1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
12 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now return buffesr whose names begin
13 with a space, if they visit files.
15 ** tab-always-indent can be set to `never' to make sure indent-for-tab-command
16 always tabs rather than indents.
18 ** in fill, you can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate and two
19 sample predicates are provided (fill-single-word-nobreak-p and
20 fill-french-nobreak-p).
22 ** In texinfo-mode, if font-lock is used then updating one of the `foo's
23 in `@foo ... @end foo' updates the other one on the fly.
25 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
26 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
27 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
29 ** New user option `sgml-xml'.
30 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
31 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
32 When not customized, it becomes buffer-local when it can be inferred
33 from the file name or buffer contents.
35 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
36 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
37 instead of using default-major-mode.
39 ** Byte compiler warning and error messages have been brought more
40 in line with the output of other GNU tools.
42 ** Lisp-mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
44 ** perl-mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
46 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
47 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
50 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
51 much pure storage it will approximately need.
53 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
54 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
55 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
58 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
59 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
60 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
61 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
62 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
63 candidate is a directory.
65 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
66 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
67 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
69 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
71 ** When using M-x revert-buffer in a compilation buffer to rerun a
72 compilation, it is now made sure that the compilation buffer is reused
73 in case it has been renamed.
75 ** New modes and packages
77 *** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
78 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
79 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
82 *** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
83 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
85 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
86 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
87 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
90 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
91 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
94 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
97 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
98 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
100 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
103 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
105 ** The default value of paragraph-start and indent-line-function has
106 been changed to reflect the one used in text-mode rather than the one
107 used in indented-text-mode.
109 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
110 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
113 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
114 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
115 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP@ VAL2 ...) so you can set
116 other properties than `face'.
117 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
118 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
120 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
121 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
122 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
124 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
125 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
126 and run any code associated with the provided feature.
128 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
129 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
132 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
133 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
134 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
136 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
137 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
138 accepts a float as UID parameter.
140 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
142 ** `define-derived-mode' now accepts nil as the parent.
144 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
146 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
148 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
150 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
151 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
153 ** Variable aliases have been implemented
155 - Macro: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR
157 This defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for symbol
158 BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR returns
159 the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR changes the
162 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
164 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
165 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
166 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
168 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
169 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
171 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
172 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
174 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
175 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
177 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
178 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
182 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
183 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
186 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
188 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
189 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
190 charsets in this release.
192 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
194 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
196 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
197 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
200 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
201 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
202 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
203 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
204 necessary changes to unexec.
206 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
207 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
209 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
210 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
212 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
213 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
215 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
216 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
217 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
218 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
219 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
221 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
222 new display features described below.
225 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
227 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
229 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
230 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
231 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
232 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
235 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
237 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
238 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
239 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
240 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
243 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
244 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
245 under Lisp changes, below.
247 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
249 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
250 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
251 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
252 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
253 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
254 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
257 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
258 supported on character terminals.
260 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
261 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
262 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
263 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
265 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
269 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
270 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
271 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
272 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
275 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
277 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
278 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
279 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
280 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
282 - User option: max-mini-window-height
284 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
285 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
286 specifies a number of lines.
290 - User option: resize-mini-windows
292 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
293 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
294 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
297 Default is `grow-only'.
301 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
302 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
304 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
306 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
307 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
310 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
312 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
313 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
314 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
316 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
318 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
319 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
320 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
321 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
322 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
325 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
326 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
327 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
328 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
329 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
330 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
332 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
333 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
334 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
335 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
336 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
337 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
339 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
340 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
341 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
342 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
343 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
347 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
348 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
349 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
350 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
351 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
354 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
355 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
356 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
360 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
361 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
362 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
364 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
365 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
366 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
367 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
369 ** Automatic Hscrolling
371 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
372 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
375 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
376 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
377 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
378 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
379 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
381 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
382 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
383 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
384 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
385 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
386 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
388 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
389 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
390 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
391 customizing face `fringe'.
393 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
394 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
395 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
396 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
397 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
398 the window to be partially obscured.)
400 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
401 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
402 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
403 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
405 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
407 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
408 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
409 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
410 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
411 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
414 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
416 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
419 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
420 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
422 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
424 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
425 `*') toggles the status.
427 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
431 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
432 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
436 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
437 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
438 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
441 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
443 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
444 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
445 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
448 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
449 have to do anything to activate it.
451 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
453 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
454 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
456 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
457 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
458 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
459 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
460 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
461 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
462 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
463 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
465 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
466 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
467 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
468 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
469 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
470 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
472 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
473 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
475 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
476 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
479 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
480 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
481 beginning and end of the buffer.
483 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
484 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
487 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
488 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
490 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
491 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
494 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
495 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
498 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
500 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
501 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
502 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
504 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
505 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
506 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
508 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
511 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
513 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
514 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
515 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
516 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
517 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
520 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
521 all frames except the selected one.
523 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
524 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
526 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
527 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
528 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
529 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
530 `Info-use-header-line'.
532 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
533 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
534 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
536 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
538 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
539 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
542 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
543 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
544 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
545 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
547 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
549 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
550 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
551 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
552 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
554 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
555 point in a pop-up window.
557 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
558 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
559 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
561 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
562 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
564 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
565 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
566 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
567 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
569 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
571 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
572 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
574 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
575 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
576 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
578 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
579 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
582 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
583 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
584 file that is already visited under a different name.
586 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
587 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
589 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
590 and displays information about that.
592 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
593 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
595 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
596 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
597 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
598 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
599 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
600 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
602 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
603 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
605 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
606 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
607 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
608 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
609 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
610 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
611 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
613 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
614 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
616 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
617 system for keyboard input.
619 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
620 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
621 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
622 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
623 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
624 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
625 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
626 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
627 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
629 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
630 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
632 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
633 displays all characters in that character set.
635 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
636 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
638 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
639 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
640 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
642 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
643 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
644 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
645 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
646 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
647 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
650 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
651 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
654 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
655 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
656 Lisp Coding Convention".
658 new command old-binding
659 --- ------- -----------
660 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
661 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
662 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
664 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
665 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
666 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
668 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
669 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
670 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
671 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
672 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
673 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
675 ** There are new Leim input methods.
676 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
677 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
680 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
681 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
682 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
683 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
684 "`", you must type "=q".
686 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
687 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
688 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
689 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
690 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
693 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
694 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
695 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
696 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
698 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
699 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
700 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
701 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
703 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
704 on the display using several methods
706 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
707 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
708 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
710 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
711 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
713 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
715 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
716 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
718 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
719 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
720 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
721 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
723 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
724 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
725 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
727 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
728 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
730 ** New X resources recognized
732 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
733 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
734 is useful for debugging X problems.
738 emacs.synchronous: true
740 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
741 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
742 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
743 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
744 visual class names are
753 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
754 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
757 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
758 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
759 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
764 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
766 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
767 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
768 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
769 resource values are `true' or `on'.
773 emacs.privateColormap: true
775 ** Faces and frame parameters.
777 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
778 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
779 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
780 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
781 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
782 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
783 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
785 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
786 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
787 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
788 `default' face and vice versa.
