1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
47 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
48 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
49 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
52 ** There is a new configure option --with-wide-int.
53 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
56 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available.
57 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
58 automatically select it.
60 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
61 Emacs links to ImageMagick if version 6.2.8 or newer of the library is
62 present at build time. To inhibit ImageMagick, use the configure
63 option `--without-imagemagick' .
66 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
67 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
70 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
71 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
74 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
77 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
78 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
79 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
82 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
83 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
86 ** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used,
87 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
90 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
93 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
97 *** shell-mode uses pcomplete rules, with the standard completion UI.
99 *** Many packages have been changed to use completion-at-point rather than
100 their own completion code.
102 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
103 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
105 *** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
107 *** New completion style `substring'.
109 *** Completion style can be set per-category `completion-category-overrides'.
111 *** Completion of buffers now uses substring completion by default.
113 *** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
114 `completing-read-function'.
116 *** minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map is not used any more.
117 Instead, the bindings in minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map are combined
118 with minibuffer-local-must-match-map.
122 The default of `send-mail-function' is now `sendmail-query-once',
123 which asks the user (once) whether to use the smtpmail package to send
124 email, or to use the old defaults that rely on external mail
125 facilities (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like
126 systems, and `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
130 **** smtpmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) if the
131 mail server supports them. It also uses the auth-source framework for
134 **** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
135 That variable used to have the default value "~/.authinfo", in which
136 case you won't see any difference. But if you changed it to be a list
137 of user names and passwords, that setting is now ignored; you will be
138 prompted for the user name and the password, which will then be saved
141 You can also manually copy the credentials to your ~/.authinfo file.
142 For example, if you had
144 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
145 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
147 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
149 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
151 **** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
153 If you had that set, then then you need to put
155 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
157 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
161 You can now add MIME attachments to outgoing messages with the new
162 command `mail-add-attachment'.
165 The command `mail-attach-file' was renamed to `mail-insert-file'; the
166 old name is now an obsolete alias to the new name.
168 ** Emacs server and client changes
170 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port on which the Emacs
171 server should listen.
173 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
175 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters can be used to set the
176 frame parameters of a newly-created graphical frame.
178 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
179 error, its exit status is 1.
181 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
182 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
183 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
185 ** Internationalization changes
188 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
190 Text that includes characters from right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such
191 as Arabic, Farsi, or Hebrew, is displayed in the correct visual order
192 as expected by users of those scripts. This display reordering is a
193 "Full bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode
194 Bidirectional Algorithm. Buffers RTL text should look exactly the
197 For more information, see the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the
201 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
202 To disable display reordering in any given buffer, change this to nil.
205 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
206 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
207 paragraph from its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional
210 Setting this to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a particular
211 base direction on each paragraph in the buffer.
213 Paragraphs whose base direction is right-to-left are displayed
214 starting at the right margin of the window.
217 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts.
218 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs
219 normally displays it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
220 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
221 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
222 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
223 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
225 On character terminals, these methods are used for characters that
226 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
229 *** New input methods for Farsi: farsi and farsi-translit.
231 ** Improved GTK integration
233 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
234 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
236 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
237 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
238 is taken from the desktop settings.
240 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
241 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
242 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
245 *** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
246 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
248 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
249 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
252 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success' are available to
253 highlight strings that indicate failure, caution or successful operation.
255 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
256 with Xft. To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
257 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
259 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
260 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
261 displayed as a space.
263 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
264 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
266 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
267 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
268 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
269 context in their return values.
271 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
272 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
274 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
275 for remote machines which support SELinux.
278 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
279 higher-resolution time stamps.
281 ** Changes for exiting Emacs
283 *** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals
284 SIGTERM and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
286 *** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
287 If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
288 consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.
292 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
293 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
294 of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
295 when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
298 *** New variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).
300 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
301 scroll a line instead of full screen.
304 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
305 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
308 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
309 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
310 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
311 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
312 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
315 *** ``Aggressive'' scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
316 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
317 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
318 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
323 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
324 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
326 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
327 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
329 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
330 for `list-colors-display'.
332 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
333 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
334 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
336 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
337 selected for installation.
339 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
341 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
342 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
343 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
344 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
348 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
350 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
351 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
352 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
353 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
355 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
356 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
357 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
358 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
360 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
361 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
363 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
365 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
366 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
367 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
370 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
371 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
372 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
373 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
374 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
377 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
378 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
381 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
383 ** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms
384 including md5, sha-1 and sha-2 (sha-224, sha-256, sha-384 and sha-512).
385 The elisp implementation sha1.el is removed. Feature sha1 is provided
390 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
391 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
396 *** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
397 modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.
399 *** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.
401 **** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
402 user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
403 for choosing the displaying window).
405 This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
406 specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.
408 **** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
409 display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.
