `(category CATEGORY)'
7252 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
7253 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
7255 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
7257 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
7258 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
7262 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
7264 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
7265 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
7266 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
7267 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
7268 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
7269 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
7270 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
7271 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
7272 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
7273 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
7274 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
7283 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
7287 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
7294 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
7295 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
7297 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7298 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
7300 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7301 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
7302 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
7304 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7305 another name for `submatch'.
7307 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7308 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
7309 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
7312 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
7313 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
7314 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
7315 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
7316 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
7318 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
7319 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
7321 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
7322 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7325 like `zero-or-more'.
7328 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7331 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7333 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
7334 matches one or more occurrences of A.
7340 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7343 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7345 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
7346 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
7352 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7355 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7358 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7361 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7364 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
7368 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
7370 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
7372 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
7373 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
7374 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
7375 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
7377 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
7378 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
7379 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
7380 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
7382 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
7383 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
7384 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
7386 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
7387 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
7388 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
7389 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
7390 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
7391 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
7392 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
7395 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
7397 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
7398 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
7399 character set as previously.
7401 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
7402 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
7403 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
7405 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
7406 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
7407 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
7408 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
7410 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
7411 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
7413 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
7414 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
7417 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
7418 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
7420 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
7421 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
7422 buffers and strings.
7424 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
7425 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
7426 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
7427 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
7428 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
7429 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
7430 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
7433 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
7434 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
7435 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
7437 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
7438 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
7439 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
7440 may differ between buffer and string text.
7442 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
7443 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
7445 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
7446 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
7447 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
7448 `composition' from STRING.
7450 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
7451 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
7453 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
7456 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
7457 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
7459 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
7460 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
7461 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
7462 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
7464 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
7465 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
7466 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
7467 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
7468 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
7469 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
7471 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
7472 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
7473 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
7475 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
7476 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
7477 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
7479 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
7480 have been introduced.
7482 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7483 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
7484 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
7485 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
7486 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
7487 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
7488 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
7489 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
7490 their multibyte equivalent.
7492 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
7493 that offset in the file before writing.
7495 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
7496 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
7498 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
7499 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
7500 from which the command was issued.
7502 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
7503 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
7504 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
7505 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
7508 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
7509 to `window-buffer-height'.
7511 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
7513 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
7514 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
7515 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
7517 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
7520 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
7521 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
7523 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
7524 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
7525 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
7527 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
7528 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
7529 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
7530 is currently displayed in some window.
7532 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
7533 argument function's results.
7535 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
7536 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
7537 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
7538 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
7541 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
7542 header in the list of headers passed to it.
7544 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
7545 ignores differences in case and text representation.
7547 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
7548 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
7551 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
7552 nil don't display a cursor
7553 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
7554 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
7555 others display a box cursor.
7557 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
7558 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
7559 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
7560 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
7562 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
7563 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
7564 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
7565 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
7569 (string-to-syntax "()")
7572 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
7575 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
7576 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
7583 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
7588 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
7593 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
7600 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
7601 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
7604 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
7605 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
7606 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
7607 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
7609 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
7611 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
7612 for a regexp in a string.
7614 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
7615 `mouse-position-function'.
7617 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
7618 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
7620 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
7621 Keywords are now always considered constants.
7623 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
7626 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
7627 returned by function `recent-keys'.
7629 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
7630 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
7631 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
7632 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
7635 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
7636 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
7638 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
7639 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
7640 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
7641 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
7644 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
7645 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
7646 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
7647 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
7649 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
7650 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
7651 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
7653 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
7654 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
7657 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
7659 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
7660 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
7661 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
7664 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
7665 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
7666 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
7667 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
7668 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
7670 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
7671 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
7673 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
7674 instead of being optional.
7676 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
7677 modify read-only text.
7679 ** New functions and variables for locales.
7681 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
7682 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
7683 time functions like strftime. The new variables
7684 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
7685 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
7687 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
7688 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
7689 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
7690 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
7691 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
7692 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
7693 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
7695 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
7696 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
7697 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
7700 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
7701 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
7703 ** New function `propertize'
7705 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
7706 strings with text properties.
7708 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
7710 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
7711 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
7712 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
7713 specified value of that property. Example:
7715 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
7717 ** push and pop macros.
7719 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
7720 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
7721 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
7723 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
7724 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
7725 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
7727 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
7729 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
7730 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
7732 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
7733 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
7734 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
7735 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7737 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
7738 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
7739 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
7740 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7742 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
7743 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
7744 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
7747 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
7748 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
7749 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7750 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
7751 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7753 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7755 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
7756 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7757 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7758 [:alpha:] matches letters.
7759 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7760 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7761 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7762 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7763 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
7764 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
7765 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7766 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7767 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7768 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
7769 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
7771 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
7773 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
7775 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
7777 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
7778 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
7782 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
7783 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
7784 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
7788 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
7789 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
7791 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
7793 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
7794 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
7795 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
7796 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
7797 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
7799 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
7801 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
7802 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
7803 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
7807 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
7808 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
7809 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
7810 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
7811 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
7813 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
7815 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
7817 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
7819 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
7821 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
7823 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
7826 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
7828 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
7830 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7832 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
7834 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
7836 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
7838 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7840 Returns the size of TABLE.
7842 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
7844 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
7846 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
7848 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
7850 - Function: clrhash TABLE
7854 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
7856 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
7859 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
7861 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
7862 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
7864 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
7866 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
7868 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
7870 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
7871 arguments KEY and VALUE.
7873 - Function: sxhash OBJ
7875 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
7877 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
7879 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
7880 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
7881 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
7882 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
7883 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
7885 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
7887 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
7888 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
7889 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
7891 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
7892 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
7894 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
7895 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
7897 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
7898 (sxhash (upcase a)))
7900 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
7901 'case-fold-string-hash))
7903 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
7905 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
7907 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
7908 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
7909 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
7911 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
7913 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
7914 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
7916 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
7917 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
7918 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
7919 is too short to reach that column.
7921 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
7922 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
7923 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
7924 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
7926 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
7927 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
7928 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
7930 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
7931 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
7933 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
7934 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
7936 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
7937 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
7938 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
7939 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
7940 temporary-file-directory instead.
7942 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
7943 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
7944 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
7945 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
7947 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
7948 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
7950 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
7952 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
7953 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
7954 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
7956 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
7958 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
7959 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
7960 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
7961 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
7962 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
7963 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
7965 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
7966 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
7967 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
7968 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
7970 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
7972 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
7973 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
7974 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
7977 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
7978 string where arguments appear in the result string.
7982 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
7984 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
7985 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
7988 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
7990 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
7992 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
7993 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
7996 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
7998 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
7999 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8004 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8005 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8007 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8008 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8009 to enable sound support.
8011 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8012 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8013 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8014 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8015 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8017 The following sound properties are supported:
8021 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8022 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8026 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8027 may be present, but not both.
8031 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8032 0..1. This property is optional.
8036 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8037 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8039 Other properties are ignored.
8041 An alternative interface is called as
8042 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8044 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8046 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8049 ** Changes to garbage collection
8051 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8052 of live and free strings.
8054 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8055 strings that have been consed so far.
8058 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8061 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8064 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8065 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8066 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8068 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8070 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8072 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8075 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8077 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8079 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8080 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8081 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8082 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8083 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8085 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8088 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8090 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8091 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8092 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8094 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8095 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8097 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8100 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8104 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8106 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
8107 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
8109 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
8110 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
8111 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
8112 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
8113 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
8114 just display it black instead.
8116 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
8119 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
8123 ** New face implementation.
8125 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
8126 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
8130 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
8132 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
8134 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
8135 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
8137 3. Font height in 1/10pt
8139 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
8141 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
8143 6. Foreground color.
8145 7. Background color.
8147 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
8149 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
8151 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
8153 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
8155 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
8158 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
8159 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
8161 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
8162 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
8163 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
8164 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
8165 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
8166 attributes mentioned above.
8168 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
8169 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
8172 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
8173 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
8178 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
8179 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
8180 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
8181 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
8182 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
8183 results in a fully-specified face.
8185 *** Face realization.