792 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
794 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
796 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
797 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
798 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
799 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
801 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
802 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
803 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
805 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
808 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
810 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
811 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
812 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
813 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
815 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
817 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
819 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
821 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
824 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
827 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
829 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
830 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
831 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
833 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
834 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
836 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
837 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
838 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
840 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
842 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
843 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
844 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
845 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
847 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
848 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
849 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
850 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
852 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
853 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
854 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
857 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
859 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
860 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
861 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
863 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
864 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
865 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
866 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
867 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
868 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
870 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
872 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
873 notably at the end of lines.
875 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
876 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
878 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
880 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
881 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
883 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
884 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
885 after each match to get the replacement text.
887 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
888 you edit the replacement string.
890 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
891 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
892 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
894 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
896 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
897 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
899 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
900 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
901 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
902 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
905 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
906 read mail from the menu etc.
908 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
909 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
910 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
911 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
913 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
914 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
916 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
917 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
918 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
919 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
920 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
925 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
926 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
927 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
928 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
929 earlier versions of Emacs.
931 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
932 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
935 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
936 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
937 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
938 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
941 ** New features in evaluation commands
943 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
944 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
945 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
946 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
947 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
949 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
950 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
951 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
952 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
955 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
956 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
958 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
959 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
961 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
962 code when called with a prefix argument.
966 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
967 current user setups (although it's believed that these
968 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
969 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
970 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
971 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
974 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
975 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
976 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
979 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
980 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
981 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
982 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
984 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
985 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
987 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
988 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
990 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
991 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
992 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
993 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
995 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
996 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
997 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
998 earlier statement. An example:
1000 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1002 res += a[i]->offset;
1005 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1006 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1007 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1008 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1011 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1014 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1015 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1016 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1017 documentation or other natural language text.
1019 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1020 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1021 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1022 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1023 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1024 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1025 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1027 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1028 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1029 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1030 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1032 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1033 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1034 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1035 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1038 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1039 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1040 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1041 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1042 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1043 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1044 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1045 is reported afterwards.
1047 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1048 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1049 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1051 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1052 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1053 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1054 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1055 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1056 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1059 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1060 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1061 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1062 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1063 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1066 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1067 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1068 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1069 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1070 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1071 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1073 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1074 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1075 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1076 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1077 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1078 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1079 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1080 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1082 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1083 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1084 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1085 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1088 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1089 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1090 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1091 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1092 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1093 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1094 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1095 function documentation for more info.
1097 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1098 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1099 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1100 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1101 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1102 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1103 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1104 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1106 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1108 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1109 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1111 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1112 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1113 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1114 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1115 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1118 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1119 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1120 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1123 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1124 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1125 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1126 chapter about this in the manual.
1128 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1129 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1130 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1131 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1132 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1134 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1135 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1136 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1138 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1139 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1141 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1142 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1143 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1146 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1147 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1148 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1149 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1152 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
1153 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
1154 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
1155 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
1156 they were before the filling.
1158 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1159 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1160 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1163 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1164 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1165 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1166 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1169 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1170 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1171 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1172 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1173 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1175 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1176 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1177 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1179 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1181 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1182 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1183 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1184 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1186 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1187 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1188 the column specified by comment-column.
1190 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1191 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1192 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1193 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1194 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1195 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1197 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1198 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1201 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1203 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1204 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1205 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1206 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1209 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1213 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1214 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1215 is, delete only empty directories.
1217 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1218 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1219 copy directories recursively.
1221 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1222 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1223 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1225 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1226 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1229 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
1230 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1231 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1232 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1233 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1235 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1238 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1239 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1240 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1241 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1245 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
1246 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
1247 internationalization and mail-fetching.
1249 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1250 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1252 If you used procmail like in
1254 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
1255 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
1256 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
1257 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
1259 this now has changed to
1262 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1265 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1266 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1268 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
1269 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
1270 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
1271 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
1273 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
1274 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
1275 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
1277 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
1278 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
1279 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
1280 now just a compatibility layer.
1282 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1285 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1286 called to position point.
1288 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1289 summary buffers and NOV files.
1291 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1292 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1294 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1295 subtly different manner.
1297 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
1298 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
1299 ever-changing layouts.
1301 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1303 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1305 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1307 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1311 -------------------------
1315 C-c C-c q @quotation
1317 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1320 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1322 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1324 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
1325 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
1326 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
1328 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1330 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
1331 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
1332 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
1333 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
1334 buffers to kill, as before.
1336 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
1337 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
1340 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1341 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1343 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1345 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
1346 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
1347 use. Default is 1000.
1349 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
1350 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
1352 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1354 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1356 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
1357 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
1358 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
1359 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
1361 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
1362 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
1363 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
1366 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
1367 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
1368 the normal block-hiding function.
1370 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
1372 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
1373 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
1374 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
1375 for `hs-minor-mode'.
1377 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
1378 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
1380 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
1382 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
1383 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
1384 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
1386 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
1389 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
1392 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
1393 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
1394 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
1395 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
1396 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
1397 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
1399 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
1401 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1403 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
1404 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
1406 ** Changes in Font Lock
1408 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
1409 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
1411 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
1412 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
1414 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
1415 the face used for each string/comment.
1417 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
1418 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
1420 ** Changes to Shell mode
1422 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
1423 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
1424 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
1425 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
1427 ** Comint (subshell) changes
1429 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
1430 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
1432 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
1433 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
1434 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
1435 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
1436 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
1437 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
1439 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
1440 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
1441 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
1442 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
1443 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
1444 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
1445 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
1446 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
1448 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
1449 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
1451 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
1452 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
1453 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
1455 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
1456 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
1457 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
1459 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
1460 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
1461 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
1463 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
1464 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
1465 argument, it appends to the file.
1467 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1468 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1471 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1474 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1475 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1476 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1478 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1480 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1481 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1482 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1483 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1484 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1487 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1488 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1489 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1491 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1492 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1493 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1494 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1495 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1497 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1500 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1501 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1504 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1505 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1507 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1508 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1509 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1511 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
1512 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
1514 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1515 use the -f option when sending mail.
1517 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
1518 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
1519 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
1520 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
1521 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
1522 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
1524 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
1525 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
1526 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
1528 ** Changes to TeX mode
1530 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1533 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1535 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1537 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1539 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1541 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1542 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1543 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1544 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1545 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1546 can be edited from that buffer.
1548 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1549 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1550 `A' to use all marked entries).
1552 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1553 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1555 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1556 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1557 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1560 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1561 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1562 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1563 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1565 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1566 has the following new features:
1568 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1569 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1570 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1571 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1573 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1574 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1575 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1576 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1577 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1580 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1585 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1586 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1587 spell-checks the current buffer.
1589 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1592 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1593 correction is made and re-checked.
1595 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1597 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1600 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1603 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1606 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1608 ** Makefile mode changes
1610 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1612 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1613 Fontlock mode is active.
1617 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1618 so that searches can be resumed.
1620 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1621 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1622 that started the search.
1624 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1625 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1627 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1629 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1630 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1631 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1632 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1633 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1634 `secondary-selection'.
1636 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1637 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1638 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1639 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1640 usual snappy response.
1642 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1643 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1644 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1645 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1649 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1650 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1651 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1652 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1653 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1654 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1655 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1656 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1657 file is registered in that backend.