412 *** New option `window-nest'.
413 The new option `window-nest' allows to return the space obtained for
414 resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window from which
415 such space was obtained.
418 *** New option `window-splits'.
419 The new option `window-splits' allows to split a window that otherwise
420 cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from other
421 windows in the same combination.
424 *** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
425 These maximize and minize the size of a window within its frame.
428 *** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
429 These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
430 been shown in a specific window.
433 *** New functions `window-state-get' and `window-state-put'.
434 These functions allow to save and restore the state of an arbitrary
435 frame or window as an Elisp object.
437 ** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
438 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the "mouse-1
439 pops up *Messages*" feature, which can now easily be changed.
442 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
446 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
449 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-pop, instead of
452 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.
455 ** New command `count-words-region'. This does what you expect.
457 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
459 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
461 ** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
462 also deletes newlines around point.
466 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
467 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
468 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands kill
471 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
472 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
473 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
475 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
476 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
477 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
478 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
480 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
482 ** Selection changes.
484 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
485 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
486 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
487 use the primary selection.
489 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
490 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
493 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
494 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
495 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
496 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
499 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
500 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
501 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
502 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
503 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
506 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
509 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
510 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
511 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
514 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
516 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
517 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
518 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
521 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
522 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
525 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
526 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
527 between applications.
530 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
531 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
532 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
533 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
534 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
535 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
538 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
540 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
541 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
543 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
544 the lines in the current rectangle. With a prefix argument, this
545 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
547 ** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
548 directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
549 $ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
552 ** The default value of redisplay-dont-change is now t
553 This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
554 at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
555 in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
556 updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.
559 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
561 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
563 ** browse-url has a new variable `browse-url-mailto-function'
564 specifies how mailto: URLs are handled. The default is `browse-url-mail'.
568 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
569 Use the variable bibtex-dialect to select support for different BibTeX
570 dialects. bibtex-entry-field-alist is now an obsolete alias for
571 bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist.
573 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries' bound to C-c C-a.
575 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
577 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
579 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
582 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing `comments'.
583 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
586 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
587 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
590 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
591 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
592 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
595 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
598 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
599 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
602 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
603 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
606 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
607 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
608 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
611 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
612 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
614 ** CC Mode (C, C++, etc.)
616 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
618 ** comint and modes derived from it use the generic completion code.
622 *** Compilation mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
623 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
625 *** `compilation-filter-start' is let-bound to the start of the text
626 inserted by the compilation filter function, when calling
627 compilation-filter-hook.
631 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
632 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
633 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
635 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
636 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
638 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
640 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
641 choose a color via list-colors-display.
645 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
646 system or session bus.
648 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
649 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
652 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
653 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
657 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
658 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
661 *** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
662 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
666 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
667 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
668 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
669 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
672 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
673 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
674 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
675 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
679 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
680 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
681 exists, that is used instead.
685 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
686 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
687 threads simultaneously.
689 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
690 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
694 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if the displayed
695 image can be animated.
697 *** Option `image-animate-loop', if non-nil, loops the animation.
698 If nil, `image-toggle-animation' plays the animation once.
702 *** New command `info-display-manual' displays an Info manual
703 specified by its name. If that manual is already visited in some Info
704 buffer within the current session, the command will display that
705 buffer. Otherwise, it will load the manual and display it. This is
706 handy if you have many manuals in many Info buffers, and don't
707 remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual you want to
710 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
712 ** MH-E has been upgraded to MH-E version 8.3.
713 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
715 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
717 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
719 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
720 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
721 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
725 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
726 in the Rmail incoming message.
728 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
729 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
732 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
734 *** `sql-dialect' is an alias for `sql-product'.
736 *** New variable `sql-port' specifies the port number for connecting
737 to a MySQL or Postgres server.
739 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
740 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product instead of the current
741 value of `sql-product'.
743 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix args.
744 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
745 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
746 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
748 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
749 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
750 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
751 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
752 second change prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from
753 listing object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*'
756 *** New custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
757 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
758 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
759 connection is established.
761 *** New variable `sql-connection-alist' for login parameter values.
762 This can be used to store different username, database and server
763 values. Connections defined in this variable appear in the submenu
764 SQL->Start... for making new SQLi sessions.
766 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
767 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
769 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
770 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
771 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
773 *** Commands for listing database objects and details.
774 In an SQLi session, you can get a list of objects in the database.
775 The contents of these lists are product specific.
777 **** `C-c C-l a' or the "SQL->List all objects" menu item
778 lists all the objects in the database. With a prefix argument, it
779 displays additional details or extend the listing to include other
782 **** `C-c C-l t' or the "SQL->List Table details" menu item
783 prompts for the name of a database table or view and displays the list
784 of columns in the relation. With a prefix argument, it displays
785 additional details about each column.