8187 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
8188 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
8189 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
8190 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
8191 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
8192 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
8194 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
8195 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
8196 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
8197 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
8199 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
8200 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
8201 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
8202 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
8203 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
8205 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
8206 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
8207 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
8208 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
8209 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
8212 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
8213 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
8214 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
8215 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
8217 **** Clearing face caches.
8219 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
8220 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
8225 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
8226 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
8227 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
8229 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
8230 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
8231 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
8232 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
8233 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
8235 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
8236 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
8237 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
8239 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
8241 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
8242 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
8243 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
8244 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
8245 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
8246 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
8247 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
8249 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8250 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
8253 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8254 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
8257 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
8260 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
8265 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
8266 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
8269 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
8270 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
8271 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
8272 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
8273 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
8276 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
8278 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
8280 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
8282 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
8284 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
8285 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
8286 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
8288 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
8289 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
8290 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
8291 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
8292 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
8293 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
8294 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
8295 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
8296 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
8297 of the face font sort order.
8299 - Function: x-font-family-list
8301 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
8302 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
8303 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
8304 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
8306 - Variable: font-list-limit
8308 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
8309 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
8310 matching font. The default is currently 100.
8312 *** Setting face attributes.
8314 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
8315 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
8316 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
8319 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
8320 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
8322 The following attributes are recognized:
8326 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
8327 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
8328 and `?' are allowed.
8332 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
8333 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
8334 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
8335 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
8339 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
8340 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
8341 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
8342 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
8346 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
8347 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
8348 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
8352 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
8353 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
8356 `:foreground', `:background'
8358 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
8362 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
8363 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
8364 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
8369 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
8370 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
8371 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
8376 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
8377 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
8378 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
8379 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
8383 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
8384 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
8385 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
8386 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
8387 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
8388 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
8389 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
8390 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
8391 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
8392 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
8393 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
8394 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
8395 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
8396 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
8397 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
8398 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
8403 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
8404 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
8408 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
8409 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
8410 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
8411 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
8412 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
8413 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
8415 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
8416 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
8420 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
8421 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
8422 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
8425 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
8426 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
8427 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
8429 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
8434 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
8435 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
8436 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
8438 *** Face attributes and X resources
8440 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
8443 Face attribute X resource class
8444 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
8445 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
8446 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
8447 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
8448 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
8449 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
8450 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
8451 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
8452 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
8453 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
8454 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
8455 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
8456 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
8457 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
8458 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
8459 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
8460 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
8461 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
8462 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
8463 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
8465 *** Text property `face'.
8467 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
8468 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
8469 specification can be
8471 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
8473 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
8474 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
8475 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
8476 for face attribute names.
8478 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
8479 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
8480 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
8482 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
8484 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
8485 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
8486 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
8487 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
8488 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
8489 used to clear the mapping table.
8491 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
8493 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
8494 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
8495 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
8496 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
8497 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
8498 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
8499 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
8500 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
8501 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
8502 modify their color-related behavior.
8504 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
8507 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
8509 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
8510 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
8511 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
8512 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
8513 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
8514 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
8515 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
8516 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
8517 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
8519 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
8520 display can display image files.
8522 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
8524 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
8525 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
8526 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
8527 `Inviolable' option.
8529 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
8530 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
8531 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
8533 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
8535 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
8536 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
8537 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
8539 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
8540 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
8541 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
8542 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
8543 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
8544 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
8545 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
8548 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
8549 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
8550 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
8552 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
8554 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
8556 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
8558 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8559 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
8560 constrained position if that is different.
8562 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
8563 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
8564 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
8565 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
8566 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8567 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
8568 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
8569 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
8570 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
8572 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
8573 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
8574 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
8575 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
8576 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
8578 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
8579 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
8581 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
8583 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
8585 Delete the field surrounding POS.
8586 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8587 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8589 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8591 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
8592 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8593 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8594 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
8595 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
8597 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8599 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
8600 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8601 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8602 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
8603 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
8605 - Function: field-string &optional POS
8607 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
8608 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8609 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8611 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
8613 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
8614 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8615 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8619 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
8620 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
8621 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
8622 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
8624 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
8625 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
8626 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
8627 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
8630 IMAGE is an image specification.
8632 *** Image specifications
8634 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
8635 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
8636 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
8637 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
8638 described below are ignored.
8640 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
8644 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
8645 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
8646 to use for its ascent.
8648 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
8649 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
8651 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
8652 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
8653 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
8654 overlays that apply to the image.
8658 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
8659 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
8660 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
8664 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
8669 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
8671 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
8672 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
8674 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
8675 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
8676 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
8677 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
8678 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
8679 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
8680 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
8681 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
8684 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
8686 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
8688 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
8689 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
8690 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
8691 of the factors' absolute values.
8693 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
8699 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
8705 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
8710 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
8711 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
8712 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
8713 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
8714 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
8715 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
8716 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
8719 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
8720 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
8725 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
8726 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
8727 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
8728 may be present in the image specification.
8732 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
8733 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
8734 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
8735 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
8737 *** Supported image types
8739 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
8741 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
8742 properties supported are:
8746 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8747 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8751 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8752 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8754 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
8755 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
8756 instead of a `:file' property.
8760 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
8764 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
8770 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
8771 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
8773 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
8775 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
8778 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
8779 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
8782 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
8784 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
8785 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
8786 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
8787 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
8789 Additional image properties supported are:
8791 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
8793 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
8794 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
8797 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
8798 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
8800 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
8801 to display compressed images.
8803 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
8805 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
8806 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
8811 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8812 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8816 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8817 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8819 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
8821 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
8822 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8825 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
8827 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
8828 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8831 **** GIF, image type `gif'
8833 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
8834 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
8836 Additional image properties supported are:
8840 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
8841 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
8844 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
8845 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
8846 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
8849 (defun show-anim (file max)
8850 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
8851 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
8853 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
8856 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
8859 (goto-char (point-min))
8860 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
8861 (insert-image img "x"))
8862 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
8864 **** PNG, image type `png'
8866 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
8867 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8870 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
8872 Additional image properties supported are:
8876 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
8877 integer. This is a required property.
8881 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
8882 must be a integer. This is an required property.
8886 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
8887 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
8888 files. This is an required property.
8890 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
8895 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
8896 which are supported in the current configuration.
8898 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
8899 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
8900 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
8901 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
8902 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
8904 *** Simplified image API, image.el
8906 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
8907 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
8908 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
8909 define an image based on available image types. The functions
8910 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
8915 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
8918 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
8919 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
8920 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
8921 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
8922 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
8923 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
8924 of the display margins.
8926 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
8927 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
8928 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
8929 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
8934 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
8935 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
8936 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
8937 that have a `help-echo' property.
8939 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
8940 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
8941 the window in which the help was found.
8943 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
8944 `help-echo' text property was found.
8946 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
8947 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
8949 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
8950 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
8953 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
8954 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
8956 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
8957 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
8958 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
8959 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
8960 used as help string.
8962 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
8963 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
8964 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
8966 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
8968 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
8969 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
8971 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
8972 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
8973 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
8974 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
8977 (global-set-key [A-down]
8980 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8981 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
8982 (global-set-key [A-up]
8985 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8986 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
8988 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
8990 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
8991 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
8992 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
8993 is called with one argument, POS.
8995 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
8996 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
8997 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
8998 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
8999 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9001 ** Tool bar support.
9003 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9004 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9005 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9006 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9007 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9008 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9010 *** Tool bar item definitions
9012 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9013 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9014 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9016 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9017 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9018 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9019 property (see below).
9021 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9022 binding are currently ignored.
9024 The following properties are recognized:
9028 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9033 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9037 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9038 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9039 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9041 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9043 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9044 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9048 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9049 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9050 meaning of each of the four elements:
9052 Index Use when item is
9053 ----------------------------------------
9054 0 enabled and selected
9055 1 enabled and deselected
9056 2 disabled and selected
9057 3 disabled and deselected
9059 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9060 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9062 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9064 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9065 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9067 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9068 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9069 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9072 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9073 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9074 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9076 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9078 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9079 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9080 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9082 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9083 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9085 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9086 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9087 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9088 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9090 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9091 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9093 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9095 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9098 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9099 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9100 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9102 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9104 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9106 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
9109 ** Mode line changes.