1659 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1660 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1661 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1662 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1663 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1664 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1666 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1667 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1668 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1669 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1670 where it doesn't make sense.)
1672 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1673 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1674 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1678 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1679 checks are always done now.
1681 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1684 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1685 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1686 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1688 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1689 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1690 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1691 the working file (``merge news'').
1693 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1694 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1697 *** Multiple Backends
1699 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1700 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1701 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1702 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1705 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1706 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1707 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1708 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1710 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1711 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1712 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1713 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1714 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1716 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1717 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1718 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1719 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1721 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1722 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1723 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1724 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1728 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1729 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1730 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1731 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1732 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1733 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1734 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1736 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1737 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1738 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1739 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1740 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1741 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1742 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1743 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1744 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1745 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1746 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1749 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1750 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1751 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1752 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1753 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1754 entire directory tree.
1756 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1757 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1758 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1759 "watched" by other developers.)
1761 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1762 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1763 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1764 starting at the given directory.
1766 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1768 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1769 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1770 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1771 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1772 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1773 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1774 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1775 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1776 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1778 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1779 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1780 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1781 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1783 ** New modes and packages
1785 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1786 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1787 the default is not applicable.
1789 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1790 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1791 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1795 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1796 drawn, like this: | \ /
1800 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1801 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1802 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1803 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1804 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1807 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1808 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1810 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1813 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1814 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1815 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1816 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1818 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1819 also do without the mouse.
1821 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1822 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1823 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1824 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1825 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1827 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1829 lines straight-lines
1831 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1833 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1834 spray-can setting size for spraying
1835 vaporize line vaporize lines
1836 erase characters erase rectangles
1838 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1839 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1840 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1843 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1844 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1845 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1846 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1848 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1851 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1852 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1853 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1854 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1855 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1856 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1857 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1858 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1859 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1861 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1862 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1863 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1864 on certain projects.
1866 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1867 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1869 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1871 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1872 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1873 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1874 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1875 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1876 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1877 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1878 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1880 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1883 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1884 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1886 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1887 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1889 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1890 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1891 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1892 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1893 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1895 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1896 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1897 separate Texinfo file.
1899 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1900 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1901 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1902 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1903 enter check-in log messages.
1905 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1906 without invoking external programs.
1908 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1909 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1910 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1911 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1912 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1914 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1915 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1917 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1918 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1920 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1921 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1922 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1923 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1924 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1927 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1928 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1929 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1930 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1932 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1933 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1934 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1936 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1939 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1941 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1943 ; comment (until end of line)
1947 $A default non-terminal
1948 $"C" default terminal
1949 $?C? default special
1950 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1951 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1952 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1953 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1954 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1955 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1956 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1957 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1958 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1959 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1960 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1961 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1962 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1963 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1964 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1966 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1968 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1969 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1970 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1971 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1972 equal signs of assignments.
1974 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1975 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1977 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1978 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1979 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
1981 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1983 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1984 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1985 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1986 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1987 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1988 which answers different needs.
1990 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1991 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1992 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1993 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1994 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1997 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1998 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2000 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2002 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
2003 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
2004 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behaviour in all buffers.
2006 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2008 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2009 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2010 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2011 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2012 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2013 and background colors.
2015 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2018 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2021 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2023 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2025 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2026 whitespace in a file.
2028 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2029 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2030 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2031 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2032 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2033 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2034 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2036 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2038 Here is an example of columns:
2041 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2042 porcupine strawberry airplane
2044 Doing the following settings:
2046 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2047 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2048 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2049 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2052 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2054 M-x delimit-columns-region
2058 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2059 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2060 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2062 delim-col has the following options:
2064 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2067 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2068 between each column.
2070 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2073 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2076 delim-col has the following commands:
2078 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2079 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2081 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2082 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2083 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2084 recent file list can be displayed:
2086 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2087 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2088 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2090 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2091 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2093 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2096 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2097 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2098 specific to Message mode.
2100 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2101 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2102 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2104 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2105 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2106 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2108 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2109 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2111 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2113 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2114 minibuffer with completion.
2116 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2117 with the diary features.
2119 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2120 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2122 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2125 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2126 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2127 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2128 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2130 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
2131 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
2134 ** Changes in sort.el
2136 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
2137 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
2138 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
2141 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2143 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
2144 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
2145 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
2147 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
2148 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
2150 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2151 output ^M at the end of lines.
2153 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2154 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2156 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
2157 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
2160 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2163 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2164 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2167 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
2168 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
2169 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
2170 nil -- just delete one character.
2172 Default value is `untabify'.
2174 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2176 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2177 symbol, not double-quoted.
2179 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
2180 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
2181 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
2182 moved to lisp/obsolete.
2184 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
2185 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
2186 `auto-compression-mode' command.
2188 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
2189 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
2190 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
2192 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2193 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2195 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2196 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2198 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
2199 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
2201 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
2202 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
2203 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
2204 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
2205 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
2206 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
2208 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2209 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2211 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2213 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2214 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2216 ** Shell script mode changes.
2218 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
2219 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
2220 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
2224 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2226 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
2227 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
2228 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
2229 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
2230 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
2232 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2233 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2235 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2236 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2238 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
2239 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
2240 `template' keywords.
2242 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
2243 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
2245 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2248 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2250 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2252 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2255 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2257 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2258 variables are tagged.
2260 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2262 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2265 ** Changes in etags.el
2267 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
2268 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
2269 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
2271 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2272 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2274 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
2275 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
2276 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
2277 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
2279 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2281 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
2282 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
2284 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2286 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
2287 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
2288 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
2290 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2291 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2293 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2294 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2296 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
2297 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
2298 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
2299 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
2300 point will go to the beginning of the file.
2302 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
2303 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
2304 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
2306 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
2307 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
2308 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
2310 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
2311 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
2312 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
2314 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2316 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2318 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
2319 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
2320 expression from that list, are not checked.
2322 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
2323 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
2324 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
2325 the buffer, just like for the local files.
2327 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2329 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2330 displays local abbrevs, only.
2332 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2333 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2335 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
2336 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
2337 is measured in pixels.
2339 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2340 to be visited as images.
2342 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
2343 were added to compile.el.
2345 ** Withdrawn packages
2347 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2348 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2350 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2352 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2355 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2357 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2358 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2359 See the sections below for details.
2361 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2362 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2363 Use `copy-sequence' and `set-text-properties'.
2365 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2366 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2367 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2368 these properties are active.
2370 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2371 ranges may affect some code.
2373 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2374 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2375 make a difference to some code.
2377 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2378 operates on the minibuffer.
2380 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2381 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2382 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2383 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2384 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2385 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2386 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2387 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2388 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2389 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2390 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2391 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2393 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2394 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2395 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2397 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2398 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2399 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2401 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2404 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
2407 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2408 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2409 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2410 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2411 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2412 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2413 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2414 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2416 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2417 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2418 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2419 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2420 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2421 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2422 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2423 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2424 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2425 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2428 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2429 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2431 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
2433 ** The new function amimate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
2434 allows the animated display of strings.
2436 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2437 interactive form of a function.