787 *** New options `sql-send-terminator' and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
789 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
793 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
797 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
799 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
800 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
802 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
805 ** `url-queue-retrieve' downloads web pages asynchronously, but allow
806 controlling the degree of parallelism.
808 ** VC and related modes
810 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
811 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
812 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
813 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
815 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
817 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
819 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
820 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
821 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
822 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
824 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
826 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
827 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
829 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
830 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
831 In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
832 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
834 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
836 **** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
837 binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.
839 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
840 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
842 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
846 *** partial-completion-mode is obsolete.
847 You can get a comparable behavior with:
848 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
849 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
851 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete.
853 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
855 *** s-region.el and pc-select are obsolete.
856 They are superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
861 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
864 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
866 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
869 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
871 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
872 original buffers. It is bound to "e" in Occur mode.
874 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
875 and electric-layout-mode.
877 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
878 from which other modes can be derived.
880 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
882 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
883 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
884 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
885 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
888 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
889 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
891 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
892 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
894 ** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.
896 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
897 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to old-emacs-lock.el and moved
898 to obsolete/.) Now, Emacs Lock is a proper minor mode
899 `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection against exiting Emacs and killing the
900 buffer can be set separately. The mechanism for auto turning off
901 protection for buffers with inferior processes has been generalized.
904 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
907 ** `char-direction-table' and the associated function `char-direction'
908 were deleted. They were buggy and inferior to the new support of
909 bidirectional editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the
910 bidirectional properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property'
911 with the last argument `bidi-class'.
914 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
915 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
916 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
917 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
919 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
920 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
921 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
922 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
924 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
925 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
926 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
929 ** Removed obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
931 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
933 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
934 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
935 programmer-visible consequences.
937 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
941 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
942 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
943 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
944 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
945 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
946 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
948 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
949 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
950 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
951 has now been removed.
953 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
955 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases were removed:
956 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
957 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
958 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
959 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
960 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
961 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
962 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
965 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases were removed:
966 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char, and
967 font-lock-defaults-alist.
969 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
970 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
972 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
975 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
977 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
978 The `lexical-binding' variable lets code use lexical scoping for local
979 variables. It is typically set via file-local variables, in which case it
980 applies to all the code in that file.
982 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
983 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
985 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
986 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
988 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
990 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
991 declared as dynamically bound.
993 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
994 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
995 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
997 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
1000 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
1001 This returns the actual value of base direction of the paragraph at
1005 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
1006 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left (RTL) scripts,
1007 this function returns another string which can be safely inserted into
1008 a buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
1009 right of that string. (This works by appending the Unicode
1010 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character when the argument string might need that.)
1012 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right (LTR)
1013 paragraph direction and you need to insert a string whose contents and
1014 directionality are not known in advance, without disrupting the layout
1020 *** Window tree functions are accessible in Elisp.
1021 Functions are provided to return the parent, siblings or child windows
1022 of any window including internal windows (windows not associated with a
1023 buffer) in the window tree.
1026 *** Window manipulation can deal with internal windows.
1027 Many window handling functions like `split-window', `delete-window', or
1028 `delete-other-windows' as well as the window resizing functions can now
1029 act on any window including internal ones.
1032 *** window-total-height/-width vs window-body-height/-width.
1033 The function `window-height' has been renamed to `window-total-height'
1034 and `window-width' has been renamed to `window-body-width'. The old
1035 names are provided as aliases. Two new functions `window-total-width'
1036 and `window-body-height' are provided.
1039 *** Window parameters specific to window handling functions.
1040 For each window you can specify a parameter to override the default
1041 behavior of a number of functions like `split-window', `delete-window'
1042 and `delete-other-windows'. The variable `ignore-window-parameters'
1043 allows to ignore processing such parameters.
1046 *** New semantics of third argument of `split-window'.
1047 The third argument of `split-window' has been renamed to SIDE and can be
1048 set to any of the values 'below, 'right, 'above, or 'left to make the
1049 new window appear on the corresponding side of the window that shall be
1050 split. Any other value of SIDE will cause `split-window' to split the
1051 window into two side-by-side windows as before.
1054 *** `split-window-above-each-other' and `split-window-side-by-side'.
1055 The commands `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally'
1056 have been renamed to `split-window-above-each-other' and
1057 `split-window-side-by-side' respectively. The old names are provided as
1061 *** Window resizing functions.
1062 A new standard function for resizing windows called `resize-window' has
1063 been introduced. This and all other functions for resizing windows no
1064 longer delete any windows when they become too small.
1067 *** `adjust-window-trailing-edge' adjustments.
1068 `adjust-window-trailing-edge' can now deal with fixed-size windows and
1069 is able to resize other windows if a window adjacent to the trailing
1070 edge cannot be shrunk any more. This makes its behavior more similar to
1071 that of Emacs 21 without compromising, however, its inability to delete
1072 windows which was introduced in Emacs 22.