9111 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
9113 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
9114 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
9115 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
9117 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
9118 a `local-map' text property.
9120 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
9121 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
9123 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
9124 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
9125 `local-map' property.
9127 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
9128 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
9131 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
9132 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
9134 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
9135 variable mode-line-format to nil.
9137 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
9139 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
9140 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
9141 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
9142 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
9145 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
9148 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
9149 position in the header-line.
9151 ** Text property `display'
9153 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
9154 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
9155 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
9156 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
9157 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
9159 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
9161 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
9162 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
9164 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
9165 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
9166 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
9167 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9168 simpler form STRING as property value.
9170 *** Variable width and height spaces
9172 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
9173 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
9174 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
9175 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
9176 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
9177 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9178 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
9180 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
9181 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
9182 properties described below.
9184 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
9185 characters having the `display' property.
9189 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
9190 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
9192 - :relative-width FACTOR
9194 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
9195 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
9196 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
9197 width of that character by FACTOR.
9201 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
9202 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
9204 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
9208 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
9211 - :relative-height FACTOR
9213 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
9214 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
9218 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
9219 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
9220 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
9223 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
9227 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
9228 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
9229 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
9230 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
9231 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
9232 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
9233 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
9234 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
9235 as display specification.
9237 *** Other display properties
9239 - (space-width FACTOR)
9241 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
9242 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
9247 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
9249 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
9250 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
9251 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
9252 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
9253 a font is available counts as a step.
9255 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
9256 as tall as the frame's default font.
9258 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
9259 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
9261 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
9262 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
9266 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
9267 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
9268 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
9269 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
9270 `height' subproperty.
9272 *** Conditional display properties
9274 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
9275 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
9276 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
9277 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
9278 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
9279 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
9280 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
9281 different when object is a string.
9283 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
9286 ** New menu separator types.
9288 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
9289 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
9290 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
9291 to specify other menu separator types.
9293 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
9295 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
9298 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
9300 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
9302 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
9304 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
9306 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
9308 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9310 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
9312 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9314 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
9316 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
9317 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
9319 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
9321 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
9323 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
9325 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
9327 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
9329 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
9331 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
9333 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9335 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
9337 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
9339 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
9341 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9343 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
9345 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
9347 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
9348 the corresponding single-line separators.
9350 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
9352 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
9353 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
9354 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
9355 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
9356 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
9357 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
9358 default foreground is black.
9360 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
9361 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
9362 `ScrollBarBackground').
9364 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
9365 settings for scroll bar colors.
9367 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
9368 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
9370 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
9371 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
9372 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
9373 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
9374 the original window start.
9376 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
9377 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
9378 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
9380 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
9382 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
9383 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
9384 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
9385 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
9387 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
9388 fixed-width and fixed-height.
9390 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
9392 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
9393 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
9394 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
9395 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
9396 temporarily to nil, for example
9398 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
9399 (enlarge-window 10))
9401 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
9402 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
9404 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
9405 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
9406 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
9407 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
9408 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
9409 support a vertical-bar cursor).
9413 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
9415 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
9418 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
9420 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
9422 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
9423 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
9424 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
9425 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
9426 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
9428 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
9432 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
9434 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
9438 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
9440 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
9441 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
9443 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
9445 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
9447 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
9448 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
9449 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
9451 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
9452 is the one that is used.
9454 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
9455 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
9456 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
9457 separate from the command's regular output.
9458 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
9459 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
9460 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
9463 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
9464 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
9465 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
9466 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
9468 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
9469 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
9470 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
9471 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
9473 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
9474 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
9475 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
9476 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
9478 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
9479 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
9480 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
9481 they never ignore case.
9483 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
9484 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
9485 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
9486 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
9487 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
9488 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
9489 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
9491 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
9492 the same format that was used in the file before.
9494 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
9495 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
9497 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
9498 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
9499 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
9501 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
9502 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
9503 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
9504 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
9505 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
9506 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
9507 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
9509 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
9510 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
9511 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
9512 format. You can now customize these variables.
9514 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
9515 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
9516 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
9517 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
9519 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
9520 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
9521 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
9523 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
9524 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
9525 doesn't have any effect.
9527 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
9530 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
9531 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
9532 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
9534 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
9535 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
9536 `auto-show-mode' command.
9538 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
9539 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
9540 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
9541 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
9542 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
9544 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
9545 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
9547 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
9548 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
9549 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
9551 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
9552 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
9553 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
9554 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
9556 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
9558 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
9559 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
9560 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
9561 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
9562 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
9564 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
9565 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
9567 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
9568 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
9569 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
9570 `?' on other systems.
9572 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
9573 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
9576 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
9577 current codepage when it starts.
9581 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
9582 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
9583 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
9584 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
9585 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
9586 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
9590 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
9591 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
9593 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
9594 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
9595 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
9596 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
9597 buffer-file-coding-system.
9599 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
9600 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
9603 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
9604 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
9605 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
9606 list of possible coding systems.
9610 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
9611 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
9612 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
9613 docstring for details.
9615 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
9616 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
9617 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
9618 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
9619 lineup functions use this feature currently.
9621 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
9622 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
9624 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
9625 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
9627 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
9628 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
9629 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
9630 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
9633 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
9634 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
9636 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
9637 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
9638 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
9639 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
9641 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
9642 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
9643 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
9644 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
9645 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
9647 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
9649 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
9651 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
9652 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
9654 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
9656 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
9657 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
9658 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
9659 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
9660 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
9664 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
9665 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
9666 Gnus manual for the full story.
9668 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
9669 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
9670 group, which is created automatically.
9672 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
9675 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
9677 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
9678 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
9680 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
9683 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
9685 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
9686 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
9688 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
9690 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
9691 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
9693 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
9694 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
9696 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
9697 control over simplification.
9699 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
9701 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
9704 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
9706 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
9708 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
9709 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
9710 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
9712 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
9713 `a' forces normal posting method.
9715 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
9718 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
9721 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
9722 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
9724 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
9727 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
9729 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
9731 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
9732 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
9734 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
9735 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
9737 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
9739 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
9742 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
9743 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
9745 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
9746 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
9748 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
9750 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
9752 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
9754 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
9756 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
9757 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
9758 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
9760 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
9761 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
9762 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
9763 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
9764 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
9766 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
9767 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
9768 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
9769 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
9771 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
9772 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
9773 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
9776 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9778 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
9779 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
9781 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
9782 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
9783 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
9784 removed from the label.
9786 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
9787 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
9789 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
9790 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
9792 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
9793 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
9796 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
9798 ** New/deleted modes and packages
9800 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
9801 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
9803 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
9804 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
9805 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
9807 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
9808 changes with a special face.
9810 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
9811 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
9812 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
9814 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
9816 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
9817 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
9818 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
9819 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
9820 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
9822 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
9823 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
9824 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
9826 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
9827 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
9828 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
9829 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
9830 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
9831 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
9832 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
9833 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
9834 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
9836 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
9837 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
9838 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
9839 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
9840 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
9843 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
9844 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
9845 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
9846 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
9847 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
9848 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
9850 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
9851 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
9852 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
9853 was not documented clearly before.
9855 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
9856 This includes Tetris and Snake.
9858 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
9860 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
9861 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
9862 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
9863 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
9865 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
9866 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
9867 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
9869 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
9871 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
9872 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
9874 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9875 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
9878 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
9879 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
9880 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
9881 file names and attributes are returned.
9883 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
9884 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
9885 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
9886 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
9889 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
9890 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
9892 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
9894 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
9895 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
9896 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
9899 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
9900 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
9903 The new function process-running-child-p
9904 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
9905 terminal to its own child process.
9907 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
9908 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
9909 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
9910 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
9912 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
9913 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
9915 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
9916 :included is an alias for :visible.
9918 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
9919 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
9920 to move or copy menu entries.
