1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2014 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.
18 +++ indicates that all necessary documentation updates are complete.
19 (This means all relevant manuals in doc/ AND lisp doc-strings.)
20 --- means no change in the manuals is needed.
21 When you add a new item, use the appropriate mark if you are sure it applies,
22 otherwise leave it unmarked.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.4
28 ** Emacs can now be compiled with ACL support.
29 This happens by default if a suitable support library is found at
30 build time, like libacl on GNU/Linux. To prevent this, use the
31 configure option `--disable-acl'. See below for related features.
34 ** Emacs can now be compiled with file notification support.
35 This happens by default if a suitable system library is found at
36 build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
37 `--without-file-notification'. See below for file-notify features.
38 This feature is not available for the Nextstep port.
41 ** Emacs can now be compiled with zlib support.
42 This happens by default if zlib is present, which it normally is.
43 To prevent this, use the configure option `--without-zlib'.
44 This provides the function `zlib-decompress-region'; see below for details.
47 ** The configure option `--without-compress-info' has been generalized,
48 and renamed to `--without-compress-install'. It now prevents compression
49 of _any_ files during installation.
52 ** The configure option `--with-crt-dir' has been removed.
53 It is no longer needed, as the crt*.o files are no longer linked specially.
56 ** Directories passed to configure option `--enable-locallisppath' are
57 no longer created during installation.
60 ** Emacs for NS (Mac OS X, GNUstep) can be built with ImageMagick support.
61 This requires pkg-config to be available at build time.
64 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.4
67 ** When initializing `load-path', an empty element in the EMACSLOADPATH
68 environment variable (either leading, e.g., ":/foo"; trailing, e.g.,
69 "/foo:"; or embedded, e.g., "/foo::/bar") is replaced with the default
70 load-path (the one that would have been used if EMACSLOADPATH was unset).
71 This makes it easier to _extend_ the load-path via EMACSLOADPATH
72 (previously, EMACSLOADPATH had to specify the complete load-path,
73 including the defaults). (In older versions of Emacs, an empty element
74 was replaced by ".", so use an explicit "." now if that is what you want.)
77 ** The -L option, which normally prepends its argument to load-path,
78 will instead append, if the argument begins with `:' (or `;' on MS Windows;
79 i.e., `path-separator').
82 ** If you use either site-load.el or site-init.el to customize the dumped
83 Emacs executable, any changes to `load-path' that these files make
84 will no longer be present after dumping. To affect a permanent change
85 to `load-path', use the `--enable-locallisppath' option of `configure'.
88 ** The user option `initial-buffer-choice' can now specify a function
89 to set up the initial buffer.
92 * Changes in Emacs 24.4
95 ** New function `zlib-decompress-region', which decompresses gzip- and
96 zlib-format compressed data using built-in zlib support, if available.
99 ** New option `gnutls-verify-error', if non-nil, means that Emacs
100 should reject SSL/TLS certificates that GnuTLS determines as invalid.
101 (This option defaults to nil at present, but this is expected to change
102 in a future release.)
105 ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.
106 If the terminal supports a mouse, clicking on the menu bar, or on
107 sensitive portions of the mode line or header line, will drop down the
108 menu defined at that position. Likewise, clicking C-mouse-2 or
109 C-mouse-2 or C-mouse-3 on the text area will pop up the menus defined
112 If the text terminal does not support a mouse, you can activate the
113 first menu-bar menu by typing F10, which invokes `menu-bar-open'.
115 If you want the previous behavior, whereby F10 invoked `tmm-menubar',
116 customize the option `tty-menu-open-use-tmm' to a non-nil value.
117 (Typing M-` always invokes `tmm-menubar', even if `tty-menu-open-use-tmm'
121 ** The *Messages* buffer is created in `messages-buffer-mode',
122 a new major mode, with read-only status. Any code that might create
123 the *Messages* buffer should call the function `messages-buffer' to do
124 so and set up the mode.
127 ** Emacs can now support ACLs (access control lists).
128 This requires a suitable support library to be found at build time.
129 On GNU/Linux, the POSIX ACL interface is used via libacl.
130 On MS-Windows, the NT Security APIs are used to emulate the POSIX interface.
133 *** Emacs preserves the ACL entries of files when backing up.
135 *** New functions `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' get and set the ACL
138 ** Multi-monitor support has been added.
141 *** New functions `display-monitor-attributes-list' and
142 `frame-monitor-attributes' can be used to obtain information about
143 each physical monitor on multi-monitor setups.
146 *** The functions `display-pixel-width' and `display-pixel-height' now
147 behave consistently among the platforms: they return the pixel width
148 or height for all physical monitors associated with the given display
149 as if they were on X. To get information for each physical
150 monitor, use the new functions above. Similar notes also apply to
151 `x-display-pixel-width', `x-display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
152 `display-mm-height', `x-display-mm-width', and `x-display-mm-height'.
155 ** The cursor stops blinking after 10 blinks (by default) on X and NS.
156 You can change the default by customizing `blink-cursor-blinks'.
159 ** In keymaps where SPC scrolls forward, S-SPC now scrolls backward.
160 This affects View mode, etc.
165 *** The command `apropos-variable' is renamed to `apropos-user-option'.
166 `apropos-user-option' shows all user options while `apropos-variable'
167 shows all variables. When called with a universal prefix argument,
168 the two commands swap their behaviors. When `apropos-do-all' is
169 non-nil, they output the same results.
172 *** The key `?' now describes prefix bindings, like `C-h'.
175 *** The command `describe-function' has been extended for EIEIO.
176 Running it on constructors will show a full description of the
177 generated class. For generic functions, it will show all
178 implementations together with links to the source. The old commands
179 `describe-class', `describe-constructor' and `describe-generic' were
183 *** The function `quail-help' is no longer an interactive command.
184 Use `C-h C-\' (`describe-input-method') instead.
189 *** ImageMagick images now support the :max-width and :max-height keywords.
192 *** When using `create-image' with image data, you can pass a :format
193 attribute (via the property-list argument) in order to help
194 ImageMagick detect the image type. The value should be a MIME
195 content-type that is found in the new variable `image-format-suffixes'.
197 ** Frame and window changes
200 *** The function `window-in-direction' introduced in Emacs 24.1 now
201 takes additional arguments for specifying a reference point, wrapping
202 selection around frame borders, and specifying ways to select the
206 *** New commands `toggle-frame-fullscreen' and `toggle-frame-maximized',
207 bound to <f11> and M-<f10>, respectively.
210 *** New hooks `focus-in-hook', `focus-out-hook'.
211 These are normal hooks run when an Emacs frame gains or loses input focus.
213 *** Emacs can now change frame sizes in units of pixels, rather than
214 text rows or columns. When maximizing a frame or making it fullscreen,
215 remaining extra pixels are no longer given to the minibuffer, the rightmost
216 fringe, or other unusable space, but are distributed among the text
217 areas of the frame's windows. If the new option `frame-resize-pixelwise'
218 is non-nil, all frame size changes happen pixelwise and set the
219 corresponding size hints for the window manager.
221 *** Emacs can now change window sizes in units of pixels.
222 Mouse-dragging a mode line or window divider now changes the size of
223 adjacent windows pixelwise. If the new option `window-resize-pixelwise'
224 is non-nil, functions like `balance-windows-area' and `fit-window-to-buffer'
225 resize windows pixelwise. Most functions for changing or accessing
226 window sizes now have an additional argument that allows changes to apply,
227 or values to be returned, in pixels instead of lines/columns.
230 *** The functions `window-body-height' and `window-body-width' now never
231 count partially visible lines or columns if called with a nil PIXELWISE
234 *** Emacs can now draw dividers between adjacent windows. To put
235 dividers between side-by-side/vertically stacked windows customize the
236 frame parameters `right-divider-width' and `bottom-divider-width' to
237 some positive integer. You can drag dividers with the mouse (they show
238 a corresponding cursor when the mouse hovers over them). You can change
239 the appearance of dividers by customizing the faces `window-divider',
240 `window-divider-first-pixel', and `window-divider-last-pixel'. The last
241 two are useful to provide a 3D effect, or to better distinguish dividers
242 from surrounding display objects.
244 *** New functions are provided to return the pixel sizes of window
245 components, namely `window-scroll-bar-width', `window-mode-line-height'
246 `window-header-line-height', `window-right-divider-width' and
247 `window-bottom-divider-width'.
249 *** The new function `window-text-pixel-size' returns the size of the
250 text of a window's buffer in pixels. This allows functions like
251 `fit-frame-to-buffer' and `fit-window-to-buffer' to accurately fit a
252 window to its buffer as it will be displayed.
254 *** `fit-window-to-buffer' can now resize windows in both dimensions.
255 This behavior is controlled by the new option
256 `fit-window-to-buffer-horizontally'. The new option
257 `fit-frame-to-buffer' allows to fit the window's frame to its buffer.
259 *** `fit-frame-to-buffer' now fits frames in both dimensions. The new
260 options `fit-frame-to-buffer-margins' and `fit-frame-to-buffer-sizes'
261 control the size of the frame and its position on screen.
263 *** Temp Buffer Resize Mode can now adjust height and width of windows
264 and frames. `temp-buffer-resize-mode' is now able to adjust the height
265 and the width of a window displaying a temporary buffer. The new option
266 `temp-buffer-max-width' allows to control the width of temporary buffer
267 windows. Moreover, if the new option `fit-frame-to-buffer' is non-nil
268 and the buffer appears in the root window of a frame, Temp Buffer Resize
269 Mode will try to adjust width and/or height of the frame.
272 *** `split-window' is now a non-interactive function, not a command.
273 As a command, it was a special case of `C-x 2' (`split-window-below'),
274 and as such superfluous. After being reimplemented in Lisp, its
275 interactive form was mistakenly retained.
278 *** The functions `window-size' and `window-total-size' now have an
279 optional argument to return a rounded size value.
282 *** `window-state-put' now allows to put a window state into internal
286 *** New option `scroll-bar-adjust-thumb-portion'.
287 Available only on X, this option allows to control over-scrolling
288 using the scroll bar (i.e. dragging the thumb down even when the end
289 of the buffer is visible).
292 *** New basic action function `display-buffer-in-previous-window' has
293 `display-buffer' display a buffer in a window previously showing that
297 *** New basic action function `display-buffer-at-bottom' has
298 `display-buffer' choose or make a window at the bottom of the selected
301 *** New display action function `display-buffer-no-window' to not
302 display the buffer in a window.
304 *** New display action alist entry `allow-no-window' to indicate the
305 caller of `display-buffer' is ready to handle the case of not
306 displaying the buffer in a window.
308 ** Lisp evaluation changes
310 *** `eval-defun' on an already defined defcustom calls the :set function,
314 *** The commands `eval-expression' (`M-:'), `eval-last-sexp' (`C-x C-e'),
315 and `eval-print-last-sexp' (`C-j' in Lisp Interaction mode) can take a
316 zero prefix argument. This disables truncation of lists in the output,
317 equivalent to setting `(eval-expression-)print-length' and
318 `(eval-expression-)print-level' to nil. Additionally, it causes integers
319 to be printed in other formats (octal, hexadecimal, and character).
322 *** New hook `eval-expression-minibuffer-setup-hook' run by
323 `eval-expression' on entering the minibuffer.
326 ** `write-region-inhibit-fsync' now defaults to t in batch mode.
329 ** `cache-long-line-scans' is now non-nil, and renamed to `cache-long-scans',
330 because it affects caching of paragraph scanning results as well.
331 There is no reason to set this to nil except for debugging purposes.
334 ** The option `set-mark-default-inactive' has been deleted.
335 This unfinished feature was introduced by accident in Emacs 23.1;
336 simply disabling Transient Mark mode does the same thing.
339 ** The default value of `comment-use-global-state' is now t,
340 and this variable has been marked obsolete.
343 ** `emacs-bzr-version' has been renamed to `emacs-repository-version',
344 and works for git too, if you fetch the repository notes.
347 ** New option `load-prefer-newer' affects how the `load' function chooses
348 the file to load. If this is non-nil, then when both .el and .elc
349 versions of a file exist, and the caller did not explicitly specify
350 which one to load, then the newer file is loaded. The default, nil,
351 means to always load the .elc file.
354 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.4
356 ** Indentation changes
359 *** `electric-indent-mode' is now enabled by default.
360 E.g., typing RET reindents the current line and indents the new line.
361 `C-j' inserts a newline but does not indent.
364 *** New buffer-local `electric-indent-local-mode'.
367 *** The behavior of `C-x TAB' (`indent-rigidly') has changed.
368 When invoked without a prefix argument, it now activates a transient
369 mode in which typing <left>, <right>, <S-left>, and <S-right> adjusts
370 the text indentation in the region. Typing any other key resumes
371 normal editing behavior.
374 *** `tab-stop-list' is now implicitly extended to infinity by repeating
375 the last step. Its default value is changed to nil, which means a tab
376 stop every `tab-width' columns.
379 ** New command `cycle-spacing' acts like a smarter `just-one-space'.
380 When called in succession, it cycles between spacing conventions:
381 one space, no spaces, original spacing.
384 ** The new function `fill-single-char-nobreak-p' can stop fill from breaking
385 a line after a one-letter word, which is an error in some typographical
386 conventions. To use it, add it to the `fill-nobreak-predicate' hook.
389 ** Uniquify is enabled by default, with `post-forward-angle-brackets' style.
392 ** New command `C-x SPC' (`rectangle-mark-mode') makes a rectangular region.
393 Most commands are still unaware of it, but kill/yank do work on the rectangle.
396 ** New option `visual-order-cursor-movement'.
397 If this is non-nil, cursor motion with arrow keys will follow the
398 visual order of characters on the screen: <left> always moves to the
399 left, <right> always moves to the right, disregarding the surrounding
400 bidirectional context.
405 *** All interactive commands that read a register (`copy-to-register', etc.)
406 now display a temporary window after `register-preview-delay' seconds
407 that summarizes existing registers. To disable this, set that option to nil.
408 Interactive commands that read registers and want to make use of this
409 should use `register-read-with-preview' to read register names.
412 *** New command `frameset-to-register' bound to `C-x r f', replacing
413 `frame-configuration-to-register'. It offers similar functionality,
414 plus enhancements like the ability to restore deleted frames.
415 (`frame-configuration-to-register' still exists, but no longer has a
419 *** New command `C-x C-k x' (`kmacro-to-register') stores keyboard
423 ** New command `delete-duplicate-lines'.
424 This searches the region for identical lines, and removes all but one
425 copy of each repeated line. The lines need not be sorted.
428 ** `blink-matching-paren' now only highlights the matching open-paren
429 by default, instead of moving cursor. Set this variable to `jump' to
430 enable the old behavior.
433 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
436 ** More packages look for ~/.emacs.d/<foo> additionally to ~/.<foo>.
438 ~/.emacs.d/timelog replaces ~/.timelog
439 ~/.emacs.d/vip replaces ~/.vip
440 ~/.emacs.d/viper replaces ~/.viper
441 ~/.emacs.d/ido.last replaces ~/.ido.last
442 ~/.emacs.d/kkcrc replaces ~/.kkcrc
443 ~/.emacs.d/quickurls replaces ~/.quickurls
444 ~/.emacs.d/idlwave/ replaces ~/.idlwave/
445 ~/.emacs.d/bdfcache.el replaces ~/.bdfcache.el
446 ~/.emacs.d/places replaces ~/.emacs-places
447 ~/.emacs.d/shadows replaces ~/.shadows
448 ~/.emacs.d/shadow_todo replaces ~/.shadow_todo
449 ~/.emacs.d/strokes replaces ~/.strokes
450 ~/.emacs.d/notes replaces ~/.notes
451 ~/.emacs.d/type-break replaces ~/.type-break
452 Also the following files used by the now obsolete otodo-mode.el:
453 ~/.emacs.d/todo-do replaces ~/.todo-do
454 ~/.emacs.d/todo-done replaces ~/.todo-done
455 ~/.emacs.d/todo-top replaces ~/.todo-top
457 ** Backtrace and debugger
460 *** New Lisp debugger command `v' (`debugger-toggle-locals') toggles the
461 display of local variables of the current stack frame.