2439 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2440 between custom options. Example:
2442 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2443 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2444 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2445 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2447 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2448 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2450 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2451 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2452 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2454 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2455 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2456 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2457 (signal or normal termination).
2459 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2460 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2462 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2463 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2465 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2466 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2468 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2470 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2471 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2474 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2476 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2477 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2478 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2479 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2480 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2483 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2484 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2487 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2488 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2490 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2491 with the more general `:mask' property.
2493 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2495 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2498 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2499 is running in batch mode. For example,
2501 (message "%s" (read t))
2503 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2506 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2507 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2509 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2510 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2513 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2516 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2518 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2519 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2521 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2523 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2524 comparison is done with `eq'.
2526 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2528 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2529 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
2530 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
2532 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2533 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2534 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2536 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2537 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2539 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2540 function was declared obsolete.
2542 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2543 retained as an alias).
2545 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2546 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2547 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2549 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2551 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2553 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2554 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2555 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2556 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2557 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2558 means never include the minibuffer window.
2560 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
2562 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2564 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2566 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2567 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2568 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2569 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2572 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2573 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2574 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2575 minibuffer even if it is active.
2577 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2578 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2579 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2580 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2581 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2582 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2584 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2585 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2586 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2587 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2588 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2589 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2590 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2592 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2593 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2594 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2596 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2597 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2598 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2599 Default value is nil.
2601 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2604 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
2605 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
2606 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
2608 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2609 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2610 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2612 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2613 list of a primitive.
2615 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2617 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2618 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2619 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2620 than replacing the local map.
2622 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2623 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2624 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2627 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2629 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2630 as promised long ago.
2632 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2634 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2635 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2636 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2639 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2641 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2642 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2643 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2644 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2646 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
2647 regular expressions.
2649 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
2651 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2655 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2657 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
2661 matches string STRING literally.
2664 matches character CHAR literally.
2667 matches any character except a newline.
2670 matches any character
2673 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
2674 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
2680 matches any character not in SET
2683 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
2684 in the text being matched
2687 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
2690 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2691 string being matched against.
2694 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2695 string being matched against.
2698 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2699 buffer being matched against.
2702 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2703 buffer being matched against.
2706 matches the empty string, but only at point.
2709 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2713 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
2716 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2719 `(not word-boundary)'
2720 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
2724 matches 0 through 9.
2727 matches ASCII control characters.
2730 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2733 matches space and tab only.
2736 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2740 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2744 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2745 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2748 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2749 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2752 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2755 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2758 matches anything lower-case.
2761 matches anything upper-case.
2764 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2765 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2768 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2771 matches anything that has word syntax.
2774 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
2775 of the following symbols.
2777 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
2778 `punctuation' (\\s.)
2781 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
2782 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
2783 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
2784 `string-quote' (\\s\")
2785 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
2787 `character-quote' (\\s/)
2788 `comment-start' (\\s<)
2789 `comment-end' (\\s>)
2791 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
2792 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
2794 `(category CATEGORY)'
2795 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
2796 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
2798 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
2800 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
2801 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
2805 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
2807 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
2808 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
2809 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
2810 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
2811 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
2812 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
2813 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
2814 `indian-tow-byte' (\\cI)
2815 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
2816 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
2817 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
2826 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
2830 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
2837 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
2838 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
2840 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2841 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
2843 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2844 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
2845 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
2847 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2848 another name for `submatch'.
2850 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2851 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
2852 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
2855 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
2856 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
2857 zero or more occurrances of something are \"greedy\" in that they
2858 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
2859 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
2861 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
2862 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
2864 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
2865 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2868 like `zero-or-more'.
2871 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2874 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2876 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
2877 matches one or more occurrences of A.
2883 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2886 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2888 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
2889 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
2895 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2898 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2901 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2904 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2907 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
2911 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
2913 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2915 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2916 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2917 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2918 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2920 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2921 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2922 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2923 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2925 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
2926 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
2927 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2929 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2930 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2931 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2932 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2933 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2934 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2935 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2938 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2940 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
2941 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2942 character set as previously.
2944 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2945 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2946 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2948 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2949 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2950 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2951 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2953 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2954 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
2956 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2957 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2960 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2961 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2963 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2964 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2965 buffers and strings.
2967 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2968 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2969 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2970 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2971 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2972 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2973 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
2976 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
2977 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
2978 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
2980 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
2981 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
2982 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
2983 may differ between buffer and string text.
2985 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2986 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2988 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
2989 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
2990 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
2991 `composition' from STRING.
2993 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2994 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2996 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2999 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
3000 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
3002 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
3003 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
3004 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
3005 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
3007 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
3008 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
3009 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
3010 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
3011 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
3012 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
3014 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
3015 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
3016 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
3018 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
3019 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
3020 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
3022 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
3023 have been introduced.
3025 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3026 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
3027 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
3028 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
3029 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
3030 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
3031 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
3032 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
3033 their multibyte equivalent.
3035 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
3036 that offset in the file before writing.
3038 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
3039 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
3041 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
3042 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
3043 from which the command was issued.
3045 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
3046 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
3047 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
3048 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
3051 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
3052 to `window-buffer-height'.
3054 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
3056 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
3057 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
3058 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
3060 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
3063 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
3064 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
3066 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
3067 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
3068 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
3070 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
3071 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
3072 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
3073 is currently displayed in some window.
3075 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
3076 argument function's results.
3078 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
3079 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
3080 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
3081 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
3084 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
3085 header in the list of headers passed to it.
3087 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
3088 ignores differences in case and text representation.
3090 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
3091 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
3094 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
3095 nil don't display a cursor
3096 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
3097 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
3098 others display a box cursor.
3100 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
3101 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
3102 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
3103 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
3105 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
3106 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
3107 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
3108 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
3112 (string-to-syntax "()")
3115 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
3118 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
3119 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
3126 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
3131 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
3136 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
3143 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
3144 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
3147 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
3148 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
3149 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
3150 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
3152 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
3154 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
3155 for a regexp in a string.
3157 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
3158 `mouse-position-function'.
3160 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
3161 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
3163 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
3164 Keywords are now always considered constants.
3166 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
3169 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
3170 returned by function `recent-keys'.
3172 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
3173 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
3174 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
3175 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
3178 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
3179 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
3181 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
3182 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
3183 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
3184 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
3187 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
3188 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
3189 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
3190 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
3192 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
3193 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
3194 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
3196 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
3197 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
3200 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
3202 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
3203 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
3204 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
3207 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
3208 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
3209 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
3210 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
3211 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
3213 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
3214 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
3216 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
3217 instead of being optional.
3219 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
3220 modify read-only text.
3222 ** New functions and variables for locales.
3224 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
3225 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
3226 time functions like strftime. The new variables
3227 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
3228 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
3230 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
3231 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
3232 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
3233 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
3234 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
3235 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
3236 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
3238 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
3239 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
3240 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
3243 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
3244 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
3246 ** New function `propertize'
3248 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
3249 strings with text properties.
3251 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
3253 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
3254 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
3255 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
3256 specified value of that property. Example:
3258 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
3260 ** push and pop macros.