1075 *** Window-local buffer lists.
1076 Windows now have local buffer lists. This means that removing a buffer
1077 from display in a window will preferably show the buffer previously
1078 shown in that window with its previous window-start and window-point
1079 positions. This also means that the same buffer may be automatically
1080 shown twice even if it already appears in another window.
1083 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
1084 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
1085 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
1086 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
1088 *** `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally' renamed
1089 to `split-window-above-each-other' and `split-window-side-by-side'
1090 respectively. The old names are kept as aliases.
1094 **** The second arg to `display-buffer' and `pop-to-buffer' is now
1095 named ACTION, and takes a display action of the same form as
1096 `display-buffer-base-action' (see Changes, above). A non-nil,
1097 non-list value is treated specially, as the old meaning.
1099 **** New variable `display-buffer-overriding-action'.
1101 **** The procedure of `display-buffer' etc. to choose a window is
1102 determined by combining `display-buffer-overriding-action',
1103 `display-buffer-alist', the ACTION arg, `display-buffer-base-action',
1104 and `display-buffer-fallback-action'. The second and fourth of these
1105 are user-customizable variables.
1107 See the docstring of `display-buffer' for details.
1110 *** New behavior of `quit-window'.
1111 The behavior of `quit-window' has been changed in order to restore the
1112 state before the last buffer display operation in that window.
1116 *** New variable completion-extra-properties used to specify extra properties
1117 of the current completion:
1118 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
1119 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
1121 *** Functions on completion-at-point-functions can return any of the properties
1122 valid for completion-extra-properties.
1124 *** completion-annotate-function is obsolete.
1126 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
1127 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
1128 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
1129 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
1130 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
1131 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
1132 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
1134 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
1135 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
1137 ** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
1138 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
1139 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
1140 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
1141 must also be supplied.
1144 ** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
1145 Instead, the offending function is removed.
1147 ** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.
1149 ** `server-eval-at' is provided to allow evaluating forms on different
1150 Emacs server instances.
1152 ** `call-process' allows a `(:file "file")' spec to redirect STDOUT to
1156 ** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
1157 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
1158 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
1159 jumping all the way to the top-level.
1161 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
1162 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
1164 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
1165 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
1166 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
1169 ** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
1170 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
1171 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
1172 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
1173 Together with this new variable come a new hook
1174 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
1175 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
1176 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
1179 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
1182 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
1184 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
1187 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
1188 The prog-mode-hook it defines can be used to enable features for
1189 programming modes. For example:
1190 (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode)
1191 enables on the fly spell checking for comments and strings for
1194 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
1197 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
1198 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
1199 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
1200 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
1202 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
1203 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
1204 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
1207 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
1208 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
1209 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
1213 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
1215 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
1217 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
1219 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
1222 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
1224 *** If Emacs is compiled with ImageMagick support (see Startup
1225 Changes), the function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image
1226 file extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
1227 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
1228 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
1230 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
1232 ** XML and HTML parsing
1234 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
1235 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
1236 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
1237 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
1238 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
1240 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
1244 *** Emacs can be compiled with libgnutls support
1245 This is the default. You will then be able to use the functionality
1246 in gnutls.el, namely the `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'
1247 functions. It's easiest to use these functions through
1248 `open-network-stream' because it can upgrade connections through
1249 STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain SSL, depending on your needs.
1251 Only versions 2.8.x and higher or GnuTLS have been tested.
1253 *** gnutls-log-level
1254 Set `gnutls-log-level' higher than 0 to get debug output. 1 is for
1255 important messages, 2 is for debug data, and higher numbers are as per
1256 the GnuTLS logging conventions. The output is in *Messages*.
1260 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
1263 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
1264 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
1265 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
1266 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
1267 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
1268 displayed with a "spinning bar".
1270 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
1271 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
1273 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook' allow
1274 deferring warnings until the main command loop is executed.
1277 ** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
1278 as well as those in the -*- line.
1281 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
1283 ** keymaps can inherit from multiple parents.
1286 ** New reader macro ## which stands for the empty symbol.
1287 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
1288 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
1289 an empty uninterned symbol.
1291 ** Obsolete functions and variables
1293 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
1294 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
1296 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
1298 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
1301 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
1303 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
1306 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
1307 included in binary distribution.
1309 ** New configure.bat option --without-gnutls to disable automatic
1312 ** New configure.bat option --lib for general library linkage, works
1313 with the USER_LIBS build variable.
1315 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
1317 ** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
1318 ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.
1321 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1322 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1324 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1325 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1326 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1327 (at your option) any later version.
1329 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1330 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1331 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1332 GNU General Public License for more details.
1334 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1335 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1340 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"