9922 ** Multibyte editing changes
9924 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
9925 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
9926 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
9927 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
9928 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
9929 (setq char (sref str idx)
9930 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
9931 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
9933 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
9934 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
9935 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
9937 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
9938 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
9939 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
9941 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
9943 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
9944 across the boundary.
9946 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
9947 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
9948 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
9949 contains 8-bit characters.
9950 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
9951 contains invalid characters.
9953 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
9954 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
9955 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
9956 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
9959 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
9960 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
9961 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
9962 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
9964 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
9965 compose Thai characters in a string.
9967 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
9968 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
9969 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
9970 menus should always use the third argument.
9972 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
9973 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
9974 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
9975 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
9977 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
9978 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
9979 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
9980 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
9982 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
9983 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
9984 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
9987 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
9989 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
9990 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
9991 requested feature cannot be loaded.
9993 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
9994 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
9995 means to clear out that attribute.
9997 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
9998 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10000 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10001 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10002 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10003 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10005 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10006 the gap of the current buffer.
10008 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10009 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10012 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10013 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10014 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10015 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10017 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10019 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10020 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10021 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10022 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10023 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10025 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10026 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10027 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10028 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10029 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10031 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10032 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10033 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10035 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10036 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10037 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10038 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10039 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10042 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10043 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10044 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10045 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10047 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10049 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10050 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10051 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10052 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10054 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10055 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10056 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10057 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10058 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10059 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10060 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10063 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10066 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10067 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10068 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10069 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10070 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10072 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10073 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10074 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10075 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10077 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10078 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10079 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10080 something that most users not do.
10082 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10083 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10084 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10087 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10088 pasting operations.
10090 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10091 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10092 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10093 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10096 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10097 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10098 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10099 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10100 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10103 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10104 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10105 to be confused by TeX commands.
10107 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
10108 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
10109 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
10110 of various alternative replacements and actions.
10112 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
10113 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
10114 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
10115 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
10116 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
10118 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
10119 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
10121 ** Changes in input method usage.
10123 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
10124 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
10127 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
10129 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
10130 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
10132 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
10133 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
10135 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
10137 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
10139 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
10140 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
10142 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
10143 given in the following case:
10144 o When you are using a complex input method.
10145 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
10147 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
10148 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
10149 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
10150 setting it to t is helpful.
10152 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
10154 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
10156 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
10157 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
10158 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
10159 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
10162 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
10163 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
10164 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
10167 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
10169 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
10171 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
10172 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
10174 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
10175 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
10176 its owner and group.
10178 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
10179 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
10181 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
10182 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
10184 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
10185 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
10186 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
10187 by the left edge of the rectangle.
10189 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
10190 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
10191 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
10192 for writing keyboard macros.
10194 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
10195 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
10196 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
10197 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
10198 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
10201 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
10203 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
10204 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
10207 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
10208 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
10209 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
10210 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
10212 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
10213 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
10214 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
10216 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
10217 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
10218 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
10219 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
10221 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
10222 failure if the command produces no output.
10224 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
10225 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
10228 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
10229 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
10230 function and variable names.
10232 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
10233 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
10234 file-coding-system-alist.
10236 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
10237 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
10238 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
10239 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
10240 according to the current fontset.
10242 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
10244 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
10245 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
10246 nonascii-insert-offset.
10248 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
10249 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
10250 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
10251 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
10253 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
10254 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
10256 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
10257 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
10259 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
10260 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
10263 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
10264 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
10266 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
10267 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
10268 all variables that have documentation.
10270 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
10271 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
10272 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
10273 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
10274 it should show; the default is 20.
10276 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
10277 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
10280 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
10281 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
10282 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
10283 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
10284 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
10285 Newly added options are included as well.
10287 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
10288 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
10289 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
10291 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
10294 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
10295 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
10297 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
10298 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
10301 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
10302 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
10305 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
10306 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
10307 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
10308 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
10311 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
10313 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
10314 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
10315 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
10317 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
10318 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
10319 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
10324 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
10325 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
10327 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
10328 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
10330 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
10331 read and post multi-lingual articles.
10333 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
10334 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
10335 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
10336 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
10337 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
10338 made invisible again.
10340 ** Mail reading and sending changes
10342 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
10343 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
10344 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
10347 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
10348 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
10349 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
10350 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
10351 rmail-default-body-file.
10353 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
10354 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
10355 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
10357 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
10358 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
10359 is evaluated to insert the signature.
10361 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
10362 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
10363 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
10364 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
10365 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
10366 especially interested in trying feedmail.
10368 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
10369 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
10370 provided by feedmail are:
10372 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
10373 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
10374 there is also a queue for draft messages
10376 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
10377 be prompted for confirmation
10379 **** does smart filling of address headers
10381 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
10382 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
10383 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
10385 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
10386 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
10387 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
10388 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
10392 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
10393 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
10395 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
10396 run Dired on the directory name at point.
10398 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
10399 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
10400 for a specified regexp.
10404 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
10407 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
10408 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
10411 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
10412 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
10413 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
10414 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
10416 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
10417 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
10418 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
10419 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
10420 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
10422 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
10423 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
10424 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
10425 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
10426 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
10428 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
10429 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
10430 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
10431 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
10433 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
10434 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
10435 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
10437 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
10438 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
10439 session to resolve them.
10441 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
10442 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
10443 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
10446 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
10447 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
10448 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
10449 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
10450 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
10451 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
10454 ** Changes in Font Lock
10456 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
10457 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
10458 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
10459 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
10460 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
10462 ** Frame name display changes
10464 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
10465 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
10466 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
10467 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
10469 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
10470 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
10473 ** Comint (subshell) changes
10475 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
10476 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
10477 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
10479 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
10481 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
10482 that is, the line after the last line you got.
10483 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
10485 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
10486 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
10487 the following line.
10489 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
10490 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
10491 previously sent input.
10493 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
10494 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
10495 as the search string.
10497 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
10498 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
10502 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
10503 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
10504 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
10507 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
10508 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
10509 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
10510 style is still the default however.
10512 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
10514 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
10515 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
10516 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
10518 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
10519 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
10521 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
10522 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
10524 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
10525 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
10527 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
10528 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
10530 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
10531 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
10532 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
10533 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
10535 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
10537 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
10538 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
10539 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
10541 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
10542 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
10543 expanding dynamically.
10545 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
10546 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
10548 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
10549 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
10550 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
10551 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
10553 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
10555 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
10557 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
10558 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
10559 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
10560 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
10561 against the first word in the title.
10563 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
10564 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
10565 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
10566 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
10567 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
10568 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
10570 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
10571 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
10572 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
10573 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
10575 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
10577 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
10578 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
10579 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
10580 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
10581 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
10582 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
10584 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
10585 Editing group once the package is loaded.
10587 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
10588 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
10589 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
10591 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
10592 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
10596 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
10597 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
10598 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
10600 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
10601 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
10602 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
10603 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
10606 o URLs are automatically skipped
10607 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
10609 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
10611 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10613 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
10614 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
10615 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
10616 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
10618 *** New recursive parser.
10620 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
10621 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
10622 recursive parser scans the individual files.
10624 *** Parsing only part of a document.
10626 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
10627 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
10628 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
10630 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
10632 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
10634 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
10636 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
10638 *** Using multiple selection buffers
10640 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
10641 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
10643 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
10645 *** References to external documents.
10647 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
10648 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
10649 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
10650 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
10651 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
10652 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
10653 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
10655 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
10657 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
10658 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
10660 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
10661 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
10663 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
10665 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
10666 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
10668 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
10670 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
10671 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
10672 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
10673 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
10674 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
10675 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
10678 *** Support for the varioref package
10680 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
10684 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
10685 and citations are created. These hooks are
10686 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
10687 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
10689 *** Citations outside LaTeX
10691 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
10692 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
10694 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
10696 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
10697 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
10700 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
10702 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
10703 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
10704 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
10705 directories that contain the same file name.
10707 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
10708 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
10709 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
10710 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
10711 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
10712 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
10713 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
10716 ** New modes and packages
10718 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
10719 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
10720 it, but some do not.
10722 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
10725 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
10726 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
10727 around in a buffer.
10729 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
10731 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
10732 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
10733 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
10734 established system of notation similar to Chess.