464 *** The Lisp debugger's `e' command (`debugger-eval-expression') now includes
465 the lexical environment when evaluating the code in the context at point
466 (and so allows you to access lexical variables).
469 *** New minor mode `jit-lock-debug-mode' helps you debug code run via JIT Lock.
472 ** Battery information can now be retrieved from BSD's `apm' utility.
475 ** In the Buffer Menu, `M-s a C-o' shows matches for a regexp in marked buffers.
477 ** Calendar and Diary
480 *** New faces `calendar-weekday-header', `calendar-weekend-header',
481 and `calendar-month-header'.
484 *** New option `calendar-day-header-array'.
487 *** New variable `diary-from-outlook-function', used by the command
488 `diary-from-outlook'.
491 *** The variable `calendar-font-lock-keywords' is obsolete.
496 *** Calc by default now uses the Gregorian calendar for all dates, and
497 uses January 1, 1 AD as its day number 1. Previously Calc used the
498 Julian calendar for dates before September 14, 1752, and it used
499 December 31, 1 BC as its day number 1; the new scheme is more
500 consistent with Calendar's calendrical system and day numbering.
503 *** The new option `calc-gregorian-switch' lets you configure if
504 (and when) Calc switches from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
507 *** Support for ISO 8601 dates.
514 **** The cpp-root project now supports executing a compile command.
515 It can be set through the new :compile-command slot or the
516 buffer-local variable `compile-command'.
519 **** Better selection of include directories for the 'linux' project.
520 Include directories now support out-of-tree build directories and
521 target architecture auto-detection.
526 **** Improved detection of used namespaces in current scope in C++.
528 **** Parsing of default values for variables and function arguments in C/C++.
529 They are also displayed by the summarize feature in the mode line.
531 **** Improved parsing of function pointers in C/C++.
532 This also includes parsing of function pointers as function arguments.
534 **** Parsing of C/C++ preprocessor macros that open new scope.
535 For example, this enables parsing of macros that open new namespaces.
537 **** Support for 'this' pointer in inline member functions in C++.
542 *** New macro `cl-tagbody'.
543 This executes statements while allowing for control transfer to labels.
546 *** letf is now just an alias for cl-letf.
551 *** CUA mode now uses `delete-selection-mode' and `shift-select-mode'.
552 Hence, you can now enable it independently from those modes, and from
553 `transient-mark-mode'.
556 *** `cua-highlight-region-shift-only' is now obsolete.
557 You can disable `transient-mark-mode' to get the same result.
560 *** CUA's rectangles can now be used without CUA by calling the command
561 `cua-rectangle-mark-mode'.
566 *** Support for completion, ElDoc, and Flycheck has been added.
569 *** The current CFEngine syntax is parsed from "cf-promises -s json".
570 There is a fallback syntax available if you don't have cf-promises or
571 if your version doesn't support that option. See option `cfengine-cf-promises'.
574 ** Delete Selection mode can now be used without Transient Mark mode.
579 *** `desktop-save-mode' by default now auto-saves an existing desktop file
580 after `desktop-auto-save-timeout'. To disable this, customize that option
584 *** Desktop now saves and restores the frame/window configuration.
585 To disable this, set `desktop-restore-frames' to nil.
586 See also related options `desktop-restore-reuses-frames',
587 `desktop-restore-in-current-display', and `desktop-restore-forces-onscreen'.
590 ** New Dired minor mode `dired-hide-details-mode' toggles whether details,
591 such as file ownership or permissions, are visible.
594 ** You can enable ElDoc inside the `eval-expression' minibuffer with:
595 (add-hook 'eval-expression-minibuffer-setup-hook 'eldoc-mode)
596 The results display in the mode line.
598 ** Electric Pair mode
601 *** New option `electric-pair-preserve-balance', enabled by default.
602 If non-nil, pairing/skipping only kicks in when that help the balance
603 of parentheses and quotes, i.e. the buffer should end up at least as
606 You can further control this behavior by adjusting the predicates
607 stored in `electric-pair-inhibit-predicate' and `electric-pair-skip-self'.
610 *** New option `electric-pair-delete-adjacent-pairs', enabled by default.
611 In `electric-pair-mode', the commands `backward-delete-char' and
612 `backward-delete-char-untabify' are now bound to electric variants
613 that delete the closer when invoked between adjacent pairs.
616 *** New option `electric-pair-open-newline-between-pairs', enabled by default.
617 In `electric-pair-mode', inserting a newline between adjacent pairs
618 opens an extra newline after point, which is indented if
619 `electric-indent-mode' is also set.
622 *** New option `electric-pair-skip-whitespace', enabled by default.
623 This controls if skipping over closing delimiters should jump over any
624 whitespace slack. Setting it to `chomp' makes it delete this
625 whitespace. See also the variable `electric-pair-skip-whitespace-chars'.
628 *** New variables control the pairing in strings and comments.
629 You can customize `electric-pair-text-pairs' and
630 `electric-pair-text-syntax-table' to tweak pairing behavior inside
631 strings and comments.
634 ** New EPA option `epa-mail-aliases'.
635 You can set this to a list of email address aliases that `epa-mail-encrypt'
636 should use to find keys.
639 ** New ERC option `erc-accidental-paste-threshold-seconds'.
640 If set to a number, this can be used to avoid accidentally pasting large
641 amounts of data into the ERC input.
644 ** New ERT macro `skip-unless' allows skipping ERT tests.
645 See the ERT manual for details.
650 *** `eshell' now supports visual subcommands and options.
651 Eshell has been able to handle "visual" commands (interactive,
652 non-line oriented commands such as top that require display
653 capabilities not provided by eshell) by running them in an Emacs
654 terminal emulator. See `eshell-visual-commands'.
656 This feature has been extended to subcommands and options that make a
657 usually line-oriented command a visual command. Typical examples are
658 "git log" and "git <command> --help", which display their output in a
659 pager by default. See `eshell-visual-subcommands' and
660 `eshell-visual-options'.
663 *** New Eshell-Tramp module.
664 External su and sudo commands are now the default; the internal,
665 Tramp-using variants can still be used by enabling the eshell-tramp
669 ** New F90 mode option `f90-smart-end-names'.
672 Icomplete is now more similar to Ido.
675 *** Icomplete by default now applies to all forms of minibuffer completion.
676 The variable `icomplete-with-completion-tables' (now a user option)
677 controls this. To restore the old behavior, set it back to
678 '(internal-complete-buffer).
681 *** You can navigate through and select completions using the keys
682 from `icomplete-minibuffer-map'.
685 *** The string that separates potential completions is now a customizable
686 option (`icomplete-separator'). The default is " | " rather than ",".
689 *** New face `icomplete-first-match'; and new options
690 `icomplete-hide-common-prefix' and `icomplete-show-matches-on-no-input'.
693 *** The option `icomplete-show-key-bindings' has been removed.
698 *** An Ido user manual is now included.
701 *** The option `ido-use-virtual-buffers' can now take the value `auto'.
702 This means to use virtual buffers if the current ido input does not match
706 *** The variable `ido-decorations' can optionally have two new elements,
707 which are the brackets to use around the sole remaining completion.
712 *** New commands `n' (`image-next-file') and `p' (`image-previous-file')
713 visit the next image file and the previous image file in the same
714 directory, respectively.
717 *** New commands to show specific frames of multi-frame images.
718 `f' (`image-next-frame') and `b' (`image-previous-frame') visit the
719 next or previous frame. `F' (`image-goto-frame') shows a specific frame.
722 *** New commands to speed up, slow down, or reverse animation.
723 `a +' (`image-increase-speed') and `a -' (`image-decrease-speed') to
724 speed up and slow down the animation. `a r' (`image-reverse-speed')
725 to reverse it and `a 0' (`image-reset-speed') to reset it.
728 *** The command `image-mode-fit-frame' deletes other windows.
729 When toggling, it restores the frame's previous window configuration.
730 It also has an optional frame argument, which can be used by Lisp
731 callers to fit the image to a frame other than the selected frame.
736 *** New global command `M-s h .' (`highlight-symbol-at-point') highlights
737 the symbol found near point.
740 *** New option `hi-lock-auto-select-face'. When non-nil, hi-lock commands
741 will cycle through faces in `hi-lock-face-defaults' without prompting.
744 ** New Imenu option `imenu-generic-skip-comments-and-strings'.
749 *** New Info face `info-index-match', used to highlight matches in index
750 entries displayed by `Info-index-next', `Info-virtual-index' and
754 *** The Info-edit command is obsolete. Editing Info nodes by hand
755 has not been relevant for some time.
760 *** New option `js-switch-indent-offset'.
763 *** Better indentation of multiple-variable declarations.
764 If a declaration spans several lines, variables on the following lines
765 are lined up to the first one.
768 *** Recognition and better indentation of continuations in array comprehensions.
771 ** MH-E has been updated to version 8.5 - see separate MH-E-NEWS file.
776 *** Font locking for Texinfo comments and new keywords.
778 *** Completion in Octave file buffers.
782 *** Jump to definition.
784 *** Documentation lookup/search.
787 ** OPascal mode is the new name for Delphi mode
790 *** All delphi-* variables and functions have been renamed to opascal-*.
791 Obsolete aliases exist for those likely to have been used externally.
794 *** The option `delphi-newline-always-indents' has been removed.
795 Use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
798 *** The TAB key runs the standard `indent-for-tab-command', not `delphi-tab'.
803 *** In the `list-packages' buffer, you can use `f' (`package-menu-filter')
804 to filter the list of packages by a keyword.
807 *** In the `describe-package' buffer, there are now buttons listing the
808 keywords related to the package. Click on a button to see other packages
809 related to that keyword.
812 *** The format of `archive-contents' files, generated by package
813 repositories, has changed to allow a new (fifth) element in the data
814 vectors, containing an associative list with extra properties.
815 (For example, `describe-package' uses the `:url' extra property to
816 display a "Homepage" header.)
819 ** In Prolog mode, `prolog-use-smie' has been removed,
820 along with the non-SMIE indentation code.
825 *** The new command `remember-notes' creates a buffer that is saved on exit.
826 You can use it as a more permanent *scratch* buffer.
829 *** Remember can now store notes in separate files.
830 To use this, add `remember-store-in-files' to the `remember-handler-functions'
831 option. The files are saved in `remember-data-directory' using
832 names specified by `remember-directory-file-name-format'.
837 *** Customize `rmail-mbox-format' to influence some minor aspects of
838 how Rmail displays non-MIME messages.
841 *** The `unrmail' command now converts from BABYL to mboxrd format,
842 rather than mboxo. Customize `unrmail-mbox-format' to change this.
847 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
850 *** New `electric-indent-mode' integration.
853 *** New option `ruby-encoding-magic-comment-style'.
856 *** New option `ruby-custom-encoding-magic-comment-template'.
859 *** New option `ruby-align-to-stmt-keywords'.
862 *** New option `ruby-align-chained-calls'.
865 *** More Ruby file types have been added to `auto-mode-alist'.
867 ** Search and Replace
870 *** New global command `M-s .' (`isearch-forward-symbol-at-point')
871 starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search forward with the
872 symbol found near point added to the search string initially.
875 *** `C-x 8 RET' in Isearch mode reads a character by its Unicode name
876 and adds it to the search string.
879 *** `M-s i' in Isearch mode toggles whether search matches invisible text.
882 *** `query-replace' skips invisible text when `search-invisible' is nil,
883 and opens overlays with hidden text when `search-invisible' is `open'.
886 *** A negative prefix arg of replacement commands replaces backward.
887 `M-- M-%' replaces a string backward, `M-- C-M-%' replaces a regexp
888 backward, `M-s w words M-- M-%' replaces a sequence of words backward.
891 *** By default, prefix arguments do not now terminate Isearch mode.
892 Set `isearch-allow-prefix' to nil to restore old behavior.
895 *** More Isearch commands accept prefix arguments, namely
896 `isearch-printing-char', `isearch-quote-char', `isearch-yank-word',
900 *** Word search now matches whitespace at the beginning/end
901 of the search string if it contains leading/trailing whitespace.
902 In an incremental word search or when using a non-nil LAX argument
903 of `word-search-regexp', the lax matching can also match part of
904 the first word (in addition to the lax matching of the last word).
905 The same rules are now applied to the symbol search with the difference
906 that it matches symbols, and non-symbol characters between symbols.
909 ** New SES command `ses-rename-cell' allows assignment of names to SES cells.
912 ** The shell.el option `explicit-bash-args' includes --noediting by default.
913 All non-ancient Bash versions support this option.
918 *** The SMIE indentation engine is now used by default - see `sh-use-smie'.
921 *** `sh-mode' now has its own setting for `add-log-current-defun-function'.
926 *** You can customize the SMIE indentation of a mode via `smie-config'.
927 The command `smie-config-guess' can help you derive the appropriate
928 indentation settings, if you provide it with an indented sample file.
929 Use `smie-config-save' to save the result.
932 *** You can customize the SMIE indentation of a file by adding an entry to
933 the file's local variables of the form: `eval: (smie-config-local '(RULES))'.
936 *** New commands `smie-config-show-indent' and `smie-config-set-indent'.
941 *** Improved login monitoring and appropriate response to login failures.
942 New variable `sql-login-delay' defines maximum wait time for a connection.
945 SQL*Plus script placeholders are properly highlighted and identified
946 in `sql-placeholders-filter'. When starting SQL*Plus, `sql-oracle-options'
947 are passed before the logon parameter, as required. The default now
948 includes `-L', to limit the number of logon attempts per invocation.
951 ** New Term mode option `term-suppress-hard-newline'.
954 ** Todo mode has been rewritten and enhanced.
955 The Todo mode user manual describes all commands and most user
956 options. To support some of these features, a new file format is
957 used, which is incompatible with the old format; however, you can
958 convert old todo and done item files to the new format on initializing
959 the first new todo file, or at any later time with the provided
960 conversion command. The previous version of todo-mode.el has been
961 renamed to otodo-mode.el and is now obsolete. New features include:
963 *** Support for multiple todo files and archive files of done items.
965 *** Renaming, reordering, moving, merging, and deleting categories.
967 *** Sortable tabular summaries of categories and the item types they contain.
969 *** Cross-category lists of items filtered by specific criteria.
971 *** More fine-grained interaction with the Emacs diary, by being able to
972 decide for each todo item whether it appears in the Fancy Diary display.
974 *** Highly flexible new item insertion and item editing.
976 *** Moving items between categories, storing done items in their category
977 or in archive files, undoing or unarchiving done items.
979 *** Reprioritizing items by inputting a numerical priority.
981 *** Extensive customizability of operation and display, including many faces.
986 *** `trace-function' and `trace-function-background' no longer prompt for
987 the output buffer. Unless you use a prefix argument, they output to
991 *** With a prefix argument, `trace-function' and `trace-function-background'
992 will prompt for a "context". This is a Lisp expression, whose value at the
993 time the function is entered/exited is printed along with the function's
999 *** The experimental url syntax for remote file names has been removed.
1002 *** New connection method "adb", which allows to access Android
1003 devices by the Android Debug Bridge. The variable `tramp-adb-program'
1004 can be used to adapt the path of the "adb" program, if needed.