3262 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
3263 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
3264 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
3266 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
3267 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
3268 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
3270 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
3272 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
3273 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
3275 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
3276 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
3277 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
3278 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3280 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
3281 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
3282 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
3283 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3285 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
3286 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
3287 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
3290 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
3291 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
3292 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
3293 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
3294 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
3296 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3298 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
3299 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3300 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3301 [:alpha:] matches letters.
3302 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3303 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3304 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
3305 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
3306 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
3307 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
3308 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3309 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
3310 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
3311 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
3312 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
3314 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
3316 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
3318 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
3320 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
3321 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
3325 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
3326 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
3327 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
3331 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
3332 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
3334 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
3336 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
3337 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
3338 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
3339 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
3340 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
3342 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3344 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
3345 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
3346 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
3350 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
3351 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
3352 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
3353 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
3354 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
3356 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3358 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3360 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3362 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3364 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3366 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3369 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3371 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3373 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3375 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
3377 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
3379 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
3381 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3383 Returns the size of TABLE.
3385 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
3387 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
3389 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
3391 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
3393 - Function: clrhash TABLE
3397 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3399 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3402 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3404 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3405 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3407 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3409 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3411 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3413 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3414 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3416 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3418 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3420 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3422 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
3423 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
3424 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
3425 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
3426 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
3428 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3430 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
3431 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
3432 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3434 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3435 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3437 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3438 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3440 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3441 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3443 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3444 'case-fold-string-hash))
3446 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3448 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3450 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3451 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3452 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3454 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3456 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3457 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3459 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3460 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3461 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3462 is too short to reach that column.
3464 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3465 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3466 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3467 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3469 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3470 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3471 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3473 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3474 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3476 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3477 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3479 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3480 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3481 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3482 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3483 temporary-file-directory instead.
3485 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3486 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3487 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3488 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3490 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3491 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3493 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3495 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3496 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3497 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3499 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3501 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3502 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3503 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3504 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3505 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3506 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3508 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3509 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3510 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3511 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3513 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3515 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3516 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3517 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3520 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3521 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3525 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3527 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3528 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3531 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3533 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3535 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3536 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3539 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3541 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3542 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3547 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3548 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3550 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3551 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3552 to enable sound support.
3554 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3555 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3556 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3557 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3558 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3560 The following sound properties are supported:
3564 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3565 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3569 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3570 may be present, but not both.
3574 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3575 0..1. This property is optional.
3579 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3580 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3582 Other properties are ignored.
3584 An alternative interface is called as
3585 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3587 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3589 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3592 ** Changes to garbage collection
3594 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3595 of live and free strings.
3597 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3598 strings that have been consed so far.
3601 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3604 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3607 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3608 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3609 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3611 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3613 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3615 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3618 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3620 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3622 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3623 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3624 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3625 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3626 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3628 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3631 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3633 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3634 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3635 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3637 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3638 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3640 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3643 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3647 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3649 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3650 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3651 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3652 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3654 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3655 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3657 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3658 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3659 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3660 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3661 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3662 just display it black instead.
3664 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3667 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3671 ** New face implementation.
3673 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3674 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3678 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3680 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3682 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3683 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3685 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3687 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3689 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3691 6. Foreground color.
3693 7. Background color.
3695 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3697 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3699 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3701 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3703 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3706 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3707 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3709 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3710 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3711 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3712 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3713 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3714 attributes mentioned above.
3716 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3717 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3720 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3721 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3726 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3727 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3728 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3729 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3730 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3731 results in a fully-specified face.
3733 *** Face realization.
3735 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3736 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3737 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3738 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3739 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3740 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3742 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3743 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3744 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3745 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3747 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3748 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3749 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3750 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3751 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3753 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3754 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3755 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3756 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3757 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3760 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3761 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3762 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3763 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3765 **** Clearing face caches.
3767 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3768 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3773 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3774 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3775 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3777 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3778 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3779 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3780 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3781 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3783 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3784 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3785 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3787 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3789 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3790 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3791 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3792 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3793 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3794 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3795 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3797 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3798 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3801 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3802 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3805 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3808 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3813 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3814 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3817 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3818 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3819 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3820 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3821 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3824 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3826 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3828 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3830 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3832 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3833 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3834 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3836 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3837 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3838 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3839 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3840 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3841 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3842 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3843 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3844 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3845 of the face font sort order.
3847 - Function: x-font-family-list
3849 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3850 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3851 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3852 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3854 - Variable: font-list-limit
3856 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3857 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3858 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3860 *** Setting face attributes.
3862 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3863 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3864 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3867 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3868 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3870 The following attributes are recognized:
3874 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3875 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3876 and `?' are allowed.
3880 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3881 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3882 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3883 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3887 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3888 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3889 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3890 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3894 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3895 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3896 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3900 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3901 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3904 `:foreground', `:background'
3906 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3910 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3911 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3912 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3917 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3918 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3919 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3924 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3925 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3926 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3927 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3931 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3932 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3933 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3934 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3935 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3936 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3937 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3938 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3939 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3940 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3941 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3942 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3943 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3944 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3945 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3946 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3951 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3952 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3956 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3957 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3958 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3959 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3960 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3961 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3963 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3964 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3968 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3969 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3970 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3973 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
3974 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
3975 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
3977 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3982 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
3983 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
3984 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
3986 *** Face attributes and X resources
3988 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3991 Face attribute X resource class
3992 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
3993 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
3994 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
3995 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
3996 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
3997 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
3998 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
3999 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
4000 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
4001 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
4002 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
4003 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
4004 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
4005 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
4006 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
4007 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
4008 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4009 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
4010 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
4011 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4013 *** Text property `face'.
4015 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
4016 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
4017 specification can be
4019 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
4021 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
4022 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
4023 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
4024 for face attribute names.
4026 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
4027 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
4028 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
4030 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
4032 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
4033 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
4034 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
4035 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
4036 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
4037 used to clear the mapping table.
4039 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
4041 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
4042 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
4043 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
4044 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
4045 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
4046 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
4047 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
4048 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
4049 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
4050 modify their color-related behavior.
4052 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
4055 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
4057 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
4058 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
4059 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
4060 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
4061 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
4062 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
4063 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
4064 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
4065 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
4067 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
4068 display can display image files.
4070 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
4072 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
4073 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
4074 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
4075 `Inviolable' option.
4077 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
4078 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
4079 Otherwise, it returns zero.
4081 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
4083 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
4084 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
4085 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
4087 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
4088 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
4089 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
4090 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
4091 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
4092 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
4093 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
4096 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
4097 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
4098 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
4100 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
4102 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
4104 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
4106 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4107 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
4108 constrained position if that is different.
4110 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
4111 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
4112 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
4113 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
4114 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4115 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
4116 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
4117 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
4118 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
4120 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
4121 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
4122 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
4123 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
4124 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
4126 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
4127 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
4129 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
4131 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
4133 Delete the field surrounding POS.
4134 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4135 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4137 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4139 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
4140 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4141 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4142 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
4143 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
4145 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4147 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
4148 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4149 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4150 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
4151 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
4153 - Function: field-string &optional POS
4155 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
4156 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4157 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4159 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
4161 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
4162 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4163 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4167 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
4168 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
4169 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
4170 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
4172 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
4173 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
4174 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
4175 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
4178 IMAGE is an image specification.
4180 *** Image specifications
4182 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
4183 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
4184 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
4185 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
4186 described below are ignored.