10736 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
10737 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
10738 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
10740 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
10741 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
10742 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
10743 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
10744 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
10747 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
10748 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
10750 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
10751 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
10752 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
10753 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
10755 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
10757 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
10758 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
10759 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
10760 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
10761 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
10762 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
10763 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
10764 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
10765 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
10766 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
10767 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
10769 Platform-specific modes:
10771 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
10772 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
10773 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
10774 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
10775 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
10776 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
10777 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
10778 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
10779 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
10781 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10783 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
10784 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
10785 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
10786 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
10788 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
10789 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
10790 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
10792 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
10793 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
10794 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
10795 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
10797 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
10798 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
10799 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
10802 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
10803 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
10804 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
10805 current input method for reading this one event.
10807 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
10808 now control whether to output certain characters as
10809 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
10810 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
10811 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
10812 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
10814 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10816 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
10817 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
10819 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
10820 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
10821 always increases point by 1.
10823 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
10824 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
10826 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
10828 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
10829 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
10830 default value changed. For example,
10832 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
10837 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
10840 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
10841 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
10842 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
10843 `:version' in the top level group.
10845 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
10847 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
10848 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
10850 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
10851 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
10852 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
10855 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
10856 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
10859 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
10860 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
10861 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
10863 ** Frame-local variables.
10865 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
10866 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
10867 local bindings for that variable.
10869 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
10870 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
10871 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
10874 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
10875 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
10876 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
10877 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
10879 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
10880 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
10881 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
10882 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
10884 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
10885 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
10886 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
10887 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
10888 See the documentation in sregex.el.
10890 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
10891 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
10892 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
10893 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
10895 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
10896 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
10898 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
10899 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
10900 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
10902 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
10903 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
10904 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
10905 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
10907 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
10908 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
10911 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
10912 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
10913 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
10914 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
10915 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
10917 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
10918 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
10919 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
10920 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
10922 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
10923 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
10924 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
10925 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
10926 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
10928 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
10929 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
10930 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
10931 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
10933 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
10934 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
10935 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
10937 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
10938 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
10939 was directed to display this buffer.
10941 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
10942 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
10943 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
10944 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
10945 set-window-configuration.
10947 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
10948 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
10949 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
10950 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
10952 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
10953 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
10954 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
10956 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
10957 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
10958 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
10960 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
10961 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
10963 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
10964 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
10966 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
10967 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
10968 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
10970 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
10971 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
10972 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
10973 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
10977 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
10978 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
10981 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
10982 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
10983 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
10984 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
10985 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
10987 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
10989 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
10990 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
10991 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
10992 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
10995 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
10996 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
10997 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
10998 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
10999 The supported properties include
11001 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11003 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11004 item should appear in the menu.
11006 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11007 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11008 It should return a binding to use instead.
11010 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11011 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11012 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11013 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11014 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11017 This means that the command normally has no
11018 keyboard equivalent.
11019 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11020 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11021 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11022 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11023 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11025 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11026 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11028 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11032 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11033 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11034 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11035 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11037 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11039 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11040 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11041 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11042 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11043 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11044 forward, away from the user.
11046 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11048 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11049 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11050 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11051 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11052 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11054 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11056 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11057 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11058 that were dragged and dropped.
11060 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11062 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11064 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11065 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11066 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11068 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11069 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11070 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11072 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11073 in Emacs 19 and before.
11075 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11076 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11078 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11079 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11080 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11081 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11083 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11084 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11085 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11086 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11087 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11089 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11090 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11091 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11092 consistent with the new representation.
11094 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11095 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11096 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11097 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11099 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11100 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11101 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11103 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11104 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11105 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11107 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
11108 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
11109 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
11111 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11112 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
11114 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11115 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
11117 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
11118 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
11119 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
11120 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
11122 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
11123 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
11125 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
11126 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
11127 buffer or string being searched.
11129 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
11130 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
11131 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
11132 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
11133 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
11134 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
11135 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
11137 *** Structure of coding system changed.
11139 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
11140 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
11141 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
11142 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
11143 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
11144 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
11145 define-coding-system-alias.
11147 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
11148 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
11149 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
11150 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
11151 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
11152 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
11153 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
11156 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
11157 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
11158 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
11159 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
11161 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
11162 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
11163 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
11164 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
11166 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
11167 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
11168 This function requires a user interaction.
11170 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
11171 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
11172 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
11173 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
11174 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
11175 select-safe-coding-system.
11177 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
11178 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
11179 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
11182 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
11183 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
11184 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
11186 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
11187 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
11188 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
11189 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
11191 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
11192 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
11193 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
11196 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
11197 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
11199 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
11200 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
11201 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
11202 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
11203 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
11204 range of characters.
11206 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
11207 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
11209 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
11210 in the current buffer at position POS.
11212 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
11213 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
11214 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
11215 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
11216 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
11217 binding input-method-function to nil.
11219 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
11220 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
11221 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
11222 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
11223 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
11225 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
11226 subsequent events of a key sequence.
11228 *** You can customize any language environment by using
11229 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
11231 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
11232 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
11233 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
11234 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
11235 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
11237 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
11239 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
11240 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
11241 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
11244 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
11245 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
11247 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
11248 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
11249 in your .emacs file.)
11251 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
11252 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
11254 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
11255 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
11257 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
11258 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
11261 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
11262 delete the character before point, as usual.
11264 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
11265 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
11266 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
11268 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
11269 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
11270 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
11271 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
11272 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
11275 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
11276 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
11277 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
11278 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
11279 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
11281 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
11282 and is an alias for it.
11284 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
11285 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
11287 ** Scrolling changes
11289 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
11290 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
11292 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
11293 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
11296 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
11297 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
11298 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
11299 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
11301 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
11302 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
11303 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
11304 recenters the window.
11306 ** International character set support (MULE)
11308 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
11309 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
11310 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
11311 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
11312 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
11313 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
11315 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
11316 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
11317 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
11318 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
11319 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
11321 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
11322 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
11323 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
11324 language, to make it possible to type them.
11326 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
11327 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
11329 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
11330 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
11332 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
11334 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
11336 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
11337 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
11338 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
11339 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
11340 characters for their work until they want to change.
11344 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
11345 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
11346 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
11347 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
11348 support several input methods.
11350 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
11351 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
11354 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
11355 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
11356 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
11357 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
11358 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
11361 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
11362 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
11363 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
11364 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
11365 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
11367 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
11368 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
11369 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
11370 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
11372 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
11373 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
11374 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
11375 the first guess is wrong.
11377 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
11378 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
11380 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
11381 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
11382 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
11383 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
11385 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
11386 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
11387 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
11388 translate automatically to and from either one.
11390 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
11392 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
11393 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
11394 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
11397 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
11398 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
11399 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
11400 multibyte characters in that buffer.
11402 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
11403 character conversion as well.
11405 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
11407 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
11408 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
11409 requires using many fonts.
11411 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
11412 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
11414 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
11415 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
11416 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
11417 you would use a font.
11419 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
11420 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
11421 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
11423 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
11424 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
11427 *** Defining fontsets.
11429 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
11430 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
11431 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
11433 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
11434 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
11435 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
11436 standard fontset are created automatically.
11438 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
11439 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
11440 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
11441 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
11442 name is `fontset-startup'.
11444 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
11445 The resource value should have this form:
11446 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
11447 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
11448 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
11449 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
11450 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
11451 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
11452 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
11453 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
11454 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
11456 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
11457 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
11458 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
11460 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
11461 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
11462 following resource,
11463 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
11464 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
11465 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
11466 Here is the substitution rule:
11467 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
11468 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
11469 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
11470 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
11471 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
11473 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
11474 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
11475 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
11477 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
11478 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
11479 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
11480 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
11483 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
11484 defaults for a particular choice of language.
11486 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
11487 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
11488 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
11489 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
11490 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
11491 system for new files that you create.
11493 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
11494 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
11495 whole Emacs session.
11497 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
11498 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
11499 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
11501 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
11502 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
11503 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
11504 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
11505 coding systems that Emacs supports.