1007 *** The connection methods "plink1", "ssh1", "ssh2", "scp1", "scp2",
1008 "scpc" and "rsyncc" are discontinued. The ssh option
1009 "ControlMaster=auto" is set automatically in all ssh-based methods,
1010 when possible. See `tramp-use-ssh-controlmaster-options'.
1013 *** Handlers for `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' for remote machines
1014 which support POSIX ACLs.
1017 *** Handlers for `file-notify-add-watch' and `file-notify-rm-watch'
1018 for remote machines which support filesystem notifications.
1021 ** New URL command `url-cookie-list' displays the current cookies,
1022 and allows you to interactively remove cookies.
1024 ** VC and related modes
1027 *** In VC directory mode, `D' displays diffs between VC-controlled
1028 whole tree revisions.
1031 *** In VC directory mode, `L' lists the change log for the current VC
1032 controlled tree in a window.
1035 *** In VC directory mode, `I' shows a log of changes that will be
1036 received with a pull operation.
1039 *** `C-x v G' (globally) and `G' (in VC directory mode) ignores a file
1040 under current version control system. When called with a prefix
1041 argument, you can remove a file from the ignored file list.
1046 *** New options: `vhdl-actual-generic-name', `vhdl-beautify-options'.
1049 *** New commands: `vhdl-fix-statement-region', `vhdl-fix-statement-buffer'.
1052 ** The Woman commands `woman-default-faces' and `woman-monochrome-faces'
1053 are obsolete. Customize the `woman-*' faces instead.
1055 ** Obsolete packages
1058 *** iswitchb.el; use icomplete-mode.
1061 *** longlines.el; use visual-line-mode.
1070 *** terminal.el; use term.el instead.
1073 *** the old version of todo-mode.el (renamed to otodo-mode.el).
1076 *** xesam.el (owing to the cancellation of the XESAM project).
1079 *** yow.el; use fortune.el or cookie1.el instead.
1082 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
1085 ** New package `eww' is a built-in web browser.
1086 It is only available if Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support.
1089 ** New minor mode `superword-mode'.
1090 This overrides the default word motion commands to treat "symbol_words"
1091 as a single word, similar to what `subword-mode' does.
1094 ** New package nadvice.el offers lighter-weight advice facilities.
1097 *** add-function/remove-function, which can be used to add/remove code on any
1098 function-carrying place, such as process-filters or `<foo>-function' hooks.
1100 *** advice-add/advice-remove to add/remove a piece of advice on a named
1101 function, much like `defadvice' does.
1103 ** New package frameset.el.
1104 It provides a set of operations to save a frameset (the state of all
1105 or a subset of the existing frames and windows, somewhat similar to a
1106 frame configuration), both in-session and persistently, and restore it
1107 at some point in the future.
1110 ** New package filenotify.el provides an interface for file system
1111 notifications. It requires that Emacs be compiled with one of the
1112 low-level libraries gfilenotify.c, inotify.c or w32notify.c.
1115 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
1118 ** `kill-region' has lost its `yank-handler' optional argument.
1121 ** `(input-pending-p)' no longer runs other timers that are ready to run.
1122 The new optional CHECK-TIMERS parameter allows for the prior behavior.
1125 ** `defvar' and `defcustom' in a let-binding affect the "external" default.
1128 ** The syntax of ?» and ?« is now punctuation instead of matched parens.
1129 Some languages match those as »...«, and others as «...», so it is
1130 better for Emacs to stay neutral by default.
1133 ** In compiled Lisp files, the header no longer includes a timestamp.
1136 ** The default file coding for Emacs Lisp files is now utf-8.
1137 (See `file-coding-system-alist'.) In most cases, this change is
1138 transparent, but files that contain unusual characters without
1139 specifying an explicit coding system may fail to load with obscure
1140 errors. You should either convert them to utf-8 or add an explicit
1144 ** `overriding-terminal-local-map' no longer replaces the local keymaps.
1145 It used to disable the minor mode, major mode, and text-property keymaps,
1146 whereas now it simply has higher precedence.
1149 ** Default process filters and sentinels are not nil any more.
1150 Instead they default to a function that does what the nil value used to do.
1153 ** `read-event' does not return decoded chars in ttys any more.
1154 As was the case in Emacs 22 and before, the decoding of terminal
1155 input, according to `keyboard-coding-system', is not performed in
1156 `read-event' any more. But unlike in Emacs 22, this decoding is still
1157 done before input-decode-map, function-key-map, etc.
1160 ** The option `inhibit-local-menu-bar-menus' has been removed.
1163 ** Frame-local variables that affect redisplay do not work any more.
1164 More specifically, redisplay does not bother to check for a frame-local
1165 value when looking up variables.
1168 ** nil and "unbound" are indistinguishable in `symbol-function'.
1169 `symbol-function' does not signal a `void-function' error any more.
1170 To determine if a symbol's function definition is void, use `fboundp'.
1173 ** `defadvice' does not honor the `freeze' flag and cannot advise
1174 special-forms any more.
1177 ** `dolist' no longer binds VAR while evaluating the RESULT form,
1178 when lexical binding is enabled. Previously, VAR was bound to nil,
1179 which often led to spurious unused-variable warnings.
1182 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
1183 The second argument is no longer an SELinux context, instead it is an
1184 alist of extended attributes as returned by the new function
1185 `file-extended-attributes'. The attributes can be applied to another
1186 file using `set-file-extended-attributes'.
1189 ** By default `copy-file' no longer copies file permission bits to an
1190 existing destination; and it sets the file permission bits of a newly
1191 created destination to those of the source, masked by the default file
1192 permissions. To copy the file permission bits, pass t as the
1193 PRESERVE-PERMISSIONS argument of `copy-file'.
1196 ** `visited-file-modtime' now returns -1 for nonexistent files.
1197 Formerly it returned a list (-1 LOW USEC PSEC), but this was ambiguous
1198 in the presence of files with negative time stamps.
1201 ** The cars of the elements in `interpreter-mode-alist' are now
1202 treated as regexps rather than literal strings.
1205 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
1208 ** The second argument of `eval' can now specify a lexical environment.
1211 ** New functions `special-form-p' and `macrop'.
1214 ** New macro `define-alternatives' can be used to define generic commands.
1215 Generic commands are interactive functions whose implementation can be
1216 selected among several alternatives, as a matter of user preference.
1219 ** If you give a symbol a `defalias-fset-function' property, `defalias'
1220 on that symbol will use the associated value as a function to call
1224 ** New variable `enable-dir-local-variables'.
1225 Directory-local variables are ignored if this is nil. This may be
1226 useful for modes that want to ignore directory-locals while still
1227 respecting file-local variables.
1230 ** New function `get-pos-property'.
1233 ** `read-regexp' now uses the new variable `read-regexp-defaults-function'
1234 as a function to call to provide default values.
1236 ** Completion changes
1239 *** The separator used by `completing-read-multiple' is now a regexp.
1240 The default `crm-separator' has been changed to allow surrounding spaces
1244 *** The `common-substring' argument of `display-completion-list',
1245 which has been documented as obsolete since Emacs 23.1, is now _really_
1246 obsolete, and no longer advertised. Instead either call
1247 `completion-hilit-commonality' to add the highlighting; or use
1248 `completion-all-completions', which returns highlighted strings.
1251 *** New function `completion-table-with-cache' is a wrapper for
1252 `completion-table-dynamic' that caches the result of the last lookup.
1255 *** New function `completion-table-merge' to combine several
1256 completion tables by merging their completions.
1259 ** New minor modes `prettify-symbols-mode' and `global-prettify-symbols-mode'
1260 display specified symbols as composed characters. E.g., in Emacs Lisp mode,
1261 this replaces the string "lambda" with the Greek lambda character.
1266 *** Functions to pop up menus and dialogs now work on all terminals,
1267 including TTYs. This includes `x-popup-menu', `x-popup-dialog',
1268 `message-box', `yes-or-no-p', etc.
1270 The function `display-popup-menus-p' will now return non-nil for a
1271 display or frame whenever a mouse is supported on that display or
1275 *** New hook `tty-setup-hook', run at the end of initializing a text terminal.
1278 *** The hook `term-setup-hook' is obsolete. It is entirely equivalent
1279 to `emacs-startup-hook'. See also the new `tty-setup-hook'.
1282 ** New hook `pre-redisplay-function'.
1285 ** New bool-vector set operation functions
1286 *** `bool-vector-exclusive-or'
1287 *** `bool-vector-union'
1288 *** `bool-vector-intersection'
1289 *** `bool-vector-set-difference'
1290 *** `bool-vector-not'
1291 *** `bool-vector-subsetp'
1292 *** `bool-vector-count-consecutive'
1293 *** `bool-vector-count-population'
1296 ** Comparison functions =, <, >, <=, >= can now take many arguments.
1298 ** Error-handling changes
1301 *** New function `define-error'.
1304 *** `with-demoted-errors' takes an additional argument `format'.
1307 ** New macro `with-eval-after-load'.
1308 This is like the old `eval-after-load', but better behaved.
1311 ** New library subr-x.el with miscellaneous small utility functions
1312 *** `hash-table-keys'
1313 *** `hash-table-values'
1314 *** `string-blank-p'
1315 *** `string-empty-p'
1317 *** `string-reverse'
1318 *** `string-trim-left'
1319 *** `string-trim-right'
1321 *** `string-remove-prefix'
1322 *** `string-remove-suffix'
1325 ** Obsoleted functions
1328 *** `lisp-complete-symbol'
1329 *** `field-complete'
1330 *** `minibuffer-completion-contents'
1331 *** `isearch-nonincremental-exit-minibuffer'
1332 *** `isearch-filter-visible'
1333 *** `generic-make-keywords-list'
1334 *** `get-upcase-table' (use `case-table-get-table' instead).
1337 ** `with-wrapper-hook' is obsoleted by `add-function'.
1338 The few hooks that used with-wrapper-hook are replaced as follows:
1339 *** `abbrev-expand-function' obsoletes `abbrev-expand-functions'.
1340 *** `completion-in-region-function' obsoletes `completion-in-region-functions'.
1341 *** `filter-buffer-substring-function' obsoletes `filter-buffer-substring-functions'.
1344 ** `byte-compile-interactive-only-functions' is now obsolete.
1345 To specify that a command should only be called interactively, give it
1346 a non-nil `interactive-only' property.
1349 ** `split-string' now takes an optional argument TRIM.
1350 The value, if non-nil, is a regexp that specifies what to trim from
1351 the start and end of each substring.
1354 ** New function `string-suffix-p'.
1356 ** File-handling changes
1359 *** Support for filesystem notifications.
1360 Emacs now supports notifications of filesystem changes, such as
1361 creation, modification, and deletion of files. This requires the
1362 `glib' API, or the 'inotify' API (on GNU/Linux systems only). On
1363 MS-Windows systems, this is supported for Windows XP and newer
1367 *** The 9th element returned by `file-attributes' is now unspecified.
1368 Formerly, it was t if the file's gid would change if file were deleted
1369 and recreated. This value has been inaccurate for years on many
1370 platforms, and nobody seems to have noticed or cared.
1373 *** The 6th argument to `copy-file' has been renamed to
1374 PRESERVE-PERMISSIONS as it now handles ACL entries and the traditional
1375 Unix file permission bits as well as SELinux context.
1378 *** The function `file-ownership-preserved-p' now has an optional
1379 argument GROUP which causes it check for file group too. This can be
1380 used in place of the 9th element of `file-attributes'.
1383 *** The function `set-visited-file-modtime' now accepts a 0 or -1
1384 argument, with the same interpretation as the returned value of
1385 `visited-file-modtime'.
1387 ** Autorevert changes
1390 *** If Emacs is compiled with file notification support, notifications
1391 are used instead of checking the time stamp of the files. You can
1392 disable this by setting the user option `auto-revert-use-notify' to
1393 nil. Alternatively, a regular expression of directories to be
1394 excluded from file notifications can be specified by
1395 `auto-revert-notify-exclude-dir-regexp'.
1398 *** The new user option `auto-revert-remote-files' enables reversion
1399 of remote files when set to non-nil.
1404 *** The function `face-spec-set' is now like `setq' for face specs.
1405 Its third arg now accepts values specifying a face spec type (defface,
1406 custom, or override spec), and the relevant spec is set accordingly.
1409 *** New function `add-face-text-property', which can be used to
1410 conveniently prepend/append new face properties.
1413 *** Face specs set via Custom themes now replace the `defface' spec
1414 rather than inheriting from it. In other words, setting a face via a
1415 theme now behaves like setting it via Customize: you only need to
1416 specify the attributes that you want, you don't need to unset those
1417 that you don't want.
1420 *** New face characteristic (supports :underline (:style wave))
1421 specifies whether or not the terminal can display a wavy line.
1424 *** New face spec attribute :distant-foreground
1425 specifies foreground to use if background color is near the foreground
1426 color that would otherwise have been used.
1431 *** `image-animated-p' is now `image-multi-frame-p'.
1432 It returns non-nil for any image that contains multiple frames,
1433 whether or not it specifies a frame delay.
1436 *** New variable `image-default-frame-delay' gives the frame delay for
1437 animated images which do not specify a frame delay.
1440 *** New functions `image-current-frame' and `image-show-frame' for getting
1441 and setting the current frame of a multi-frame image.
1446 *** Namespace cleanup by obsolete-aliasing functions to use `eieio-' prefix.
1447 **** object-name -> eieio-object-name
1448 **** object-class -> eieio-object-class
1449 **** object-class-fast -> eieio--object-class
1450 **** object-class-name -> eieio-object-class-name
1451 **** object-name-string -> eieio-object-name-string
1452 **** object-num-slots -> eieio--object-num-slots
1453 **** object-set-name-string -> eieio-object-set-name-string
1454 **** class-of -> eieio-object-class
1455 **** class-name -> eieio-class-name
1456 **** class-parent -> eieio-class-parent
1457 **** class-parents -> eieio-class-parents
1458 **** class-parents-fast -> eieio-class-parents-fast
1459 **** class-children -> eieio-class-children
1460 **** class-num-slots -> eieio--class-num-slots
1461 **** class-precedence-list -> eieio-class-precedence-list
1462 **** class-direct-subclasses -> eieio-class-children
1463 **** class-direct-superclasses -> eieio-class-parents
1465 ** Changes in encoding and decoding of text
1468 *** New coding-system `prefer-utf-8'.
1469 This is like `undecided' but prefers UTF-8 on decoding if the text to
1470 be decoded does not contain any invalid UTF-8 sequences. On encoding,
1471 any non-ASCII characters are automatically encoded as UTF-8.
1474 *** New attributes of coding-systems whose type is `undecided'.
1475 Two new attributes, `:inhibit-null-byte-detection' and
1476 `:inhibit-iso-escape-detection', determine how to detect encoding of
1477 text that includes null bytes and ISO-2022 escape sequences,
1478 respectively. Each of these attributes can be either nil, zero, or
1479 t. If it is t, decoding text ignores null bytes and, respectively,
1480 ISO-2022 sequences. If it is nil, null bytes cause text to be decoded
1481 with no-conversion and ISO-2022 sequences cause Emacs to assume the
1482 text is encoded in one of the ISO-2022 encodings, such as
1483 iso-2022-7bit. If the value is zero, Emacs consults the variables
1484 inhibit-null-byte-detection and inhibit-iso-escape-detection, which
1486 The new attribute `:prefer-utf-8', if non-nil, causes Emacs to prefer
1487 UTF-8 encoding and decoding, whenever possible.
1489 These attributes are only meaningful for coding-systems of type
1490 `undecided'. (The type of a coding-system is determined by its
1491 `:coding-type' attribute and can be accessed by calling the
1492 `coding-system-type' function.)
1495 ** The `time-to-seconds' alias to `float-time' is no longer marked obsolete.