4188 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
4192 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
4193 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
4194 to use for its ascent.
4196 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
4197 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
4199 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
4200 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
4201 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
4202 overlays that apply to the image.
4206 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
4207 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
4208 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
4212 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
4217 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
4219 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
4220 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
4222 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
4223 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
4224 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
4225 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
4226 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
4227 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
4228 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
4229 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
4232 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
4234 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
4236 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
4237 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
4238 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
4239 of the factors' absolute values.
4241 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
4247 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
4253 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
4258 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
4259 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
4260 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
4261 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
4262 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
4263 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
4264 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
4267 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
4268 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
4273 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
4274 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
4275 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
4276 may be present in the image specification.
4280 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
4281 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
4282 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
4283 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
4285 *** Supported image types
4287 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
4289 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
4290 properties supported are
4294 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4295 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4299 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4300 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4302 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
4303 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
4304 instead of a `:file' property.
4308 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4312 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4318 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4319 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4321 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4323 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4326 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
4327 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
4330 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4332 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
4333 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
4334 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
4335 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
4337 Additional image properties supported are:
4339 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4341 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
4342 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
4345 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4346 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4348 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4349 to display compressed images.
4351 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4353 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4354 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4359 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4360 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4364 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4365 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4367 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4369 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4370 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4373 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4375 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4376 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4379 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4381 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4382 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4384 Additional image properties supported are:
4388 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
4389 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
4391 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
4392 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
4393 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
4396 (defun show-anim (file max)
4397 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
4398 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
4400 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4403 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4406 (goto-char (point-min))
4407 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4408 (insert-image img "x"))
4409 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4411 **** PNG, image type `png'
4413 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4414 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4417 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4419 Additional image properties supported are:
4423 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4424 integer. This is a required property.
4428 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4429 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4433 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4434 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4435 files. This is an required property.
4437 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4442 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4443 which are supported in the current configuration.
4445 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4446 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4447 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4448 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4449 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4451 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4453 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4454 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4455 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4456 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4457 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4462 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4465 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4466 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4467 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4468 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4469 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4470 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4471 of the display margins.
4473 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4474 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4475 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4476 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4481 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4482 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4483 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4484 that have a `help-echo' property.
4486 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4487 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4488 the window in which the help was found.
4490 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4491 `help-echo' text property was found.
4493 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4494 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4496 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4497 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4500 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4501 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4503 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4504 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4505 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4506 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4507 used as help string.
4509 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4510 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4511 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4513 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4515 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4516 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4518 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4519 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4520 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4521 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4524 (global-set-key [A-down]
4527 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4528 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4529 (global-set-key [A-up]
4532 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4533 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4535 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4537 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4538 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4539 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4540 is called with one argument, POS.
4542 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4543 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4544 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4545 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4546 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4548 ** Tool bar support.
4550 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4551 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4552 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4553 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4554 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4555 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4557 *** Tool bar item definitions
4559 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4560 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4561 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4563 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4564 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4565 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4566 property (see below).
4568 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4569 binding are currently ignored.
4571 The following properties are recognized:
4575 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4580 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4584 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4585 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4586 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4588 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4590 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4591 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4595 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4596 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4597 meaning of each of the four elements:
4599 Index Use when item is
4600 ----------------------------------------
4601 0 enabled and selected
4602 1 enabled and deselected
4603 2 disabled and selected
4604 3 disabled and deselected
4606 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4607 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4609 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4611 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4612 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4614 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4615 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4616 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4619 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4620 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4621 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4623 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4625 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4626 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4627 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4629 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4630 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4632 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4633 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4634 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4635 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4637 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4638 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4640 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4642 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4645 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4646 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4647 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4649 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4651 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4653 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4656 ** Mode line changes.
4658 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4660 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4661 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4662 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4664 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4665 a `local-map' text property.
4667 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4668 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4670 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4671 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4672 `local-map' property.
4674 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4675 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4678 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4679 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4681 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4682 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4684 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4686 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4687 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4688 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4689 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4692 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4695 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4696 position in the header-line.
4698 ** Text property `display'
4700 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4701 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4702 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4703 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4704 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4706 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4708 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4709 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4711 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4712 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4713 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4714 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4715 simpler form STRING as property value.
4717 *** Variable width and height spaces
4719 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4720 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4721 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4722 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4723 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4724 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4725 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4727 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4728 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4729 properties described below.
4731 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4732 characters having the `display' property.
4736 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4737 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4739 - :relative-width FACTOR
4741 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4742 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4743 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4744 width of that character by FACTOR.
4748 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4749 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4751 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4755 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4758 - :relative-height FACTOR
4760 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4761 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4765 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4766 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4767 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4770 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4774 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4775 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4776 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4777 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4778 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4779 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4780 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4781 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4782 as display specification.
4784 *** Other display properties
4786 - (space-width FACTOR)
4788 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4789 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4794 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4796 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4797 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4798 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4799 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4800 a font is available counts as a step.
4802 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4803 as tall as the frame's default font.
4805 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4806 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4808 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4809 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4813 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4814 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4815 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4816 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4817 `height' subproperty.
4819 *** Conditional display properties
4821 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4822 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
4823 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
4824 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
4825 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
4826 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
4827 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
4828 different when object is a string.
4830 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4833 ** New menu separator types.
4835 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4836 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4837 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4838 to specify other menu separator types.
4840 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4842 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4845 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4847 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4849 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4851 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4853 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4855 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4857 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4859 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4861 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4863 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4864 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4866 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4868 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4870 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4872 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4874 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4876 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4878 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4880 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4882 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4884 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4886 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4888 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4890 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4892 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4894 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4895 the corresponding single-line separators.
4897 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4899 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4900 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4901 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4902 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4903 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4904 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4905 default foreground is black.
4907 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4908 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4909 `ScrollBarBackground').
4911 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4912 settings for scroll bar colors.
4914 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4915 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4917 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4918 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4919 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4920 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4921 the original window start.
4923 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4924 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4925 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4927 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4929 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4930 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4931 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4932 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4934 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4935 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4937 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4939 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4940 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4941 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4942 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4943 temporarily to nil, for example
4945 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4946 (enlarge-window 10))
4948 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4949 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4951 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4952 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4953 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4954 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4955 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4956 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4960 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4962 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4965 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4967 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4969 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4970 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4971 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4972 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4973 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
4975 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4979 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4981 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4985 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4987 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4988 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4990 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4992 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4994 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
4995 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
4996 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
4998 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4999 is the one that is used.
5001 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
5002 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
5003 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
5004 separate from the command's regular output.
5005 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
5006 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
5007 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
5010 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
5011 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
5012 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
5013 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
5015 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
5016 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
5017 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
5018 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
5020 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
5021 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
5022 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
5023 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
5025 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
5026 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
5027 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
5028 they never ignore case.
5030 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
5031 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
5032 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
5033 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
5034 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
5035 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
5036 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
5038 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
5039 the same format that was used in the file before.
5041 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
5042 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
5044 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
5045 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
5046 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
5048 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
5049 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
5050 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
5051 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
5052 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
5053 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
5054 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
5056 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
5057 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
5058 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
5059 format. You can now customize these variables.