11507 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
11508 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
11509 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
11510 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
11511 is used for *the immediately following command*.
11513 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
11514 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
11516 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
11517 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
11519 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
11520 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
11522 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
11523 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
11524 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
11525 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
11528 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
11529 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
11530 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
11531 translated into that character code.
11533 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
11534 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
11536 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
11538 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
11539 the coding system for keyboard input.
11541 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
11542 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
11543 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
11545 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
11547 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
11548 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
11549 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
11550 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
11551 designed to work with terminals.
11553 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
11554 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
11555 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
11556 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
11557 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
11558 in the corresponding buffer.
11560 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
11562 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
11563 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
11564 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
11566 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
11567 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
11568 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
11571 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
11572 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
11574 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
11575 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
11576 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
11577 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
11579 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
11580 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
11581 related information.
11583 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
11584 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
11587 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
11588 information about the support for a particular language.
11589 You specify the language as an argument.
11591 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
11592 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
11595 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
11596 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
11597 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
11598 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
11600 A alternativnyj (Russian)
11602 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
11603 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
11604 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
11605 E euc-japan (Japanese)
11606 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
11607 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
11608 K euc-korea (Korean)
11611 S shift_jis (Japanese)
11614 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
11615 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
11616 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
11617 v viqr (Vietnamese)
11620 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
11621 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
11622 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
11623 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
11625 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
11626 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
11628 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
11629 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
11630 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
11631 Rmail files themselves.
11633 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
11634 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
11636 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
11639 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
11640 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
11641 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
11642 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
11643 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
11645 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
11646 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
11647 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
11650 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
11651 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
11652 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
11653 without any conversion.
11655 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
11656 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
11657 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
11658 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
11660 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
11661 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
11663 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
11664 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
11666 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
11667 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
11669 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
11670 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
11671 in the buffer before point.
11673 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
11674 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
11677 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
11678 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
11680 ** File locking works with NFS now.
11682 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
11683 in the same directory as FILENAME.
11685 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
11686 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
11687 can become a bottleneck.
11689 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
11690 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
11691 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
11692 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
11693 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
11694 so useful that the change is worth while.
11696 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
11697 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
11698 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
11699 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
11701 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
11702 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
11705 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
11706 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
11707 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
11709 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
11710 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
11711 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
11713 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
11714 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
11715 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
11717 ** Changes in View mode.
11719 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
11720 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
11722 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
11723 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
11725 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
11728 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
11729 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
11731 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
11732 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
11733 not just the selected window.
11735 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
11736 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
11737 turns View mode on or off.
11739 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
11740 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
11741 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
11743 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
11744 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
11746 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
11747 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
11748 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
11749 which version to compare with.
11751 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
11752 blocks if a match is inside the block.
11754 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
11755 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
11756 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
11757 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
11759 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
11760 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
11761 blocks, all of them or none.
11763 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
11764 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
11765 confirmation first.
11767 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
11768 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
11769 However, the mode will not be changed if
11770 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
11771 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
11772 not suitable for ordinary files, or
11773 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
11775 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
11777 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
11778 these commands do not change the major mode.
11780 ** M-x occur changes.
11782 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
11783 it performs a case-sensitive search.
11785 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
11786 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
11787 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
11789 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
11790 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
11791 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
11792 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
11793 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
11795 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
11796 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
11797 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
11798 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
11800 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
11801 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
11802 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
11804 ** Outline mode changes.
11806 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
11808 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
11810 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
11811 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
11812 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
11813 was already active.
11815 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
11816 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
11817 get confused by it.
11819 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
11820 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
11822 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
11824 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
11825 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
11826 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
11827 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
11829 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
11830 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
11831 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
11833 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
11834 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
11837 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
11838 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
11839 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
11840 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
11842 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
11843 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
11844 can be. The default value is 30.
11846 ** Changes in Mail mode.
11848 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
11849 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
11850 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
11851 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
11852 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
11855 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
11856 compose-mail-other-frame.
11858 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
11859 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
11860 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
11861 buffer that shows the original message.
11863 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
11864 with separator lines around the contents.
11866 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
11867 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
11868 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
11869 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
11871 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
11873 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
11874 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
11875 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
11876 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
11878 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
11879 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
11882 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
11883 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
11886 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
11887 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
11888 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
11889 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
11891 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
11892 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
11893 be taken to be magic.
11895 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
11896 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
11897 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
11899 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
11900 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
11902 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
11903 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
11905 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
11907 new key dired.el binding old key
11908 ------- ---------------- -------
11909 * c dired-change-marks c
11911 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
11912 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
11913 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
11915 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
11916 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
11917 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
11918 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
11919 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
11920 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
11924 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
11925 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
11926 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
11927 each time you run it.
11929 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
11930 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
11932 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
11933 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
11934 means to move in the opposite direction.
11936 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
11937 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
11939 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
11940 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
11941 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
11942 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
11947 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
11949 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
11952 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
11953 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
11955 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
11958 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
11960 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
11962 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
11964 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
11965 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
11966 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
11968 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
11970 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
11972 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
11973 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
11975 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
11976 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
11977 used to pick articles.
11979 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
11980 another have been added.
11982 `M-x gnus-change-server'
11984 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
11985 generating lines in buffers.
11987 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
11990 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
11992 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
11994 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
11996 *** Scores can be decayed.
11998 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12000 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12001 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12003 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12006 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12008 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12009 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12011 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12013 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12014 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12016 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12017 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12019 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12022 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12023 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12025 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12027 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12029 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12031 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12033 Use the `Y c' command.
12035 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12037 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12039 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12041 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12042 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12044 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12046 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12048 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12049 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12051 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12053 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12054 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12055 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12056 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12059 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12060 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12061 particular news group. This can be done by:
12063 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12065 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12066 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12067 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12068 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12069 for reading and posting).
12071 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12072 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12073 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12074 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12077 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12078 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12080 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12081 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12082 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12083 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12084 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12086 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12087 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12089 ** CC mode changes.
12091 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12092 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12093 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12094 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12095 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12098 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12099 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12100 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12101 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12102 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12103 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12105 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12106 of the current buffer.
12108 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
12109 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
12110 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
12112 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
12113 style that the Python developers like.
12115 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
12116 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
12117 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
12119 ** VC Changes [new]
12121 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
12122 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
12123 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
12125 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
12126 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
12129 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
12130 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
12132 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
12133 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
12134 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
12135 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
12137 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
12138 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
12140 ** Calendar changes.
12142 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
12143 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
12144 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
12145 following/previous years.
12147 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
12148 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
12149 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
12150 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
12151 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
12152 supposed attribute of God.
12154 ** ps-print changes
12156 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
12159 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
12161 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
12162 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
12163 printer system has this behavior, set variable
12164 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
12166 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
12167 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
12168 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
12170 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
12171 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
12173 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
12174 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
12175 printing for your printer.
12177 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
12178 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12180 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
12181 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12183 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
12184 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
12185 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
12186 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
12187 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
12188 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
12189 The default value is nil.
12191 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
12192 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
12194 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
12195 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
12196 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
12197 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
12198 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
12199 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
12200 color). The default is 0 ("black").
12202 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
12203 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
12205 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
12206 The default is 0 ("black").
12208 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
12209 The default is 0 ("black").
12211 border-width Specify the border width.
12212 The default is 0.4.
12214 Any other property is ignored.
12216 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
12217 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
12220 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
12221 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
12222 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
12223 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
12224 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
12225 controlling headers.
12227 *** Color management (subgroup)
12229 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
12232 *** Face Management (subgroup)
12234 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
12235 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
12236 background should be used. Valid values are:
12238 t always use face background color.
12239 nil never use face background color.
12240 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
12242 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
12244 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
12247 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
12248 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
12250 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
12253 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
12254 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
12255 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
12257 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
12261 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
12265 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
12269 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
12273 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
12275 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
12277 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
12280 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
12281 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
12282 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
12284 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
12285 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12286 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12287 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12288 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12292 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12293 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12294 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12297 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12298 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12299 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
12300 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
12301 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
12302 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12303 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12304 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12305 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
12306 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
12307 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
12310 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12312 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
12315 *** Printer management (subgroup)
12317 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
12318 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
12319 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
12320 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
12323 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
12324 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
12325 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
12327 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
12328 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
12331 *** Page settings (subgroup)
12333 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
12334 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
12335 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
12336 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
12337 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
12338 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
12341 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
12342 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
12343 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
12345 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
12346 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
12347 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
12348 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
12349 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
12350 its TO, are ignored.