1498 ** New functions `group-gid' and `group-real-gid'.
1501 ** The spelling of the rx.el category `chinese-two-byte' has been
1502 corrected (the first 'e' was missing).
1505 ** Minor internal changes to the details of lock files.
1506 The lock for DIR/FILE is now _always_ DIR/.#FILE.
1507 If DIR/.#FILE already exists and is not an Emacs lock file,
1508 Emacs makes no attempt to lock DIR/FILE. (Previously, it fell back to
1509 numbered lock files DIR/.#FILE.0...).
1510 On file systems that do not support symbolic links, the lock is now a
1511 regular file with contents being what would have been in the symlink.
1513 ** Changes to the Emacs Lisp Coding Conventions in Emacs 24.4
1516 *** The package descriptor and name of global variables, constants,
1517 and functions should be separated by two hyphens if the symbol is not
1518 meant to be used by other packages.
1521 * Changes in Emacs 24.4 on Non-Free Operating Systems
1524 ** The procedure for building Emacs on MS-Windows has changed.
1525 It is now built by running the same configure script as on all other
1526 platforms. This requires the MSYS environment and MinGW development
1527 tools. See the updated instructions in nt/INSTALL for details.
1529 Using the Posix configure script and Makefile's also means a change in
1530 the directory structure of the Emacs installation on Windows. It is
1531 now the same as on GNU and Unix systems. In particular, the auxiliary
1532 programs, such as cmdproxy.exe and hexl.exe, are in
1533 libexec/emacs/VERSION/i686-pc-mingw32 (where VERSION is the Emacs
1534 version), version-independent site-lisp is in share/emacs/site-lisp,
1535 version-specific Lisp files are in share/emacs/VERSION/lisp and in
1536 share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, Info docs are in share/info, and data
1537 files are in share/emacs/VERSION/etc. (Emacs knows about all these
1538 directories and will find the files in there automatically; there's no
1539 need to set any variables due to this change.)
1542 ** Emacs on Windows 2000 and later can now access files and directories
1543 whose names cannot be encoded in the current system codepage.
1545 The new variable `w32-unicode-filenames' controls this feature: if it
1546 is t, Emacs uses Unicode APIs to pass file names to system calls,
1547 which lifts the limitation of file names to the current locale.
1550 ** The "generate a backtrace on fatal error" feature now works on MS Windows.
1551 The backtrace is written to the 'emacs_backtrace.txt' file in the
1552 directory where Emacs was running.
1555 ** The variable `buffer-file-type' is no longer supported.
1556 Setting it has no effect, and %t in the mode-line format is ignored.
1557 Likewise, `file-name-buffer-file-type-alist' is now obsolete, and
1558 modifying it has no effect.
1561 ** Lock files now work on MS-Windows.
1562 This helps to prevent losing your edits if the same file is being
1563 edited in another Emacs session or by another user. See the node
1564 "Interlocking" in the Emacs User Manual for the details. To disable
1565 file locking, customize `create-lockfiles' to nil.
1567 ** New Core Text based font backend for Mac OS X 10.5 and newer.
1568 GNUstep and Mac OS X 10.4 use the old font backend.
1569 To use the old backend by default, do on the command line:
1570 % defaults write org.gnu.Emacs FontBackend ns
1572 ** Improved fullscreen support on Mac OS X.
1573 Emacs supports both native (Mac OS X 10.7 and newer) and "old style" fullscreen.
1574 Customize `ns-use-native-fullscreen' to change the style.
1575 For Mac OS X 10.7 and newer, native is the default.
1577 ** On Mac OS X 10.7 and newer, Emacs uses sRGB colorspace by default.
1578 Customize `ns-use-srgb-colorspace' to disable this. Note that this
1579 does not apply to images.
1582 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.3
1584 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+ version 3.
1585 If you don't pass `--with-x-toolkit' to configure, or if you use
1586 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk' or `--with-x-toolkit=yes', configure will try
1587 to build with Gtk+ version 3, and if that fails, try Gtk+ version 2.
1588 You can explicitly require a specific version by passing
1589 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk2' or `--with-x-toolkit=gtk3' to configure.
1591 ** New configure option `--enable-link-time-optimization', to utilize
1592 an appropriate feature provided by GCC since version 4.5.0.
1594 ** New configure option `--without-all' to disable most of the optional
1595 features (image support, etc.) that are normally enabled by default.
1597 ** New configure option `--enable-gcc-warnings' (for developing/debugging
1598 Emacs). If building with GCC, this enables compile-time checks that
1599 warn/give errors about possibly-questionable C code. On a recent GNU
1600 system there should be no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems
1601 the results may be useful to developers.
1603 ** The configure option `--enable-use-lisp-union-type' has been
1604 renamed to `--enable-check-lisp-object-type', as the resulting
1605 Lisp_Object type no longer uses a union to implement the compile time
1606 check that this option enables.
1608 ** The configure option `--disable-maintainer-mode' has been removed,
1609 as it was confusingly-named and rarely useful.
1611 ** The configure options `--program-prefix', `--program-suffix', and
1612 `--program-transform-name' apply to more than just the installed
1613 binaries. Now they also affect the man pages, icons, and the
1614 etc/emacs.desktop file; but not the info pages, since this would break
1615 links between the various manuals.
1617 ** You can use `NO_BIN_LINK=t make install' to prevent the installation
1618 overwriting "emacs" in the installation bin/ directory with a link
1621 ** Emacs uses libtinfo in preference to libncurses, if available.
1623 ** On FreeBSD and NetBSD, configure no longer adds /usr/local/lib and
1624 /usr/pkg/lib to the linker search path. You must add them yourself if
1627 ** The standalone scripts `rcs-checkin' and `vcdiff' have been removed
1628 (from the bin and libexec directories, respectively). The former is
1629 no longer relevant, the latter is replaced by lisp (in vc-sccs.el).
1632 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.3
1634 ** Emacs no longer searches for `leim-list.el' files beneath the standard
1635 lisp/ directory. There should not be any there anyway. If you have
1636 been adding them there, put them somewhere else; e.g., site-lisp.
1638 ** The `--no-site-lisp' command line option now works for Nextstep builds.
1641 * Changes in Emacs 24.3
1645 *** `C-h f' (`describe-function') can now perform autoloading.
1646 When this command is called for an autoloaded function whose docstring
1647 contains a key substitution construct, that function's library is
1648 automatically loaded, so that the documentation can be shown
1649 correctly. To disable this, set `help-enable-auto-load' to nil.
1651 *** `C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded",
1652 even after their associated libraries have been loaded (and the
1653 autoloads have been redefined as functions).
1657 *** Images displayed via ImageMagick now support transparency and the
1658 :background image specification property.
1660 *** When available, ImageMagick support is automatically enabled.
1661 It is no longer necessary to call `imagemagick-register-types'
1662 explicitly to install ImageMagick image types; that function is called
1663 automatically at startup, or when customizing an imagemagick- option.
1665 *** Setting `imagemagick-types-inhibit' to t now disables the use of
1666 ImageMagick to view images. (You must call `imagemagick-register-types'
1667 afterwards if you do not use customize to change this.)
1669 *** The new variable `imagemagick-enabled-types' also affects which
1670 ImageMagick types are treated as images. The function
1671 `imagemagick-filter-types' returns the list of types that will be
1676 *** In minibuffer filename prompts, `C-M-f' and `C-M-b' now move to the
1677 next and previous path separator, respectively.
1679 *** `minibuffer-electric-default-mode' can shorten "(default ...)" to "[...]"
1680 in minibuffer prompts. Just set `minibuffer-eldef-shorten-default'
1681 non-nil before enabling the mode.
1685 *** New option `mode-line-default-help-echo' specifies the help text
1686 (shown in a tooltip or in the echo area) for any part of the mode line
1687 that does not have its own specialized help text.
1689 *** You can now click mouse-3 in the coding system indicator to invoke
1690 `set-buffer-file-coding-system'.
1692 ** Server and client
1694 *** emacsclient now obeys string values for `initial-buffer-choice',
1695 if it is told to open a new frame without specifying any file to visit
1696 or expression to evaluate.
1698 *** New option `server-auth-key' specifies a shared server key.
1700 ** Emacs now generates backtraces on fatal errors.
1701 On encountering a fatal error, Emacs now outputs a textual description
1702 of the fatal signal, and a short backtrace on platforms like glibc
1703 that support backtraces.
1705 ** `C-x C-q' is now bound to the new minor mode `read-only-mode'.
1706 This minor mode replaces `toggle-read-only', which is now obsolete.
1708 ** Most `y-or-n' prompts now allow you to scroll the selected window.
1709 Typing `C-v' or `M-v' at a y-or-n prompt scrolls forward or backward
1710 respectively, without exiting from the prompt.
1712 ** In the Package Menu, newly-available packages are listed as "new",
1713 and sorted above the other "available" packages by default.
1715 ** If your Emacs was built from a repository checkout, the new variable
1716 `emacs-bzr-version' contains information about the bzr revision used.
1718 ** New option `create-lockfiles' specifies usage of lockfiles.
1719 It defaults to t. Changing it to nil inhibits the creation of lock
1720 files (use this with caution).
1722 ** New option `enable-remote-dir-locals', if non-nil, allows directory-local
1723 variables on remote hosts.
1725 ** The entry for PCL-CVS has been removed from the Tools menu.
1726 The PCL-CVS commands are still available via the keyboard.
1728 ** Using "unibyte: t" in Lisp source files is obsolete.
1729 Use "coding: raw-text" instead.
1731 ** In the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug', the `C-c m' binding
1732 has been changed to `C-c M-i' (`report-emacs-bug-insert-to-mailer').
1733 The previous binding, introduced in Emacs 24.1, was a mistake, because
1734 `C-c LETTER' bindings are reserved for user customizations.
1736 ** Internationalization
1738 *** New language environment: Persian.
1740 *** New input method `vietnamese-vni'.
1742 ** Nextstep (GNUstep / Mac OS X) port
1744 *** Support for fullscreen and the frame parameter fullscreen.
1746 *** A file dialog is used for open/save operations initiated from the
1750 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.3
1752 ** Search and Replace
1754 *** Non-regexp Isearch now performs "lax" space matching.
1755 Each sequence of spaces in the supplied search string may match any
1756 sequence of one or more whitespace characters, as specified by the
1757 variable `search-whitespace-regexp'. (This variable is also used by a
1758 similar existing feature for regexp Isearch.)
1760 *** New Isearch command `M-s SPC' toggles lax space matching.
1761 This applies to both ordinary and regexp Isearch.
1763 *** New option `replace-lax-whitespace'.
1764 If non-nil, `query-replace' uses flexible whitespace matching too.
1767 *** Global `M-s _' starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search,
1768 and `M-s _' in Isearch toggles symbol search mode.
1769 `M-s c' in Isearch toggles search case-sensitivity.
1771 ** Navigation commands
1773 *** New binding `M-g c' for `goto-char'.
1775 *** New binding `M-g TAB' for `move-to-column'.
1777 *** `M-g TAB' (`move-to-column') prompts for a column number if called
1778 interactively with no prefix arg. Previously, it moved to column 1.
1780 ** New option `yank-handled-properties' allows processing of text
1781 properties on yanked text, in ways that are more general than just
1782 removing them (as is done by `yank-excluded-properties').
1784 ** New option `delete-trailing-lines' specifies whether
1785 M-x delete-trailing-whitespace should delete trailing lines at the end
1786 of the buffer. It defaults to t.
1788 ** `C-u M-=' now counts lines/words/characters in the entire buffer.
1790 ** `C-x 8 RET' is now bound to `insert-char', which is now a command.
1791 `ucs-insert' is now an obsolete alias for `insert-char'.
1793 ** The `z' key no longer has a binding in most special modes.
1794 It used to be bound to `kill-this-buffer', but `z' is too easy to
1797 ** New command `C-x r M-w' (`copy-rectangle-as-kill').
1798 It copies the region-rectangle as the last rectangle kill.
1802 *** `C-x r +' is now overloaded to invoke `append-to-register'.
1804 *** New option `register-separator' specifies the register containing
1805 the text to put between collected texts for use with
1806 M-x append-to-register and M-x prepend-to-register.
1809 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.3
1811 ** Common Lisp emulation (CL)
1813 *** CL's main entry is now (require 'cl-lib).
1814 `cl-lib' is like the old `cl' except that it uses the namespace cleanly;
1815 i.e., all its definitions have the "cl-" prefix (and internal definitions
1816 use the "cl--" prefix).
1818 If `cl' provided a feature under the name `foo', then `cl-lib'
1819 provides it under the name `cl-foo' instead; with the exceptions of the
1820 few `cl' definitions that had to use `foo*' to avoid conflicts with
1821 pre-existing Elisp entities. These have been renamed to `cl-foo'
1822 rather than `cl-foo*'.
1824 The old `cl' is now deprecated and is mainly just a bunch of aliases that
1825 provide the old, non-prefixed names. Some exceptions are listed below:
1827 *** `cl-flet' is not like `flet' (which is deprecated).
1828 Instead it obeys the behavior of Common-Lisp's `flet'.
1829 In particular, in cl-flet function definitions are lexically scoped,
1830 whereas in flet the scoping is dynamic.
1832 *** `cl-labels' is slightly different from `labels'.
1833 The difference is that it relies on the `lexical-binding' machinery
1834 (as opposed to the `lexical-let' machinery used previously) to capture
1835 definitions in closures, so such closures will only work if `lexical-binding'
1838 *** `cl-letf' is not exactly like `letf'.
1839 The only difference is in details that relate to some deprecated usage
1840 of `symbol-function' in place forms.
1842 *** `progv' was rewritten to use the `let' machinery.
1843 A side effect is that variables without corresponding values are bound
1844 to nil rather than being made unbound.
1846 *** The following methods of extending `setf' are obsolete
1847 (use features from gv.el instead):
1848 `define-modify-macro' (use `gv-letplace')
1849 `defsetf' (use `gv-define-simple-setter' or `gv-define-setter')
1850 `define-setf-expander' (use `gv-define-setter' or `gv-define-expander')
1851 `get-setf-method' no longer exists (see "Incompatible Lisp Changes")
1855 *** Changes are now highlighted using the same color scheme as in
1856 modern VCSes. Deletions are displayed in red (new faces
1857 `diff-refine-removed' and `smerge-refined-removed', and new definition
1858 of `diff-removed'), insertions in green (new faces `diff-refine-added'
1859 and `smerge-refined-added', and new definition of `diff-added').
1861 *** The variable `diff-use-changed-face' defines whether to use the
1862 face `diff-changed', or `diff-removed' and `diff-added' to highlight
1863 changes in context diffs.
1865 *** The new command `diff-delete-trailing-whitespace' removes trailing
1866 whitespace introduced by a diff.
1868 ** Ediff now uses the same color scheme as Diff mode.
1872 A new version of python.el, which provides several new features, including:
1873 per-buffer shells, better indentation, Python 3 support, and improved
1874 shell-interaction compatible with iPython (and virtually any other
1877 *** Some user options have been replaced/renamed, including (old -> new):
1878 **** python-indent -> python-indent-offset
1879 **** python-guess-indent -> python-indent-guess-indent-offset
1880 **** python-pdbtrack-do-tracking-p -> python-pdbtrack-activate
1881 **** python-use-skeletons -> python-skeleton-autoinsert
1883 *** Some user options have been removed, including:
1885 **** `python-indent-string-contents': Strings are never indented.
1887 **** `python-honour-comment-indentation':
1888 Comments are always considered as indentation markers.
1890 **** `python-continuation-offset': Indentation is automatically
1891 calculated in a pep8 compliant way depending on the context.