5061 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
5062 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
5063 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
5064 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
5066 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
5067 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
5068 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
5070 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
5071 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
5072 doesn't have any effect.
5074 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
5077 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
5078 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
5079 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
5081 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
5082 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
5083 `auto-show-mode' command.
5085 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
5086 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
5087 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
5088 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
5089 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
5091 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
5092 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
5094 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
5095 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
5096 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
5098 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
5099 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
5100 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
5101 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
5103 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
5105 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
5106 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
5107 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
5108 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
5109 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
5111 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
5112 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
5114 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
5115 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
5116 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
5117 `?' on other systems.
5119 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
5120 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
5123 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
5124 current codepage when it starts.
5128 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
5129 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
5130 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
5131 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
5132 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
5133 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
5137 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
5138 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
5140 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
5141 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
5142 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
5143 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
5144 buffer-file-coding-system.
5146 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
5147 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
5150 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
5151 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
5152 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
5153 list of possible coding systems.
5157 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
5158 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
5159 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
5160 docstring for details.
5162 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
5163 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
5164 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
5165 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
5166 lineup functions use this feature currently.
5168 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
5169 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
5171 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
5172 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
5174 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
5175 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
5176 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
5177 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
5180 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
5181 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
5183 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
5184 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
5185 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
5186 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
5188 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
5189 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
5190 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
5191 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
5192 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
5194 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
5196 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
5198 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
5199 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
5201 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
5203 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
5204 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
5205 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
5206 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
5207 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
5211 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
5212 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
5213 Gnus manual for the full story.
5215 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
5216 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
5217 group, which is created automatically.
5219 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
5222 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
5224 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
5225 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
5227 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
5230 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
5232 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
5233 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
5235 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
5237 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
5238 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
5240 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
5241 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
5243 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
5244 control over simplification.
5246 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
5248 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
5251 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
5253 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
5255 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
5256 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
5257 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
5259 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
5260 `a' forces normal posting method.
5262 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
5265 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
5268 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
5269 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
5271 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
5274 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
5276 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
5278 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
5279 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
5281 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
5282 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
5284 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
5286 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
5289 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
5290 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5292 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5293 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5295 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5297 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5299 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5301 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5303 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
5304 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
5305 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
5307 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
5308 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
5309 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
5310 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
5311 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
5313 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
5314 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
5315 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
5316 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
5318 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
5319 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
5320 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
5323 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5325 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
5326 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
5328 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
5329 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
5330 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
5331 removed from the label.
5333 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
5334 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
5336 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5337 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5339 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5340 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5343 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5345 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5347 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5348 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5350 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5351 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5352 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5354 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5355 changes with a special face.
5357 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5358 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5359 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5361 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5363 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5364 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5365 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5366 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5367 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5369 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5370 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5371 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5373 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5374 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5375 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5376 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5377 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5378 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5379 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
5380 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
5381 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
5383 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
5384 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
5385 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
5386 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
5387 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5390 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5391 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5392 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5393 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5394 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5395 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5397 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5398 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5399 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5400 was not documented clearly before.
5402 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5403 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5405 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5407 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5408 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5409 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5410 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5412 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5413 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5414 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5416 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5418 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5419 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5421 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5422 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5425 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5426 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5427 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5428 file names and attributes are returned.
5430 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5431 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5432 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5433 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5436 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5437 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5439 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5441 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5442 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5443 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5446 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5447 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5450 The new function process-running-child-p
5451 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5452 terminal to its own child process.
5454 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5455 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5456 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5457 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5459 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5460 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5462 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5463 :included is an alias for :visible.
5465 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5466 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5467 to move or copy menu entries.
5469 ** Multibyte editing changes
5471 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5472 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5473 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5474 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5475 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5476 (setq char (sref str idx)
5477 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5478 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5480 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5481 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5482 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5484 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5485 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5486 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5488 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5490 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5491 across the boundary.
5493 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5494 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5495 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5496 contains 8-bit characters.
5497 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5498 contains invalid characters.
5500 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5501 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5502 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5503 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5506 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5507 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5508 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5509 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5511 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5512 compose Thai characters in a string.
5514 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5515 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5516 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5517 menus should always use the third argument.
5519 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5520 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5521 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5522 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5524 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5525 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5526 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5527 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5529 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5530 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5531 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5534 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5536 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5537 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5538 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5540 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5541 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5542 means to clear out that attribute.
5544 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5545 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5547 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5548 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5549 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5550 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5552 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5553 the gap of the current buffer.
5555 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5556 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5559 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5560 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5561 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5562 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5564 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5566 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5567 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5568 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5569 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5570 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5572 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5573 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5574 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5575 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5576 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5578 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5579 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5580 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5582 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5583 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5584 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5585 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5586 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5589 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5590 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5591 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5592 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5594 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5596 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5597 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5598 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5599 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5601 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5602 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5603 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5604 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5605 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5606 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5607 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5610 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5613 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5614 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5615 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5616 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5617 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5619 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5620 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5621 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5622 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5624 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5625 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5626 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5627 something that most users not do.
5629 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5630 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5631 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5634 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5637 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5638 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5639 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5640 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5643 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5644 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5645 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5646 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5647 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5650 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5651 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5652 to be confused by TeX commands.
5654 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5655 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5656 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5657 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5659 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5660 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5661 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5662 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5663 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5665 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5666 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5668 ** Changes in input method usage.
5670 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5671 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5674 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5676 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5677 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5679 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5680 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5682 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5684 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5686 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5687 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5689 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5690 given in the following case:
5691 o When you are using a complex input method.
5692 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5694 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5695 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5696 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5697 setting it to t is helpful.
5699 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5701 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5703 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5704 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5705 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5706 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5709 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5710 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5711 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5714 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5716 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5718 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5719 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5721 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5722 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5723 its owner and group.
5725 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5726 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5728 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5729 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5731 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5732 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5733 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5734 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5736 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5737 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5738 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5739 for writing keyboard macros.
5741 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5742 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5743 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5744 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5745 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5748 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5750 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5751 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5754 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5755 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5756 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5757 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5759 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5760 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5761 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5763 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5764 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5765 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5766 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5768 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5769 failure if the command produces no output.
5771 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5772 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5775 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5776 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5777 function and variable names.
5779 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5780 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5781 file-coding-system-alist.
5783 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5784 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5785 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5786 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5787 according to the current fontset.
5789 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5791 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5792 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5793 nonascii-insert-offset.
5795 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5796 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5797 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5798 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5800 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5801 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5803 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5804 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5806 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5807 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5810 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5811 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5813 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5814 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5815 all variables that have documentation.
5817 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5818 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5819 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5820 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5821 it should show; the default is 20.
5823 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5824 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5827 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5828 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5829 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5830 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5831 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5832 Newly added options are included as well.
5834 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5835 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5836 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5838 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5841 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5842 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5844 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5845 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5848 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5849 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5852 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5853 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5854 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5855 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5858 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5860 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5861 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5862 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5864 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5865 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5866 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5871 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5872 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5874 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5875 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5877 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5878 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5880 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5881 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5882 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5883 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5884 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5885 made invisible again.