12352 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
12353 pages. Valid values are:
12355 nil print all pages.
12357 `even-page' print only even pages.
12359 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
12361 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
12362 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12363 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
12364 print only the even sheet of paper.
12366 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
12367 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12368 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
12369 only the odd sheet of paper.
12371 Any other value is treated as nil.
12373 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
12374 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
12375 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
12377 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
12379 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
12380 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
12382 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
12383 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
12384 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
12385 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
12386 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
12387 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
12388 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
12390 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
12391 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
12392 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
12393 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
12394 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
12395 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
12396 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
12398 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
12400 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
12401 messages should be sent.
12403 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
12404 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
12405 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
12407 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
12409 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
12410 points for line numbers.
12412 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
12413 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
12415 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
12416 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
12417 to 2, the printing will look like:
12429 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
12430 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
12433 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
12434 zebra stripe is to be printed.
12436 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
12438 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
12439 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
12440 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
12441 3, the output will look like:
12455 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
12456 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
12458 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
12459 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
12462 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
12463 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
12466 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
12468 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
12469 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
12471 ** hideshow changes.
12473 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
12476 *** Support for java-mode added.
12478 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
12479 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
12481 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
12482 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
12483 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
12485 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
12486 robust and a lot faster.
12488 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
12490 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
12491 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
12492 documentation for more details.
12494 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
12496 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
12497 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
12498 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
12499 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
12500 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
12502 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
12503 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
12504 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
12505 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
12511 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
12512 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
12513 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
12514 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
12515 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
12516 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
12518 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
12520 *** Maximum decoration
12522 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
12523 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
12524 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
12525 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
12526 to get the old behavior.
12530 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
12532 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
12533 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
12535 *** Configurable support
12537 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
12538 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
12539 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
12540 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
12541 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
12542 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
12543 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
12545 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
12546 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
12547 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
12549 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
12551 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
12552 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
12555 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
12557 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
12563 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
12564 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
12565 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
12566 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
12568 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
12570 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
12571 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
12572 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
12574 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
12576 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
12577 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
12578 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
12579 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
12580 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
12581 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
12582 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
12584 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
12585 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
12586 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
12587 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
12588 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
12589 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
12591 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
12593 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
12594 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
12595 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
12596 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
12598 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
12601 ** Ada mode changes.
12603 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
12604 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
12605 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
12606 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
12609 *** There are two new commands:
12610 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
12611 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
12613 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
12614 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
12615 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
12617 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
12618 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
12619 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
12621 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
12622 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
12623 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
12624 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
12626 ** Scheme mode changes.
12628 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
12629 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
12630 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
12631 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
12634 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
12635 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
12636 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
12637 variables as buffer-local variables.
12639 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
12640 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
12642 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
12644 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
12645 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
12646 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
12647 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
12649 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
12650 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
12653 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
12654 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
12655 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
12656 option takes precedence.
12658 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
12659 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
12660 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
12662 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
12663 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
12666 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
12667 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
12669 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
12670 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
12673 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
12674 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
12675 these register values no longer become completely useless.
12676 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
12677 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
12678 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
12680 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
12681 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
12682 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
12683 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
12685 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
12686 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
12687 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
12688 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
12689 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
12691 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
12692 since it applies only to the current frame.
12694 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
12695 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
12696 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
12698 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
12699 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
12700 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
12701 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
12702 instead of just the file you are editing.
12706 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
12707 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
12708 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
12709 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
12710 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
12713 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
12714 knows which kind of label is needed.
12716 C-c ) reftex-reference
12717 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
12718 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
12720 C-c [ reftex-citation
12721 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
12722 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
12724 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
12725 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
12728 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
12729 can quickly jump to every section.
12731 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
12732 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
12733 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
12734 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
12735 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
12737 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
12739 *** Info documentation is now available.
12741 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
12742 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
12744 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
12745 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
12747 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
12748 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
12750 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
12751 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
12752 appropriate functions.
12754 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
12755 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
12757 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
12760 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
12761 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
12763 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
12764 shall be delimited.
12766 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
12767 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
12768 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
12770 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
12771 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
12772 prefixed with `ALT'.
12774 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
12775 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
12776 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
12779 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
12780 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
12781 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
12783 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
12784 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
12786 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
12787 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
12788 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
12790 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
12792 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
12794 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
12795 from alien sources.
12797 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
12798 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
12801 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
12804 *** Added support for imenu.
12806 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
12807 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
12808 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
12809 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
12811 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
12812 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
12814 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
12816 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
12818 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
12819 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
12820 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
12823 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
12824 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
12826 ** browse-url changes
12828 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
12829 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
12830 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
12831 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
12832 customization variables.
12834 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
12836 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
12837 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
12838 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
12840 ** Changes in Ediff
12842 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
12843 pops up the Info file for this command.
12845 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
12846 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
12847 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
12850 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
12851 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
12852 files in the same directory.
12854 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
12855 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
12856 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
12858 ** Changes in Viper
12860 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
12861 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
12863 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
12864 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
12865 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
12866 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
12867 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
12868 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
12869 color when Viper is in insert state.
12870 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
12871 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
12872 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
12876 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
12877 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
12878 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
12879 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
12880 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
12882 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
12884 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
12885 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
12887 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
12888 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
12889 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
12891 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
12892 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
12893 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
12894 methods and protocols.
12896 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
12897 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
12898 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
12901 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
12902 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
12903 at least M times and as many as N times.
12905 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
12906 in files has changed slightly.
12908 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
12909 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
12910 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
12911 with old time-stamp-format values.
12913 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
12914 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
12915 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
12918 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
12919 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
12920 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
12921 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
12922 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
12923 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
12925 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
12926 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
12927 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
12929 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
12930 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
12931 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
12932 recommended now will continue to work then.
12934 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
12937 ** There are some additional major modes:
12939 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
12940 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
12941 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
12943 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
12944 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
12947 ** New Lisp packages include:
12949 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
12951 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
12952 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
12954 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
12956 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
12959 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
12960 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
12963 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
12964 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
12965 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
12966 strings or comments.
12968 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
12969 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
12970 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
12971 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
12974 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
12975 can visit them by short forms of their names.
12977 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
12978 Emacs Lisp function at point.
12980 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
12982 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
12983 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
12985 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
12987 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
12989 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
12991 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
12992 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
12994 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
12995 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
12996 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
12997 original place after inserting the copy.
12999 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13002 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13003 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13004 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13006 Enable mouse-drag with:
13007 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13009 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13011 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13012 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13014 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13015 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13019 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13020 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13021 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13022 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13023 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13024 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13025 instance) and vice versa.
13027 To use this package load it using
13028 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13029 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13030 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13031 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13032 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13033 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13035 *** Interface to ph.
13037 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13039 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13040 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13043 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13045 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13046 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13047 while the real cursor does not move.
13049 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13050 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13052 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13053 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13057 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13058 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13059 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13060 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13062 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13064 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13066 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13068 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13069 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13070 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13071 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13072 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13074 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13075 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13076 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13077 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13078 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13079 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13081 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13083 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13084 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13085 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13086 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13088 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13089 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13091 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13092 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13095 ** Basic Lisp changes
13097 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13098 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13100 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13101 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13104 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13106 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
13108 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
13109 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
13111 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
13112 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
13115 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
13117 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
13119 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
13121 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
13122 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
13123 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
13126 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
13127 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
13128 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
13130 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
13131 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
13132 adding one of these suffixes.
13134 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
13135 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
13136 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
13138 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
13139 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
13141 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
13143 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
13144 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
13146 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
13147 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
13149 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
13151 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
13152 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
13154 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
13155 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
13156 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
13157 works using `save-current-buffer'.