1893 **** `python-shell-prompt-alist', `python-shell-continuation-prompt-alist':
1894 Have no direct mapping as the shell interaction is completely different.
1896 **** `python-python-command', `python-jython-command':
1897 Replaced by `python-shell-interpreter'.
1899 **** `inferior-python-filter-regexp', `python-remove-cwd-from-path',
1900 `python-pdbtrack-minor-mode-string', `python-source-modes':
1903 *** Some commands have been replaced (old -> new):
1904 **** python-insert-class -> python-skeleton-class
1905 **** python-insert-def -> python-skeleton-def
1906 **** python-insert-for -> python-skeleton-for
1907 **** python-insert-if -> python-skeleton-if
1908 **** python-insert-try/except -> python-skeleton-try
1909 **** python-insert-try/finally -> python-skeleton-try
1910 **** python-insert-while -> python-skeleton-while
1911 **** python-find-function -> python-nav-jump-to-defun
1912 **** python-next-statement -> python-nav-forward-sentence
1913 **** python-previous-statement -> python-nav-backward-sentence
1914 **** python-beginning-of-defun-function -> python-nav-beginning-of-defun
1915 **** python-end-of-defun-function -> python-nav-end-of-defun
1916 **** python-send-buffer -> python-shell-send-buffer
1917 **** python-send-defun -> python-shell-send-defun
1918 **** python-send-region -> python-shell-send-region
1919 **** python-send-region-and-go -> emulate with python-shell-send-region
1920 and python-shell-switch-to-shell
1921 **** python-send-string -> python-shell-send-string
1922 **** python-switch-to-python -> python-shell-switch-to-shell
1923 **** python-describe-symbol -> python-eldoc-at-point
1927 *** New variables `dbus-compiled-version' and `dbus-runtime-version'.
1929 *** The D-Bus object manager interface is implemented.
1931 *** Variables of type :(u)int32 and :(u)int64 accept floating points,
1932 if their value does not fit into Emacs's integer range.
1934 *** The function `dbus-call-method' is now non-blocking.
1935 It can be interrupted by `C-g'. `dbus-call-method-non-blocking' is obsolete.
1937 *** Signals can also be sent as unicast messages.
1939 *** The argument list of `dbus-register-signal' has been extended,
1940 according to the new match rule types of D-Bus.
1942 *** `dbus-init-bus' supports private connections.
1944 *** There is a new function `dbus-setenv'.
1946 ** `desktop-path' no longer includes the "." directory.
1947 Desktop files are now located in ~/.emacs.d by default.
1951 *** `dired-do-async-shell-command' executes each file sequentially
1952 if the command ends in `;' (when operating on multiple files).
1953 Otherwise, it executes the command on each file in parallel.
1955 *** Typing `M-n' in the minibuffer of `dired-do-chmod', `dired-do-chgrp',
1956 `dired-do-chown', and `dired-do-touch' yanks the attributes of the
1959 *** When the region is active, `m' (`dired-mark'), `u' (`dired-unmark'),
1960 `DEL' (`dired-unmark-backward'), and `d' (`dired-flag-file-deletion')
1961 mark/unmark/flag all files in the active region.
1963 *** The minibuffer default for `=' (`dired-diff') has changed.
1964 It is now the backup file for the file at point, if one exists.
1965 In Transient Mark mode the default is the file at the active mark.
1967 *** `M-=' is no longer bound to `dired-backup-diff' in Dired buffers.
1968 The global binding for `M-=', `count-words-region' is in effect.
1972 *** New module "notifications", which can send a notification when you
1973 receive a private message or your nickname is mentioned.
1975 *** ERC will look up server/channel names via auth-source and use any
1978 *** New option `erc-lurker-hide-list', similar to `erc-hide-list', but
1979 only applies to messages sent by lurkers.
1981 ** reStructuredText mode
1983 *** Keybindings (see `C-c C-h'), TAB indentation, filling and auto-filling,
1984 fontification, comment handling, and customization have all been revised
1987 *** Support for `imenu' and `which-function-mode'.
1989 *** The reStructuredText syntax is more closely covered.
1990 Sphinx support has been improved.
1992 *** `rst-insert-list' inserts new list or continues existing lists.
1994 *** A negative prefix argument always works for `rst-adjust'.
1996 *** The window configuration is reset after displaying a TOC.
1998 *** The constant `rst-version' describes the rst.el package version.
2002 *** Support for percent literals and recognition of regular expressions
2003 in method calls without parentheses with more methods, including Cucumber
2006 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
2008 *** New command `ruby-toggle-block', bound to `C-c {'.
2010 *** Some non-standard keybindings/commands have been removed:
2012 **** `ruby-electric-brace'; use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
2014 **** `ruby-mark-defun'; use `mark-defun'.
2016 **** `ruby-beginning-of-defun' and `ruby-end-of-defun' are replaced by
2017 appropriate settings for the variables `beginning-of-defun-function'
2018 and `end-of-defun-function'.
2020 **** Non-standard keybindings for `backward-kill-word', `comment-region',
2021 `reindent-then-newline-and-indent' and `newline' have been removed.
2023 ** Shell Script mode
2025 *** Pairing of parens/quotes uses `electric-pair-mode' instead of skeleton-pair.
2027 *** `sh-electric-here-document-mode' now controls auto-insertion of here-docs.
2029 *** `sh-use-smie' lets you choose a new indentation and navigation code.
2033 *** The free software compiler GHDL is supported (and now the default).
2035 *** Support for the VHDL-AMS packages has been added/updated.
2037 *** Updated to the 2002 revision of the VHDL standard.
2039 *** Accepts \r and \f as whitespace.
2043 *** The faces used by Apropos are now directly customizable.
2044 These faces are named `apropos-symbol', `apropos-keybinding', and so on;
2045 see the `apropos' Custom group for details.
2047 *** The old options whose values specified faces to use have been removed
2048 (i.e. `apropos-symbol-face', `apropos-keybinding-face', `apropos-label-face',
2049 `apropos-match-face' and `apropos-property-face'.).
2053 *** This package has been rewritten to use Tabulated List mode.
2055 *** Option `Buffer-menu-buffer+size-width' is now obsolete.
2056 Use `Buffer-menu-name-width' and `Buffer-menu-size-width' instead.
2060 *** Algebraic simplification mode is now the default.
2061 To restrict to the limited simplifications given by the former
2062 default simplification mode, use `m I'.
2066 *** You can customize the header text that appears above each calendar month.
2067 See the variable `calendar-month-header'.
2069 *** New LaTeX calendar style, produced by `cal-tex-cursor-week2-summary'.
2071 *** The calendars produced by cal-html include holidays.
2072 Customize `cal-html-holidays' to change this.
2076 *** The major modes from the parser generators "Bovine" and "Wisent"
2077 are now properly integrated in Emacs. The file suffixes ".by" and ".wy"
2078 are in `auto-mode-alist', and the corresponding manuals are included.
2082 **** Menu support for the "Configuration" feature. This allows users to
2083 choose the active configuration (such as debug or install) from the menu.
2085 **** New command `ede-set' to interactively set project-local variables.
2087 **** Support for compiling, debugging, and running in "generic" projects.
2089 **** Autoconf editing support for M4 macros with complex arguments.
2091 **** Compilation support for the "linux" project type.
2093 **** "simple" projects have been removed; use "generic" projects instead.
2097 **** Support for parsing #include statements inside a namespace in C/C++.
2099 **** Improved support for 'extern "C"' declarations in C/C++.
2101 **** The ability to ignore more common special C/C++ preprocessor symbols,
2102 such as '__nonnull' and '__asm'. Add '__cplusplus' macro when parsing C++.
2103 If available, include cdefs.h as an additional source of preprocessor symbols.
2105 **** Improved C/C++ function pointer parsing.
2107 **** In Python, support for converting imports to include file names.
2109 **** Ability to dynamically determine the Python load path.
2111 **** Support for the Python 'WITH' and 'AT' keywords.
2113 **** Improved tooltip completion.
2117 **** The SRecode manual is now included.
2119 **** Tag generation supports constructor/destructor settings and system
2120 include differentiation.
2122 **** Addition of 'Framework' support: Frameworks are specified when a
2123 particular kind of library (such as Android) is needed in a common language
2126 **** Support for nested templates and let variables override based on priority.
2128 **** Support for merging tables from multiple related modes, such as
2129 default -> c++ -> arduino.
2131 ** Compile has a new option `compilation-always-kill'.
2135 *** `custom-reset-button-menu' now defaults to t.
2137 *** Non-option variables are never matched in `customize-apropos' and
2138 `customize-apropos-options' (i.e., the prefix argument does nothing for
2139 these commands now).
2143 *** The variables `term-default-fg-color' and `term-default-bg-color'
2144 are now deprecated in favor of the customizable face `term'.
2146 *** You can customize how to display ANSI terminal colors and styles
2147 by customizing the corresponding `term-color-<COLOR>',
2148 `term-color-underline' and `term-color-bold' faces.
2152 *** The syntax has been extended in order to allow ad-hoc proxy definitions.
2154 *** Remote processes are now also supported on remote MS-Windows hosts.
2158 *** Structs made by `url-generic-parse-url' have nil `attributes' slot.
2159 Previously, this slot stored semicolon-separated attribute-value pairs
2160 appended to some imap URLs, but this is not compatible with RFC 3986.
2161 So now the `filename' slot stores the entire path and query components,
2162 and the `attributes' slot is always nil.
2164 *** New function `url-encode-url' for encoding a URI string.
2165 The `url-retrieve' function now uses this to encode its URL argument,
2166 in case that is not properly encoded.
2168 ** notifications.el supports now version 1.2 of the Notifications API.
2169 The function `notifications-get-capabilities' returns the supported
2172 ** Flymake uses fringe bitmaps to indicate errors and warnings.
2173 See `flymake-fringe-indicator-position', `flymake-error-bitmap' and
2174 `flymake-warning-bitmap'.
2176 ** The FFAP option `ffap-url-unwrap-remote' can now be a list of strings,
2177 specifying URL types that should be converted to remote file names at
2178 the FFAP prompt. The default is now '("ftp").
2180 ** New Ibuffer `derived-mode' filter, bound to `/ M'.
2181 The old binding for `/ M' (filter by used-mode) is now bound to `/ m'.
2183 ** New option `mouse-avoidance-banish-position' specifies where the
2184 `banish' mouse avoidance setting moves the mouse.
2186 ** In Perl mode, new option `perl-indent-parens-as-block' causes non-block
2187 closing brackets to be aligned with the line of the opening bracket.
2189 ** In Proced mode, new command `proced-renice' renices marked processes.
2191 ** New option `async-shell-command-buffer' specifies the buffer to use
2192 for a new asynchronous `shell-command' when the default output buffer
2193 `*Async Shell Command*' is already in use.
2195 ** SQL mode has a new option `sql-db2-escape-newlines'.
2196 If non-nil, newlines sent to the command interpreter will be escaped
2197 by a backslash. The default does not escape the newlines and assumes
2198 that the sql statement will be terminated by a semicolon.
2200 ** New command `tabulated-list-sort', bound to `S' in Tabulated List mode
2201 (and modes that derive from it), sorts the column at point, or the Nth
2202 column if a numeric prefix argument is given.
2204 ** `which-func-modes' now defaults to t, so Which Function mode, when
2205 enabled, applies to all applicable major modes.
2207 ** `winner-mode-hook' now runs when the mode is disabled, as well as when
2210 ** Follow mode no longer works by using advice.
2211 The option `follow-intercept-processes' has been removed.
2213 ** `javascript-generic-mode' is now an obsolete alias for `js-mode'.
2215 ** Hooks renamed to avoid obsolete "-hooks" suffix:
2216 *** semantic-lex-reset-hooks -> semantic-lex-reset-functions
2217 *** semantic-change-hooks -> semantic-change-functions
2218 *** semantic-edits-new-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-new-change-functions
2219 *** semantic-edits-delete-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-delete-change-functions
2220 *** semantic-edits-reparse-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-reparse-change-functions
2221 *** semanticdb-save-database-hooks -> semanticdb-save-database-functions
2222 *** c-prepare-bug-report-hooks -> c-prepare-bug-report-hook
2223 *** rcirc-sentinel-hooks -> rcirc-sentinel-functions
2224 *** rcirc-receive-message-hooks -> rcirc-receive-message-functions
2225 *** rcirc-activity-hooks -> rcirc-activity-functions
2226 *** rcirc-print-hooks -> rcirc-print-functions
2227 *** dbus-event-error-hooks -> dbus-event-error-functions
2228 *** eieio-pre-method-execution-hooks -> eieio-pre-method-execution-functions
2229 *** checkdoc-style-hooks -> checkdoc-style-functions
2230 *** checkdoc-comment-style-hooks -> checkdoc-comment-style-functions
2231 *** archive-extract-hooks -> archive-extract-hook
2232 *** filesets-cache-fill-content-hooks -> filesets-cache-fill-content-hook
2233 *** hfy-post-html-hooks -> hfy-post-html-hook
2234 *** nndiary-request-create-group-hooks -> nndiary-request-create-group-functions
2235 *** nndiary-request-update-info-hooks -> nndiary-request-update-info-functions
2236 *** nndiary-request-accept-article-hooks -> nndiary-request-accept-article-functions
2237 *** gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-hooks -> gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-functions
2239 ** Obsolete packages
2242 In most cases, assoc+member+push+delq work just as well.
2243 And in any case it's just a terrible package: ugly semantics, terrible
2244 inefficiency, and not namespace-clean.
2253 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
2255 ** Docstrings starting with `*' no longer indicate user options.
2256 Only variables defined using `defcustom' are considered user options.
2257 The function `user-variable-p' is now an obsolete alias for
2258 `custom-variable-p'.
2260 ** The return values of `defalias', `defun' and `defmacro' have changed,
2261 and are now undefined. For backwards compatibility, `defun' and
2262 `defmacro' currently return the name of the newly defined
2263 function/macro, but this should not be relied upon.
2265 ** `random' by default now returns a different random sequence in
2266 every Emacs run. Use `(random S)', where S is a string, to set the
2267 random seed to a value based on S, in order to get a repeatable
2268 sequence in later calls.
2270 ** If the NEWTEXT arg to `replace-match' contains a substring "\?",
2271 that substring is inserted literally even if the LITERAL arg is
2272 non-nil, instead of causing an error to be signaled.
2274 ** `select-window' now always makes the window's buffer current.
2275 It does so even if the window was selected before.
2277 ** The function `x-select-font' can return a font spec, instead of a
2278 font name as a string. Whether it returns a font spec or a font name
2279 depends on the graphical library.
2281 ** `face-spec-set' no longer sets frame-specific attributes when the
2282 third argument is a frame (that usage was obsolete since Emacs 22.2).
2284 ** `set-buffer-multibyte' now signals an error in narrowed buffers.
2286 ** The CL package's `get-setf-method' function no longer exists.
2287 Generalized variables are now part of core Emacs Lisp, and implemented
2288 differently to the way cl.el used to do it. It is not possible to
2289 define a compatible replacement for `get-setf-method'. See the file
2290 gv.el for internal details of the new implementation.
2292 ** The arguments of `dbus-register-signal' are no longer just strings,
2293 but keywords or keyword-string pairs. The old argument list will
2294 still be supported for Emacs 24.x.
2296 ** Miscellaneous name changes
2297 Some Lisp symbols have been renamed to correct their spelling,
2298 or to be more consistent with standard Emacs terminology.
2300 *** Renamed functions
2301 **** hangul-input-method-inactivate -> hangul-input-method-deactivate
2302 **** inactivate-input-method -> deactivate-input-method
2303 **** quail-inactivate -> quail-deactivate
2304 **** robin-inactivate -> robin-deactivate
2305 **** viper-inactivate-input-method -> viper-deactivate-input-method
2306 **** viper-inactivate-input-method-action ->
2307 viper-deactivate-input-method-action
2308 **** ucs-input-inactivate -> ucs-input-deactivate
2311 The old hooks are still supported for backward compatibility, but they
2312 are deprecated and will be removed eventually.
2313 **** input-method-inactivate-hook -> input-method-deactivate-hook
2314 **** robin-inactivate-hook -> robin-deactivate-hook
2315 **** quail-inactivate-hook -> quail-deactivate-hook
2317 *** Renamed variables
2318 **** follow-deactive-menu -> follow-inactive-menu
2319 **** inactivate-current-input-method-function ->
2320 deactivate-current-input-method-function
2322 ** Some obsolete functions, variables, and faces have been removed:
2323 *** `last-input-char', `last-command-char', `unread-command-char'
2324 *** `facemenu-unlisted-faces'
2325 *** `rmail-decode-mime-charset'
2326 *** `iswitchb-read-buffer'
2327 *** `sc-version', `sc-submit-bug-report'
2328 *** `set-char-table-default'
2329 *** `string-to-sequence' (use `string-to-list' or `string-to-vector')
2330 *** `compile-internal'
2332 *** `mode-line-inverse-video'
2333 *** `follow-mode-off-hook'
2334 *** `cvs-commit-buffer-require-final-newline'
2335 (use `log-edit-require-final-newline' instead)
2336 *** `cvs-changelog-full-paragraphs'
2337 (use `log-edit-changelog-full-paragraphs' instead)
2338 *** `cvs-diff-ignore-marks', `cvs-diff-buffer-name'
2339 *** `vc-ignore-vc-files' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
2340 *** `vc-master-templates' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
2341 *** `vc-checkout-carefully'
2344 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
2346 ** CL-style generalized variables are now in core Elisp.
2347 `setf' is autoloaded; `push' and `pop' accept generalized variables.
2348 You can define your own generalized variables using `gv-define-simple-setter',
2349 `gv-define-setter', etc.
2351 ** Emacs tries to macroexpand interpreted (non-compiled) files during load.
2352 This can significantly speed up execution of non-byte-compiled code,
2353 but can also bump into previously unnoticed cyclic dependencies.
2354 These are generally harmless: they will simply cause the macro calls
2355 to be left for later expansion (as before), but will result in a
2356 warning ("Eager macro-expansion skipped due to cycle") describing the cycle.
2357 You may wish to restructure your code so this does not happen.
2359 ** New sampling-based Elisp profiler.
2360 Try M-x profiler-start, do some work, and then call M-x profiler-report.
2361 When finished, use M-x profiler-stop. The sampling rate can be based on
2362 CPU time or memory allocations.
2364 ** `defun' also accepts a (declare DECLS) form, like `defmacro'.
2365 The interpretation of the DECLS is determined by `defun-declarations-alist'.
2367 ** New macros `setq-local' and `defvar-local'.
2369 ** Face underlining can now use a wave.
2371 ** `read-regexp' has a new argument HISTORY; the first argument PROMPT
2372 of `read-regexp' accepts a string ending with a colon and space, and its
2373 second argument DEFAULTS can be a list of strings accessible via `M-n'
2374 in the minibuffer ahead of other hard-coded useful regexp-related values.
2375 More commands use `read-regexp' now to read their regexp arguments.
2379 *** New function `completion-table-with-quoting' to handle completion
2380 in the presence of quoting, such as file completion in shell buffers.
2382 *** New function `completion-table-subvert' to use an existing completion
2383 table, but with a different prefix.
2387 *** New error type and new function `user-error'.
2388 These do not trigger the debugger.
2390 *** New option `debugger-bury-or-kill', saying what to do with the
2391 debugger buffer when exiting debug.
2393 *** Set `debug-on-message' to enter the debugger when a certain
2394 message is displayed in the echo area. This can be useful when trying
2395 to work out which code is doing something.
2397 *** New var `inhibit-debugger', automatically set to prevent accidental
2398 recursive invocations.
2402 *** New command `fit-frame-to-buffer' adjusts the frame height to
2405 *** The command `fit-window-to-buffer' can adjust the frame height
2406 if the new option `fit-frame-to-buffer' is non-nil.
2408 *** New macro `with-temp-buffer-window', similar to
2409 `with-output-to-temp-buffer'.
2411 *** `temp-buffer-resize-mode' no longer resizes windows that have been
2414 *** New option `switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' to restore a
2415 window's point when switching buffers.
2417 *** New display action alist entries `window-height' and `window-width'
2418 specify the size of new windows created by `display-buffer'.
2420 *** New display action alist entry `pop-up-frame-parameters', if
2421 non-nil, specifies frame parameters to give any newly-created frame.
2423 *** New display action alist entry `inhibit-switch-frame', if non-nil,
2424 tells display action functions to avoid changing which frame is
2427 *** New display action alist entry `previous-window', if non-nil,
2428 specifies window to reuse in `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
2430 *** New display action functions `display-buffer-below-selected',
2431 and `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
2433 *** The functions `get-lru-window', `get-mru-window' and `get-largest-window'
2434 now accept a third argument to avoid choosing the selected window.
2436 *** Additional values recognized for option `window-combination-limit'.
2438 *** The following variables are obsolete, as they can be replaced by
2439 appropriate entries in the `display-buffer-alist' function introduced
2441 **** `dired-shrink-to-fit'
2442 **** `display-buffer-reuse-frames'
2443 **** `display-buffer-function'
2444 **** `special-display-buffer-names'
2445 **** `special-display-frame-alist'
2446 **** `special-display-function'
2447 **** `special-display-regexps'
2451 *** `current-time-string' no longer requires that its argument's year
2452 must be in the range 1000..9999. It now works with any year supported
2453 by the underlying C implementation.
2455 *** `current-time' now returns extended-format time stamps
2456 (HIGH LOW USEC PSEC), where the new PSEC slot specifies picoseconds.
2457 PSEC is typically a multiple of 1000 on current machines. Other
2458 functions that use this format, such as `file-attributes' and
2459 `format-time-string', have been changed accordingly. Old-format time
2460 stamps are still accepted.
2462 *** The format of timers in `timer-list' and `timer-idle-list' is now
2463 [TRIGGERED-P HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS REPEAT-DELAY FUNCTION ARGS IDLE-DELAY PSECS].
2464 The PSECS slot is new, and uses picosecond resolution. It can be
2465 accessed via the new `timer--psecs' accessor.
2467 *** Last-modified time stamps in undo lists now are of the form
2468 (t HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS PSECS) instead of (t HI-SECS . LO-SECS).
2472 *** Improved security when handling persistent objects:
2474 **** `eieio-persistent-read' now features optional arguments for specifying
2475 the class to load, as well as a flag stating whether subclasses are allowed;
2476 if provided, other classes will be rejected by the reader. For
2477 compatibility with existing code, if the class is omitted only a
2480 **** New specialized reader for pulling in classes and signaling errors
2481 without evaluation of suspicious code.
2483 **** All slots that contain objects must have a :type. Slots with lists
2484 of objects must use a new type predicate for a list of an object type.
2486 *** Support for `find-function' and similar utilities, through the addition
2487 of filename support to generated symbols.
2489 ** Floating point functions now always return special values like NaN,
2490 instead of signaling errors, if given invalid args; e.g., (log -1.0).
2491 Previously, they returned NaNs on some platforms but signaled errors
2492 on others. The affected functions are acos, asin, tan, exp, expt,
2493 log, log10, sqrt, and mod.
2495 ** New fringe bitmap `exclamation-mark'.
2497 ** Miscellaneous changes to special forms and macros
2499 *** `defun' and `defmacro' are now macros rather than special forms.
2501 *** `kbd' is now a function rather than a macro.
2503 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2505 *** `set-temporary-overlay-map' sets up a temporary keymap that
2506 takes precedence over most other maps for a short while (normally one key).
2508 *** `autoloadp' tests if its argument is an autoloaded object.
2510 *** `autoload-do-load' performs the autoloading operation.
2512 *** `buffer-narrowed-p' tests if the buffer is narrowed.
2514 *** `file-name-base' returns a file name sans directory and extension.
2516 *** `function-get' fetches a function property, following aliases.
2518 *** `posnp' tests if an object is a `posn'.
2520 *** `system-users' returns the user names on the system.
2522 *** `system-groups' returns the group names on the system.
2524 *** `tty-top-frame' returns the topmost frame of a text terminal.
2526 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
2527 *** `automount-dir-prefix' (use `directory-abbrev-alist')
2528 *** `buffer-has-markers-at'
2529 *** `macro-declaration-function' (use `macro-declarations-alist')
2530 *** `window-system-version' (provides no useful information)
2531 *** `dired-pop-to-buffer' (use `dired-mark-pop-up')
2532 *** `query-replace-interactive'
2533 *** `font-list-limit' (has had no effect since Emacs < 23)
2536 * Changes in Emacs 24.3 on Non-Free Operating Systems
2538 ** Cygwin builds can use the native MS Windows user interface.
2539 Pass `--with-w32' to configure. The default remains the X11 interface.
2541 ** Two new functions are available in Cygwin builds:
2542 `cygwin-convert-file-name-from-windows' and
2543 `cygwin-convert-file-name-to-windows'. These functions allow Lisp
2544 code to access the Cygwin file-name mapping machinery to convert
2545 between Cygwin and Windows-native file and directory names.
2547 ** When invoked with the -nw switch to run on the Windows text-mode terminal,
2548 Emacs now supports `mouse-highlight', help-echo (in the echo area), and
2549 `mouse-autoselect-window'.
2551 ** On MS Windows Vista and later Emacs now supports symbolic links.
2553 ** On MS Windows, you can pass `--without-libxml2' to configure.bat to omit
2554 support for libxml2, even if its presence is detected.
2556 ** On Mac OS X, the Nextstep port requires OS X 10.4 or later.
2558 ** On Mac OS X, configure no longer automatically adds the Fink "/sw"
2559 directories to the search path. You must add them yourself if you want them.
2562 * Changes in Emacs 24.2
2564 ** This is mainly a bug-fix release.
2567 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
2569 ** Emacs can be compiled with Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
2570 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
2571 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
2574 ** Emacs can be compiled with GnuTLS support.
2575 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2576 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2577 `--without-gnutls'. See below for GnuTLS features.
2579 ** Emacs can be compiled with SELinux support.
2580 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2581 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2582 `--without-selinux'. See below for SELinux features.
2584 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
2585 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2586 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2587 `--without-imagemagick'. See below for ImageMagick features.
2588 This feature is not available for the Nextstep or MS ports.
2590 ** Emacs can be compiled with libxml2 support.
2591 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2592 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2593 `--without-xml2'. See below for libxml2 features.
2595 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
2596 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
2598 ** New configure option --with-wide-int.
2599 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
2600 On 32-bit hosts, this raises the limit on buffer sizes from about 512 MiB
2603 ** New configure options: --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
2604 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
2605 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
2607 ** New configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
2608 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
2609 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
2611 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
2612 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
2614 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
2615 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
2618 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
2620 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
2621 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
2622 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
2624 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
2625 from load-path. -Q now implies this. This option does not affect the
2626 EMACSLOADPATH environment variable (and hence has no effect for
2630 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
2634 *** Many packages now use the `completion-at-point' command,
2635 rather than implementing separate completion commands.
2637 *** `completion-at-point' now handles tags and semantic completion.
2639 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
2640 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
2642 *** New option `completion-cycle-threshold' allows completion cycling.
2644 *** New option `completion-category-overrides' for overriding the
2645 default completion style in certain circumstances.
2647 *** New completion style `substring'.
2649 *** Completion of buffer names uses `substring' completion by default.
2651 *** The option `widget-complete-field' has been removed.
2655 *** The first time you try sending mail, Emacs asks for a mail method.
2656 This is implemented by a new default for `send-mail-function', which
2657 is `sendmail-query-once'. This offers to use the smtpmail package, or
2658 to use the old defaults relying on external mail facilities
2659 (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems, and
2660 `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
2662 *** Typing `C-c m' in the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug'
2663 transfers the report to your desktop's preferred mail client, if there
2664 is one. This uses either the "xdg-email" utility, or Mac OS's "open"
2667 *** See Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages for SMTPmail changes
2668 and Mail mode changes
2670 ** Emacs server and client changes
2672 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port for TCP Emacs servers.
2674 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
2676 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters specifies the frame
2677 parameters of any newly-created graphical frame.
2679 *** If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling an error,
2680 its exit status is 1.
2682 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
2683 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
2684 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
2686 ** Internationalization changes
2688 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
2689 Right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, are
2690 displayed in the correct visual order as expected by users of those
2691 scripts. The display reordering is a "full bidirectionality" class
2692 implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA). Buffers
2693 with no RTL text should look exactly the same as before.
2695 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
2696 To disable display reordering in a buffer, change this to nil.
2698 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
2699 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
2700 paragraph from its text, as specified by the UBA. Setting the value
2701 to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a base direction on each
2704 Paragraphs with right-to-left base direction are displayed starting at
2705 the right window edge.
2707 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts,
2708 or, on text terminals, characters that cannot be encoded by the
2709 terminal coding system. The new option `glyphless-char-display-control'
2710 specifies how to display them: as a hexadecimal code in a box, a thin
2711 1-pixel space, an empty box, etc.
2713 *** New input methods for Farsi and Bulgarian
2714 (farsi-isiri-9147, farsi-transliterate-banan, bulgarian-alt-phonetic).
2716 *** `nobreak-char-display' now also highlights Unicode hyphen chars
2717 (U+2010 and U+2011).
2719 *** New Hebrew translation of the Emacs Tutorial.
2720 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
2721 automatically select it.
2723 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
2724 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
2725 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
2727 *** M-x list-packages shows a list of packages, which can be
2728 selected for installation.
2730 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
2732 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded automatically when
2733 Emacs starts up. To disable this, set `package-enable-at-startup' to
2734 nil. To specify the packages to load, customize `package-load-list'.
2736 ** Custom theme changes
2738 *** New command `M-x customize-themes', which provides a convenient
2739 interface for enabling and disabling Custom themes.
2741 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
2742 Emacs no longer looks for Custom themes in `load-path'. The default
2743 value of `custom-theme-load-path' says to look for themes in
2744 `custom-theme-directory', followed by a subdirectory of
2745 `data-directory' named "themes/", which contains a small selection of
2746 built-in Custom themes.
2748 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
2749 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
2750 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
2751 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
2753 ** Improved GTK integration
2755 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
2756 The function `set-scroll-bar-mode' can change this.
2758 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
2759 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose the style. On a Gnome desktop,
2760 the default is taken from desktop settings.
2762 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on any edge of the frame.
2763 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the
2764 values top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has
2767 *** The default colors for selected text (the `region' face) are taken
2768 from the GTK theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
2770 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.
2771 You can disable this by changing `x-gtk-use-system-tooltips' to nil.
2773 ** Graphical interface changes
2775 *** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
2776 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
2777 displayed as a space.
2779 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
2780 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
2782 *** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is
2783 built with Xft. These fonts can be set via X resources, for example:
2784 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
2788 *** Emacs now calls `kill-emacs' if it receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP,
2789 or if it receives a SIGINT signal in batch mode.
2791 *** `kill-emacs-hook' is now also run in batch mode.
2792 Third-party code which adds to `kill-emacs-hook' should check if they
2793 do the right thing in batch mode.
2795 ** Scrolling changes
2797 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
2798 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
2799 of buffer at first key-press (instead they move to top/bottom of buffer)
2800 when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
2802 *** New option `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).
2804 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
2805 scroll a line instead of full screen.