13159 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
13160 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
13163 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
13164 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
13165 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
13168 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
13169 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
13172 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
13174 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
13175 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
13176 Then it returns that string.
13178 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
13180 (with-output-to-string
13181 (princ "The buffer is ")
13182 (princ (buffer-name)))
13184 returns "The buffer is foo".
13186 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
13189 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
13190 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
13191 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
13193 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
13194 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
13196 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
13197 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
13198 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
13199 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
13200 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
13201 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
13203 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
13204 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
13205 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
13208 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
13209 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
13210 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
13211 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
13212 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
13214 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
13215 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
13216 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
13217 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
13219 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
13220 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
13222 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
13224 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
13225 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
13226 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
13227 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
13230 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
13231 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
13234 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
13236 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
13237 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
13238 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
13239 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
13240 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
13242 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
13244 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
13245 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
13246 more than the number of characters.
13248 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
13249 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
13250 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
13251 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
13252 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
13253 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
13255 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
13256 and returns a string containing those characters.
13258 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
13259 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
13260 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
13261 character, sref signals an error.
13263 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
13264 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
13265 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13267 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
13268 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
13269 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13271 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
13272 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
13273 to a vector of the characters in it.
13275 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
13276 of a string. You call it as follows:
13278 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
13280 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
13281 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
13282 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
13283 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
13284 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
13286 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
13287 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13289 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
13290 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13292 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
13293 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
13294 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
13295 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
13297 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
13299 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
13301 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
13302 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
13303 are not included in the resulting value.
13305 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
13306 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
13307 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
13308 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
13310 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
13311 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
13312 character extends across that column), then the padding character
13313 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
13314 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
13315 column START-COLUMN.
13317 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
13318 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
13319 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
13320 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
13321 changed text, before the change.
13323 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
13324 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
13325 one character set for each script, not for each language.
13327 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
13329 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
13331 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
13332 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
13334 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
13335 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
13336 which identify the character within that character set.
13338 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
13339 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
13340 opposite of split-char.
13342 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
13343 of all the characters between BEG and END.
13345 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
13346 of all the characters in a string.
13348 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
13349 and specifying coding systems.
13351 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
13352 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
13353 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
13354 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
13355 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
13356 as what to do about code conversion.)
13358 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
13359 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
13361 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
13362 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
13363 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
13365 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
13366 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
13367 to match against a file name.
13369 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
13370 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
13371 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
13372 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
13373 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
13374 specifies the coding system for encoding.
13376 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
13377 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
13379 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
13380 the coding system to use for network sockets.
13382 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
13383 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
13384 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
13387 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
13388 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
13389 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
13390 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
13391 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
13392 specifies the coding system for encoding.
13394 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
13395 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
13397 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
13398 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
13399 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
13400 start the subprocess.
13402 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
13403 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
13404 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
13405 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
13406 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
13408 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
13409 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
13412 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
13413 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
13414 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
13415 connection permanently or until overridden.
13417 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
13418 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
13419 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
13420 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
13421 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
13422 system for one operation at a time.
13424 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
13425 files, subprocesses or network connections.
13427 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
13428 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
13429 The value is a cons cell,
13430 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
13431 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
13432 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
13433 input to the subprocess.
13435 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
13436 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
13438 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
13439 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
13440 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
13442 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
13443 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
13444 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
13445 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
13448 Thus, instead of writing
13450 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
13451 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
13453 you would now write this:
13455 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
13456 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
13460 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
13461 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
13462 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
13463 for a description of them.
13465 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
13466 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
13468 (defgroup ispell nil
13469 "Spell checking using Ispell."
13472 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
13473 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
13474 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
13475 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
13476 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
13478 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
13479 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
13480 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
13481 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
13482 first-level subgroups.
13484 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
13486 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
13487 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
13491 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
13492 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
13493 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
13494 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
13495 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
13496 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
13498 ** Text property changes
13500 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
13503 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
13504 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
13505 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
13506 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
13507 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
13509 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
13510 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
13511 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
13512 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
13514 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
13515 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
13516 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
13518 ** Changes in invisibility features
13520 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
13521 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
13522 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
13523 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
13524 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
13525 make the overlay visible.
13527 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
13528 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
13529 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
13530 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
13531 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
13532 t when it should hide it.
13534 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
13536 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
13537 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
13538 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
13539 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
13540 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
13541 Here is an example of how to do this:
13543 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
13544 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
13545 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
13546 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
13549 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
13552 ;; When done with the overlays:
13553 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
13554 ;; Or respectively:
13555 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
13557 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
13559 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
13560 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
13561 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
13562 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
13564 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
13565 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
13566 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
13568 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
13569 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
13571 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
13572 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
13574 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
13575 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
13576 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
13578 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
13579 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
13580 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
13581 determine the syntax type of the character.
13583 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
13584 of the current buffer.
13586 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
13587 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
13588 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
13590 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
13591 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
13592 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
13593 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
13594 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
13596 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
13599 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
13600 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
13601 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
13603 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
13604 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
13605 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
13606 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
13607 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
13609 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
13610 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
13611 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
13613 ** Changes in face features
13615 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
13616 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
13618 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
13619 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
13621 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
13622 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
13624 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
13625 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
13627 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
13628 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
13629 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
13630 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
13633 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
13634 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
13636 ** Changes in file-handling functions
13638 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
13639 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
13640 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
13641 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
13643 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
13646 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
13647 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
13649 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
13650 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
13652 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
13653 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
13655 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
13656 character code conversion as well as other things.
13658 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
13659 (formerly it did not).
13661 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
13662 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
13664 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
13665 instead of constant strings.
13667 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
13668 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
13669 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
13671 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
13672 in the same way as before.
13674 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
13675 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
13676 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
13678 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
13679 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
13680 else, and returns nil.
13682 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
13683 directory cannot be listed.
13685 ** Changes in minibuffer input
13687 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
13688 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
13689 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
13690 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
13693 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
13694 It is available through the history command M-n.
13696 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
13697 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
13698 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
13699 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
13700 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
13702 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
13703 argument in this way.
13705 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
13706 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
13707 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
13709 ** Echo area features
13711 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
13712 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
13713 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
13714 after the echo area is cleared.
13716 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
13717 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
13719 ** Keyboard input features
13721 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
13722 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
13724 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
13725 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
13726 by keyboard macros.
13728 ** Frame-related changes
13730 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
13731 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
13732 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
13734 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
13735 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
13736 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
13738 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
13739 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
13740 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
13741 in the selected frame.
13743 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
13744 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
13745 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
13747 ** X Windows features
13749 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
13750 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
13751 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
13753 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
13754 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
13756 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
13757 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
13758 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
13760 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
13761 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
13763 ** Subprocess features
13765 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
13766 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
13769 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
13770 and returns the output from the command as a string.
13772 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
13773 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
13775 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
13776 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
13778 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
13779 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
13780 goes after the other menu items.
13782 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
13783 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
13784 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
13787 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
13788 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
13790 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
13791 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
13794 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
13795 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
13796 but its hook is still run.
13798 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
13799 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
13801 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
13802 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
13803 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
13805 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
13806 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
13807 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
13810 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
13811 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
13813 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
13814 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
13815 functions like display-time.
13817 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
13818 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
13820 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
13821 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
13822 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
13824 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
13825 if there is an error in compilation.
13827 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
13828 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
13829 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
13830 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
13832 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
13833 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
13834 the *scratch* buffer.
13836 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
13837 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
13838 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
13839 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
13841 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
13842 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
13843 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
13845 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
13846 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
13847 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
13848 and compose-mail-other-frame.
13850 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
13851 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
13852 full name of the specified user will be returned.
13854 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
13855 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
13856 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
13857 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
13858 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
13861 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
13862 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
13863 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
13864 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
13866 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
13867 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
13868 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
13869 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
13871 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
13873 ** imenu.el changes.
13875 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
13876 item from menu created by imenu.
13878 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
13879 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
13880 select one of those items.
13882 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
13884 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
13885 Copyright information:
13887 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
13889 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
13890 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
13891 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
13892 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
13894 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
13895 of this document, or of portions of it,
13896 under the above conditions, provided also that they
13897 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
13901 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
13904 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793