2807 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
2808 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
2810 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
2811 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
2812 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
2813 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
2814 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
2816 *** "Aggressive" scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
2817 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
2818 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
2819 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
2822 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
2823 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
2825 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up.
2826 Also, the function `copy-file' has an extra optional argument for
2827 preserving SELinux context, and the return value of `backup-buffer'
2828 now includes the SELinux context.
2830 *** New functions `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
2831 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
2835 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
2836 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
2838 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
2839 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
2841 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
2843 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
2844 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
2845 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
2848 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
2849 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
2850 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
2851 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
2852 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
2854 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
2855 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
2857 *** The variable `inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps' has been renamed
2858 to `inhibit-local-variables-regexps'. As the name suggests, it now
2859 applies to ALL file local variables, not just -*- lines. The
2860 associated `inhibit-first-line-modes-suffixes' has been renamed in the
2865 *** The `quit-window' command now restores the last buffer displayed
2866 in the quitted window.
2868 *** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
2869 modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.
2871 *** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.
2873 **** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
2874 user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
2875 for choosing the displaying window).
2877 This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
2878 specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.
2880 **** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
2881 display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.
2883 *** New option `window-combination-limit'.
2884 The new option `window-combination-limit' allows to return the space
2885 obtained for resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window
2886 from which such space was obtained.
2888 *** New option `window-combination-resize'.
2889 The new option `window-combination-resize' allows to split a window that
2890 otherwise cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from
2891 other windows in the same combination. Subsequent resizing or deletion
2892 of the window will resize all windows in the same combination as well.
2894 *** New option `frame-auto-hide-function' lets you choose between
2895 iconifying or deleting a frame when burying a buffer in a dedicated
2896 frame, or quitting a window showing a buffer in a frame of its own.
2898 *** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
2899 These maximize and minimize the size of a window within its frame.
2901 *** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
2902 These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
2903 been shown in a specific window.
2905 ** Minibuffer changes
2907 *** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
2908 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the feature
2909 where mouse-1 pops up *Messages*"', which can now easily be changed.
2911 *** Minibuffers set `truncate-lines' to nil.
2912 If you want to change the value to something else, you could use
2913 for example `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
2915 ** `auto-mode-case-fold' is now enabled by default.
2917 ** `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' now defaults to t.
2919 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success'.
2920 These are used to highlight text indicating failure, caution or
2921 successful operation.
2923 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
2924 for `list-colors-display'.
2926 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
2929 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
2933 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-kill', instead of
2934 `isearch-yank-line'.
2936 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-pop', instead of
2937 `isearch-yank-kill'.
2939 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-line'.
2941 ** New commands `count-words-region' and `count-words'.
2943 *** M-= is bound to `count-words-region', not `count-lines-region'.
2944 The `count-words-region' command, when called interactively, reports
2945 the number of lines, words, and characters in the region. It is a
2946 superset of the old `count-lines-region', which is now an obsolete
2949 ** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
2950 also deletes newlines around point.
2954 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
2955 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
2956 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', those commands kill
2959 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
2960 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
2961 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
2963 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
2964 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
2965 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; Lisp
2966 callers should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
2968 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
2970 ** Selection changes.
2972 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
2973 changed to conform with modern X applications. In short, most
2974 commands for killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while
2975 mouse commands use the primary selection.
2977 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
2978 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
2980 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
2981 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
2982 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
2983 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
2985 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
2986 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
2987 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
2988 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
2989 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
2991 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
2993 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
2994 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
2995 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
2997 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
2999 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
3000 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
3001 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
3003 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
3004 exactly equivalent to M-w, C-w, and C-y respectively.
3006 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
3007 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
3008 between applications.
3010 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
3012 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
3013 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
3014 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
3015 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
3016 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
3018 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
3020 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
3021 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
3023 ** New command `C-x r N' (`rectangle-number-lines') numbers the lines
3024 in the current rectangle. With a prefix argument, this prompts for a
3025 number to count from and for a format string.
3027 ** `redisplay-dont-pause' now defaults to t.
3028 This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
3029 at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
3030 in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
3031 updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.
3033 ** The behavior of <TAB> for active regions in Text mode has changed.
3034 In Text and related modes, typing <TAB> (`indent-for-tab-command')
3035 when the region is active causes Emacs to indent all the lines in the
3036 region, aligning them with the line previous to the first line in the
3037 region (or with the left margin if there is no previous line).
3039 ** When `occur' is called with a prefix argument, matching strings are
3040 collected into the `*Occur*' buffer without line numbers. If there
3041 are parenthesized subexpressions in the specified regexp, `occur'
3042 reads replacement text that may contain \\& and \\N whose convention
3043 follows `replace-match'.
3046 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
3048 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
3052 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
3053 Use the variable `bibtex-dialect' to select different BibTeX dialects.
3054 `bibtex-entry-field-alist' is now an obsolete alias for
3055 `bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist'.
3057 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries', bound to C-c C-a.
3059 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
3061 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
3065 *** New option `browse-url-mailto-function' specifies how to handle "mailto:"s.
3067 *** The default browser used by the package is now the "xdg-open" program,
3068 on platforms that support it. This calls your desktop's preferred browser.
3072 *** Support for musical notes.
3074 *** Support for logarithmic units.
3076 *** No longer uses the tex prefix for TeX specific unit names when
3077 using TeX or LaTeX mode.
3079 *** New option to highlight selections using faces.
3081 *** `calc-histogram' has the option of using a vector to determine the bins.
3083 *** New "O" option prefix.
3085 *** Use the "O" prefix to "d r" (`calc-radix') to turn on twos-complement mode.
3087 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
3089 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing "comments".
3090 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
3092 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
3093 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
3095 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
3096 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
3097 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
3099 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
3101 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
3102 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
3104 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt
3105 package by adding `appt-make-list' to `diary-hook' has been removed.
3106 Use `appt-activate' instead.
3108 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
3109 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
3110 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
3112 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
3113 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
3117 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
3118 The main entry point is M-x c-guess.
3120 *** Java Mode now supports Java 5.0 (Tiger) and 6 (Mustang).
3122 *** `c-beginning-of-defun' and `c-end-of-defun' now respect nested scopes.
3123 Thus C-M-a will, by default, go to the beginning of the immediate function,
3126 *** "Macros with semicolons" can be registered for correct indentation.
3127 Where such a macro ends a line (no semicolon) the next statement is no longer
3128 parsed as a statement continuation.
3130 ** Comint and modes derived from it use the standard completion code.
3134 *** Compilation mode can be used without Font Lock mode.
3135 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
3137 *** New variable `compilation-filter-start', which is bound while
3138 `compilation-filter-hook' runs. It records the start position of the
3139 text inserted by `compilation-filter'.
3141 *** `compilation-error-screen-columns' and `compilation-first-column'
3142 are obeyed in the editing buffer. So programming language modes can
3143 set them, whereas previously only the value in the *Compilation*
3148 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
3149 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
3150 To turn off the search field, set `custom-search-field' to nil.
3152 *** Options in customize group buffers start out hidden if not customized.
3153 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
3155 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
3157 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
3158 choose a color via `list-colors-display'.
3162 *** It is now possible to access buses other than the default system
3165 *** The `dbus-register-method' and `dbus-register-property' functions
3166 optionally do not register names.
3168 *** The new function `dbus-register-service' registers a known service
3169 name on a D-Bus without also registering a property or a method.
3173 *** C-x C-j (`dired-jump') and C-x 4 C-j (`dired-jump-other-window'),
3174 if called with a prefix argument, read a file name from the minibuffer
3175 instead of using the current buffer.
3177 *** The "dired local variables" feature of Dired-x is obsolete.
3178 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
3182 *** New options `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay',
3183 controlling attempts to autojoin a channel.
3185 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
3186 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
3187 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
3188 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
3192 *** The default value of `eshell-directory-name' has changed
3193 to be an "eshell" directory in `user-emacs-directory'.
3194 The old "~/.eshell/" directory is still used if it exists, though.
3198 *** The M-x gdb command now uses the GDB Machine Interface protocol.
3199 It now supports multithread non-stop debugging and simultaneous
3200 debugging of several threads.
3204 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if applicable.
3205 Animation plays once, unless the option `image-animate-loop' is non-nil.
3209 *** New command M-x info-display-manual displays a named Info manual.
3210 If that manual is already visited in some Info buffer, it displays
3211 that buffer. (This is handy if you have many manuals in many *info*
3212 buffers, and don't remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual
3213 you want to consult.) Otherwise, it loads and displays the manual.
3215 *** `e' is now bound to `end-of-buffer' rather than to `Info-edit'.
3216 This is for compatibility with the stand-alone Info reader program,
3217 and also because `Info-edit' is a rarely used command that is disabled
3220 ** Mail mode changes (not Message mode)
3222 *** New command M-x mail-add-attachment for adding MIME attachments
3224 *** The command M-x mail-attach-file was renamed to M-x mail-insert-file.
3225 (Its name is misleading, since it has nothing to do with MIME
3226 attachments.) The old name is now an obsolete alias to the new name.
3228 ** MH-E has been updated to MH-E version 8.3.1.
3229 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
3231 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
3233 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
3235 ** nXML mode no longer binds C-RET to `nxml-complete'.
3236 Completion is now performed via `completion-at-point', bound to C-M-i
3237 or M-TAB. If `nxml-bind-meta-tab-to-complete-flag' is non-nil (the
3238 default), this performs tag completion.
3240 ** Org mode has been updated to version 7.8.09.
3241 See ORG-NEWS for details.
3243 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
3244 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity,
3245 support for more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
3249 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
3250 in the Rmail incoming message.
3252 *** The variable `rmail-message-filter' no longer has any effect.
3253 This change was made in Emacs 23.1 but was not advertised at the time.
3254 Try using `rmail-show-message-hook' instead.
3258 *** M-x shell prompts for the shell path name if the default directory
3259 is a remote file name and neither the environment variable $ESHELL nor
3260 the variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
3262 *** TAB is now bound to the standard `completion-at-point' command,
3263 which now implements the pcomplete rules for shell command completion.
3267 *** SMTPmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) by default
3268 if the mail server supports them. This uses either built-in GnuTLS
3269 support, or the starttls.el library. Customize `smtpmail-stream-type'
3272 *** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
3273 By default, the information is now stored in the file ~/.authinfo.
3274 This was the default value of smtpmail-auth-credentials. If you had
3275 customized smtpmail-auth-credentials to a list of user names and
3276 passwords, those settings are not used. During your first connection
3277 to the smtp server, Emacs will prompt for the user name and password,
3278 and offer to save them to ~/.authinfo. Or you can manually copy the
3279 credentials to ~/.authinfo. For example, if you had
3281 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
3282 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
3284 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
3286 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
3288 See the auth-source manual for more information, e.g. on encrypting
3289 the credentials file.
3291 *** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
3292 If you had that set, you need to put
3294 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
3296 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
3298 *** SMTPmail defaults to using the address in the From: header as the
3299 SMTP MAIL FROM envelope. To override this, set `mail-envelope-from'
3300 to the address you wish to use instead.
3304 *** New options `sql-port', `sql-connection-alist', `sql-send-terminator',
3305 and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
3307 *** New options controlling prompting for login parameters.
3308 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
3309 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
3310 connection is established.
3312 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
3313 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product.
3315 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix arguments.
3316 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
3317 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
3318 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
3320 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
3321 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
3322 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
3323 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
3324 second prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from listing
3325 object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*' functions.
3327 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
3328 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
3330 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
3331 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
3332 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
3334 *** New commands for listing database objects and details:
3335 sql-list-all and sql-list-table.
3337 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
3341 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
3345 *** New inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
3347 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
3348 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
3350 *** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
3351 remote file attributes are cached for better performance.
3353 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
3354 default value to "".
3356 *** Handlers for `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
3357 for remote machines which support SELinux.
3359 ** New function `url-queue-retrieve', which behaves like url-retrieve,
3360 but with limits (`url-queue-parallel-processes', `url-queue-timeout') on
3361 the degree of parallelism.
3363 ** VC and related modes
3365 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
3366 The command C-x v + (`vc-pull') runs a "pull" operation, if it is
3367 supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to update the
3368 current branch and working tree. A prefix argument means to prompt
3369 the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
3371 *** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
3373 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
3374 The command C-x v m (`vc-merge') now runs a "merge" operation, if it
3375 is supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to merge
3376 changes from another branch into the current one. It prompts for
3377 specifics, e.g. a merge source.
3379 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
3380 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
3382 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
3383 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
3384 This is currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial (to support
3385 another backend, define a `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function').
3386 In the Log View buffers made by C-x v L (`vc-print-root-log'), you can
3387 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
3389 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
3390 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
3392 *** The option `vc-initial-comment' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but
3393 this was not advertised at the time.
3395 *** `vc-toggle-read-only' is an obsolete alias for `toggle-read-only'.
3396 Since Emacs 23, it has done the same thing as `toggle-read-only', but
3397 this was not advertised at the time.
3403 *** erc-hecomplete.el (use erc-pcomplete.el instead)
3405 *** partial-completion-mode (complete.el) is obsolete.
3406 You can get a comparable behavior with:
3407 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
3408 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
3410 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete (CUA mode is much more comprehensive).
3412 *** pgg is obsolete (use EasyPG instead).
3414 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
3416 *** s-region.el and pc-select.el are obsolete.
3417 They are superseded by shift-select-mode, enabled by default since 23.1.
3419 *** vc-mcvs.el is obsolete (for lack of a maintainer).
3423 *** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
3424 Its functions and variables have been similarly renamed.
3426 *** In `ido-file-completion-map', C-v is no longer bound to `ido-toggle-vc'.
3427 (This interfered with cua-mode.)
3429 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
3431 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
3433 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
3436 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
3438 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
3439 original buffers. It is bound to "e" in Occur mode.
3441 ** New global minor mode electric-pair-mode.
3442 When enabled, typing an open parenthesis automatically inserts the
3443 matching closing one.
3445 ** New global minor mode electric-indent-mode.
3446 When enabled, typing certain characters triggers reindentation.
3447 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-indent-chars or
3448 electric-indent-functions.
3450 ** New global minor mode electric-layout-mode.
3451 When enabled, typing certain characters automatically inserts newlines.
3452 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-layout-rules.
3454 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
3455 from which other modes can be derived.
3457 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
3459 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
3460 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
3461 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
3462 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
3465 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
3466 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
3468 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
3469 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
3471 ** New generic mode, xmodmap-generic-mode, for xmodmap files.
3473 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
3474 The previous version has been moved to obsolete/old-emacs-lock.el.
3475 Now, there is a proper minor mode `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection
3476 against exiting Emacs and killing the buffer can be set separately.
3477 The mechanism for automatically turning off protection for buffers
3478 with dead inferior processes has been generalized.
3481 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
3483 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function call now ENABLES
3484 the minor mode unconditionally. This is so that you can write e.g.
3486 (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'foo-mode)
3488 to enable foo-mode in Text mode buffers, removing the need for
3489 `turn-on-foo-mode' style functions. This affects all mode commands
3490 defined by `define-minor-mode'. If called interactively, the mode
3491 command still toggles the minor mode.
3493 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
3494 It is now a list of three elements, where the second element is a list
3495 describing the original file's SELinux context. If Emacs or the
3496 system lacks SELinux support, the context list is (nil nil nil nil).
3497 See "Basic SELinux support" above, under "Changes in Emacs 24.1".
3499 ** `char-direction-table' and the `char-direction' function were deleted.
3500 They were buggy and inferior to the new support of bidirectional
3501 editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the bidirectional
3502 properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property' with the last
3503 argument `bidi-class'.
3505 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
3506 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
3507 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
3508 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
3510 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
3511 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
3512 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
3515 ** Support for "old-style" backquotes, obsolete for 10+ years, has
3516 been further reduced. Now a backquote not followed by a space is
3517 always treated as a "new-style" backquote. Please remove all
3518 "old-style" backquotes from your code. If your code uses backquotes
3519 as documented in the Elisp manual, and compiles without warning, then
3520 you have nothing to do in this regard. Code not following the
3521 appropriate conventions may fail to compile.
3523 The most common cause of trouble seems to be an old-style backquote
3524 followed by a newline. Another cause of trouble is vector notation
3525 for key sequence notation: instead of [(control ,)] and [(control ')],
3526 you should write [(control ?,)] and [(control ?')], which will work in
3529 ** The macro `eval-at-startup' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but this
3530 was not advertised at the time. The function `custom-initialize-delay'
3531 replaced all known uses.
3533 ** `view-buffer' now treats special mode-class in the same way that
3534 `view-file' has since Emacs 22 (i.e. it won't enable View mode if the
3535 major mode is special).
3537 ** Menu and tool bar changes
3539 *** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
3540 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
3541 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
3542 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
3543 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
3544 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
3546 *** The menu bar bindings's caches are not used any more.
3547 Use (where-is-internal <def> nil t) instead.
3549 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
3550 similar to those created by shift-selection (see Selection changes
3551 above). In previous Emacs versions, these regions were delineated by
3552 `mouse-drag-overlay'; that variable has been removed.
3554 ** The fourth argument of `filter-buffer-substring' has been removed.
3555 If you want to remove text properties from the final result, simply
3556 pass the result through substring-no-properties.
3558 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
3560 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases have been removed
3561 (the appropriate new function is given in parentheses; "not needed"
3562 means you can just remove all calls to the function in question):
3564 *** `comint-kill-output' (`comint-delete-output')
3565 *** `decompose-composite-char' (`char-to-string')
3566 *** `outline-visible' (`outline-invisible-p')
3567 *** `internal-find-face' (`facep')
3568 *** `internal-get-face' (`facep and check-face')
3569 *** `frame-update-faces' (not needed)
3570 *** `frame-update-face-colors' (`frame-set-background-mode')
3571 *** `x-frob-font-weight' and `x-frob-font-slant' (`make-face-*' functions)
3572 *** `x-make-font-bold' and `x-make-font-demibold' (`make-face-bold')
3573 *** `x-make-font-italic' and `x-make-font-oblique' (`make-face-italic')
3574 *** `x-make-font-bold-italic' (`make-face-bold-italic')
3575 *** `x-make-font-unbold' (`make-face-unbold')
3576 *** `x-make-font-unitalic' (`make-face-unitalic')
3577 *** `mldrag-drag-mode-line' (`mouse-drag-mode-line')
3578 *** `mldrag-drag-vertical-line' (`mouse-drag-vertical-line')
3579 *** `iswitchb-default-keybindings' (`iswitchb-mode')
3580 *** `char-bytes' (== 1)
3581 *** `isearch-return-char' (`isearch-printing-char')
3582 *** `make-local-hook' (not needed)
3583 *** `set-screen-height' (`set-frame-height')
3584 *** `set-screen-width' (`set-frame-width')
3586 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases have been removed
3587 (the appropriate new variable is given in parentheses):
3589 *** `checkdoc-minor-keymap' (`checkdoc-minor-mode-map')
3590 *** `vc-header-alist' (`vc-BACKEND-header')
3591 *** `directory-sep-char' (== ?/)
3592 *** `font-lock-defaults-alist' (`font-lock-defaults')
3593 *** `e' (`float-e').
3595 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
3596 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
3598 ** The format of the finder-inf.el file has changed, since the Finder
3599 mechanism is now based on the package system. The variable
3600 `finder-package-info' is replaced by `package--builtins' and
3601 `finder-keywords-hash'.
3603 ** When generating autoloads, `update-directory-autoloads' no longer
3604 assumes every inspected file is in your `load-path'. It instead
3605 generates relative names according to the current `load-path'.
3608 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
3610 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
3611 The `lexical-binding' variable enables lexical scoping for local
3612 variables. It is typically set via a file-local variable in the first
3613 line of the file, in which case it applies to all the code in that
3616 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
3617 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
3619 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
3620 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
3622 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
3624 *** `defvar' and `defconst' now mark the variable as special (dynamic).
3625 So do `defcustom' and other forms that call `defvar' as a subroutine.
3627 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
3628 declared as dynamically bound.
3630 *** The form ((lambda ...) ...) is deprecated.
3632 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
3633 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
3634 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
3636 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
3638 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
3639 This returns the base direction of the paragraph at point.
3641 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
3642 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left scripts, this
3643 function returns another string which can be safely inserted into a
3644 buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
3645 right of that string. (This works by appending an invisible Unicode
3646 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character if the argument string might need it.)
3648 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right paragraph
3649 direction and you need to insert a string whose contents are not known
3650 in advance, without disrupting the layout of the line.
3654 *** Window tree functions are accessible in Elisp.
3655 Functions are provided to return the parent, siblings or child windows
3656 of any window including internal windows (windows not associated with a
3657 buffer) in the window tree.
3659 **** New function `window-valid-p' gives non-nil for live and internal
3662 **** Window manipulation can deal with internal windows.
3663 Many window handling functions like `split-window', `delete-window', or
3664 `delete-other-windows' as well as the window resizing functions can now
3665 act on any window including internal ones.
3667 *** window-total-height/-width vs window-body-height/-width.
3668 The function `window-height' has been renamed to `window-total-height'
3669 and `window-width' has been renamed to `window-body-width'. The old
3670 names are provided as aliases. Two new functions `window-total-width'
3671 and `window-body-height' are provided.
3673 *** Window parameters specific to window handling functions.
3674 For each window you can specify a parameter to override the default
3675 behavior of a number of functions like `split-window', `delete-window'
3676 and `delete-other-windows'. The variable `ignore-window-parameters'
3677 allows to ignore processing such parameters.
3679 *** New semantics of third argument of `split-window'.
3680 The third argument of `split-window' has been renamed to SIDE and can be
3681 set to any of the values 'below, 'right, 'above, or 'left to make the
3682 new window appear on the corresponding side of the window that shall be
3683 split. Any other value of SIDE will cause `split-window' to split the
3684 window into two side-by-side windows as before.
3686 *** Window resizing functions.
3687 A new standard function for resizing windows called `window-resize' has
3688 been introduced. This and all other functions for resizing windows no
3689 longer delete any windows when they become too small.
3691 *** Deleting the selected window now selects the most recently selected
3692 live window on that frame instead.
3694 *** `adjust-window-trailing-edge' adjustments.
3695 `adjust-window-trailing-edge' can now deal with fixed-size windows and
3696 is able to resize other windows if a window adjacent to the trailing
3697 edge cannot be shrunk any more. This makes its behavior more similar to
3698 that of Emacs 21 without compromising, however, its inability to delete
3699 windows which was introduced in Emacs 22.
3701 *** Window-local buffer lists.
3702 Windows now have local buffer lists. This means that removing a buffer
3703 from display in a window will preferably show the buffer previously
3704 shown in that window with its previous window-start and window-point
3705 positions. This also means that the same buffer may be automatically
3706 shown twice even if it already appears in another window.
3708 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
3709 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
3710 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
3711 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
3713 *** `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally' renamed
3714 to `split-window-below' and `split-window-right' respectively.
3715 The old names are kept as aliases.
3719 **** The second arg to `display-buffer' and `pop-to-buffer' is now
3720 named ACTION, and takes a display action of the same form as
3721 `display-buffer-base-action' (see Changes, above). A non-nil,
3722 non-list value is treated specially, as the old meaning.
3724 **** New variable `display-buffer-overriding-action'.
3726 **** The procedure of `display-buffer' etc. to choose a window is
3727 determined by combining `display-buffer-overriding-action',
3728 `display-buffer-alist', the ACTION arg, `display-buffer-base-action',
3729 and `display-buffer-fallback-action'. The second and fourth of these
3730 are user-customizable variables.
3732 See the docstring of `display-buffer' for details.
3734 *** New functions `window-state-get' and `window-state-put'.
3735 These functions allow to save and restore the state of an arbitrary
3736 frame or window as an Elisp object.
3740 *** New variable `completion-extra-properties' used to specify extra
3741 properties of the current completion:
3742 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
3743 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
3745 *** Functions on `completion-at-point-functions' can return any of the
3746 properties valid for `completion-extra-properties'.
3748 *** `completion-annotate-function' is obsolete.
3750 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
3751 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
3752 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
3753 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
3754 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
3755 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
3756 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
3758 *** `minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map' is not used any more.
3759 Instead, the bindings in `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map'
3760 are combined with `minibuffer-local-must-match-map'.
3762 *** New variable `completing-read-function' allows overriding the
3763 behavior of `completing-read'.
3765 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
3766 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
3768 ** `pre-command-hook'/`post-command-hook' are not reset to nil on error.
3769 Instead, the offending function is removed.
3773 *** New function `run-hook-wrapped' for running an abnormal hook by
3774 passing the hook functions as arguments to a "wrapping" function.
3775 Like `run-hook-with-args-until-success', it stops at the first
3776 non-nil return value.
3778 *** New macro `with-wrapper-hook' for running an abnormal hook as a
3779 set of "wrapping" filters, similar to around advice.
3780 (A version of this macro was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not
3781 advertised at the time.)
3785 *** New macro `condition-case-unless-debug' (this was actually added in
3786 Emacs 23.1 as condition-case-no-debug, but not advertised)
3788 *** The macro `with-demoted-errors' was added in Emacs 23.1, but not advertised.
3790 *** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
3792 *** The debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will
3793 jump to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked
3794 instead of jumping all the way to the top-level.
3796 *** Set `debug-on-event' to enter the debugger on events like SIGUSR1.
3797 This can be useful when `inhibit-quit' is set.
3799 ** The new function `server-eval-at' allows evaluation of Lisp forms on
3800 named Emacs server instances.
3802 ** `call-process' and `call-process-region' allow a `(:file "file")' spec
3803 to redirect STDOUT to a file.
3805 ** The function `format-time-string' now supports the %N directive,
3806 for higher-resolution time stamps.
3808 ** New input reading functions
3810 *** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of
3811 characters, discarding any inputs not inside the set.
3813 *** The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name
3814 or RGB triplet, instead of signaling an error if the user provides
3817 **** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
3819 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
3820 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
3821 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
3824 ** Syntax parsing changes
3826 *** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
3827 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
3828 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
3829 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
3830 Together with this new variable come a new hook
3831 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
3832 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
3833 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
3836 *** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
3838 ** New hook `post-self-insert-hook', run after `self-insert-command'.
3840 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
3842 ** Major and minor mode changes
3844 *** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
3845 as well as those in the -*- line.
3847 *** `prog-mode' is a new major mode from which programming modes
3850 **** `prog-mode-hook' can be used to enable features for programming
3851 modes, e.g. (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode) to enable
3852 on-the-fly spell checking for comments and strings.
3854 *** New hook `change-major-mode-after-body-hook', run by
3855 `run-mode-hooks' just before any other mode hooks.
3857 *** Enabled globalized minor modes can be disabled in specific major modes.
3858 If the global mode is global-FOO-mode, then run (FOO-mode -1) in the
3859 major mode's hook, where FOO-mode toggles the mode on a per-buffer basis.
3861 *** `define-minor-mode' accepts new keywords :variable, :after-hook.
3863 ** File-handling changes
3865 *** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
3866 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
3867 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
3868 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
3870 *** New file predicates: `file-equal-p', `file-in-directory-p'.
3872 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
3873 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
3874 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
3878 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
3880 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
3882 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
3884 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
3887 *** `image-extension-data' has been renamed to `image-metadata'.
3888 The old name is an obsolete alias to the new one.
3890 *** Image mode can view any image type that ImageMagick supports.
3891 This requires Emacs to be built with ImageMagick support.
3893 **** New function `imagemagick-types', defined if ImageMagick support
3894 is enabled, returns a list of image file extensions that your
3895 ImageMagick installation supports.
3897 **** New function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick
3898 image types in Image mode and in `create-image' and other helper
3901 **** New option `imagemagick-types-inhibit' excludes certain
3902 ImageMagick image types from `imagemagick-register-types'.
3904 **** With ImageMagick support, there are extra Image mode commands to
3905 resize and rotate images: `image-transform-fit-to-height',
3906 `image-transform-fit-to-width', `image-transform-set-rotation', and
3907 `image-transform-set-scale'.
3909 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
3910 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
3911 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail. For
3912 example, this is used by Rmail to optionally delete a mail window.
3914 ** XML and HTML parsing
3915 If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support, there are two new
3916 functions: `libxml-parse-html-region' (which parses "real world" HTML)
3917 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
3918 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
3920 ** Networking and encryption changes
3922 *** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
3923 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
3924 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
3925 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
3926 must also be supplied.
3928 *** New library gnutls.el.
3929 The new function `gnutls-available-p' returns non-nil if Emacs is
3930 built with GnuTLS support. The main entry points are
3931 `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'. It's easiest to use
3932 these functions through `open-network-stream', because that can
3933 upgrade connections through STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain
3934 SSL, depending on your needs. For debugging, set `gnutls-log-level'
3937 *** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms:
3938 md5, sha1, sha2, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512. The lisp library
3939 sha1.el has been removed. The `sha1' feature is provided by default.
3943 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
3945 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
3946 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
3947 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
3948 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
3949 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
3950 displayed with a "spinning bar".
3952 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
3953 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
3955 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook'.
3956 If delayed-warnings-list is non-nil, the command loop calls
3957 `delayed-warnings-hook' after `post-command-hook'. At present, this
3958 is only used by Emacs on some platforms to display warnings during
3959 startup, which might otherwise not be noticed. This uses the
3960 functions `display-delayed-warnings' and `collapse-delayed-warnings'.
3962 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
3964 ** New function `make-composed-keymap' that constructs a new keymap
3965 from multiple input maps. You can use this to make a keymap that
3966 inherits from multiple maps, eg:
3967 (set-keymap-parent newmap (make-composed-keymap othermap parent))
3969 ** New function `string-prefix-p'.
3970 (This was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not advertised at the time.)
3972 ** New reader macro ## that stands for the empty symbol.
3973 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
3974 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
3975 an empty uninterned symbol.
3977 ** New math functions `isnan', `copysign', `frexp', `ldexp'.
3979 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
3981 *** `tooltip-use-echo-area' is obsolete.
3982 Rather than setting this to t, disable Tooltip mode instead.
3984 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
3985 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
3987 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
3989 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
3990 Use `post-command-hook' instead.
3992 *** `font-lock-maximum-size' is obsolete.
3995 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on Non-Free Operating Systems
3997 ** On MS Windows, Emacs warns when using the obsolete init file _emacs,
3998 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
4000 ** New configure.bat options
4002 *** --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra runtime checks.
4004 *** --distfiles specifies files to be included in binary distribution.
4006 *** --without-gnutls disables automatic GnuTLS detection.
4008 *** --lib for general library linkage, works with the USER_LIBS build variable.
4010 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
4012 ** The Lisp function `w32-default-color-map' is now obsolete.
4013 (It is only used internally in the Emacs C code.)
4015 ** Customize ns-auto-hide-menu-bar to have the menu-bar hidden, but
4016 reappear on mouse-over. (Requires OS X 10.6 or later.)
4018 ** On Mac OS X, dragging a file into Emacs visits the file, like on
4019 other platforms, rather than inserting its contents into the buffer.
4022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4023 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
4025 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
4026 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
4027 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
4028 (at your option) any later version.
4030 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
4031 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
4032 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
4033 GNU General Public License for more details.
4035 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
4036 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
4041 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"