5887 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5889 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5890 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5891 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5894 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5895 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5896 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5897 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5898 rmail-default-body-file.
5900 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5901 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5902 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5904 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5905 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5906 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5908 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5909 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5910 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5911 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5912 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5913 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5915 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5916 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5917 provided by feedmail are:
5919 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5920 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5921 there is also a queue for draft messages
5923 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5924 be prompted for confirmation
5926 **** does smart filling of address headers
5928 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5929 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5930 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5932 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5933 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5934 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5935 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5939 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5940 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5942 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5943 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5945 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5946 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5947 for a specified regexp.
5951 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5954 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5955 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5958 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5959 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5960 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5961 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5963 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5964 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5965 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5966 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5967 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5969 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5970 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5971 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5972 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5973 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
5975 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
5976 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
5977 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
5978 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
5980 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
5981 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
5982 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
5984 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
5985 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
5986 session to resolve them.
5988 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
5989 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
5990 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
5993 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
5994 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
5995 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
5996 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
5997 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
5998 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
6001 ** Changes in Font Lock
6003 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
6004 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
6005 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
6006 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
6007 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
6009 ** Frame name display changes
6011 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
6012 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
6013 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
6014 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
6016 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
6017 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
6020 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6022 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
6023 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
6024 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
6026 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
6028 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
6029 that is, the line after the last line you got.
6030 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
6032 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
6033 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
6036 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
6037 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
6038 previously sent input.
6040 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
6041 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
6042 as the search string.
6044 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
6045 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
6049 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
6050 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
6051 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
6054 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
6055 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
6056 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
6057 style is still the default however.
6059 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
6061 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
6062 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
6063 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
6065 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
6066 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
6068 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
6069 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
6071 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
6072 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
6074 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
6075 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
6077 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
6078 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
6079 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
6080 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
6082 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
6084 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
6085 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
6086 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
6088 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
6089 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
6090 expanding dynamically.
6092 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
6093 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
6095 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
6096 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
6097 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
6098 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
6100 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
6102 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6104 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
6105 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
6106 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
6107 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
6108 against the first word in the title.
6110 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
6111 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
6112 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
6113 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
6114 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
6115 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
6117 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
6118 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
6119 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
6120 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
6122 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
6124 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
6125 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
6126 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
6127 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
6128 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
6129 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
6131 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
6132 Editing group once the package is loaded.
6134 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
6135 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
6136 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
6138 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
6139 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
6143 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
6144 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
6145 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
6147 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
6148 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
6149 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
6150 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
6153 o URLs are automatically skipped
6154 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
6156 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
6158 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6160 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
6161 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
6162 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
6163 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
6165 *** New recursive parser.
6167 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
6168 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
6169 recursive parser scans the individual files.
6171 *** Parsing only part of a document.
6173 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
6174 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
6175 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
6177 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
6179 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
6181 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
6183 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
6185 *** Using multiple selection buffers
6187 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
6188 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
6190 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
6192 *** References to external documents.
6194 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
6195 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
6196 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
6197 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
6198 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
6199 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
6200 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
6202 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
6204 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
6205 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
6207 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
6208 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
6210 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
6212 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
6213 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
6215 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
6217 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
6218 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
6219 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
6220 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
6221 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
6222 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
6225 *** Support for the varioref package
6227 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
6231 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
6232 and citations are created. These hooks are
6233 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
6234 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
6236 *** Citations outside LaTeX
6238 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
6239 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
6241 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
6243 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
6244 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
6247 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
6249 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
6250 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
6251 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
6252 directories that contain the same file name.
6254 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
6255 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
6256 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
6257 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
6258 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
6259 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
6260 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
6263 ** New modes and packages
6265 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
6266 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
6267 it, but some do not.
6269 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
6272 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
6273 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
6276 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
6278 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
6279 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
6280 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
6281 established system of notation similar to Chess.
6283 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
6284 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
6285 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
6287 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
6288 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
6289 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
6290 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
6291 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
6294 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6295 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6297 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
6298 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
6299 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
6300 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
6302 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6304 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
6305 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
6306 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
6307 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
6308 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
6309 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
6310 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
6311 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
6312 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
6313 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
6314 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
6316 Platform-specific modes:
6318 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
6319 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
6320 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
6321 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
6322 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
6323 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
6324 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
6325 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
6326 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
6328 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6330 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
6331 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
6332 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
6333 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
6335 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
6336 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
6337 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
6339 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
6340 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
6341 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
6342 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
6344 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
6345 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
6346 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
6349 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
6350 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6351 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6352 current input method for reading this one event.
6354 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6355 now control whether to output certain characters as
6356 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6357 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6358 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6359 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6361 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6363 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6364 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6366 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6367 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6368 always increases point by 1.
6370 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6371 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6373 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6375 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6376 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6377 default value changed. For example,
6379 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6384 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6387 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
6388 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6389 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6390 `:version' in the top level group.
6392 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6394 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6395 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6397 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6398 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6399 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6402 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6403 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6406 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6407 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6408 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6410 ** Frame-local variables.
6412 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6413 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6414 local bindings for that variable.
6416 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6417 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6418 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6421 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6422 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6423 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6424 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6426 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6427 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6428 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6429 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6431 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6432 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6433 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6434 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6435 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6437 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6438 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6439 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6440 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6442 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6443 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6445 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6446 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6447 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6449 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6450 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6451 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6452 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6454 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6455 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6458 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6459 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6460 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6461 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6462 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6464 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6465 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6466 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6467 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6469 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6470 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6471 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6472 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6473 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6475 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6476 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6477 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6478 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6480 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6481 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6482 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6484 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6485 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6486 was directed to display this buffer.
6488 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6489 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6490 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6491 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6492 set-window-configuration.
6494 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6495 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6496 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6497 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6499 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6500 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6501 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6503 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6504 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6505 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6507 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6508 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6510 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6511 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6513 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6514 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6515 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6517 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6518 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6519 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6520 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6524 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6525 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6528 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6529 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6530 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6531 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6532 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6534 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6536 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6537 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6538 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6539 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6542 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6543 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6544 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6545 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6546 The supported properties include
6548 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6550 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6551 item should appear in the menu.
6553 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6554 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6555 It should return a binding to use instead.
6557 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6558 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6559 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6560 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6561 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6564 This means that the command normally has no
6565 keyboard equivalent.
6566 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6567 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6568 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6569 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6570 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6572 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6573 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6575 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6579 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6580 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6581 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6582 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6584 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6586 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6587 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6588 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6589 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6590 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6591 forward, away from the user.
6593 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6595 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6596 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6597 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6598 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6599 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6601 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6603 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6604 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6605 that were dragged and dropped.
6607 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6609 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6611 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6612 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6613 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6615 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6616 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6617 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6619 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6620 in Emacs 19 and before.
6622 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6623 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6625 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6626 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6627 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6628 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6630 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6631 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6632 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6633 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6634 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6636 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6637 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6638 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6639 consistent with the new representation.
6641 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6642 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6643 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6644 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6646 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6647 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6648 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6650 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6651 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6652 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6654 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6655 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6656 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6658 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6659 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6661 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6662 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6664 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6665 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6666 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6667 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6669 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6670 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6672 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6673 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6674 buffer or string being searched.
6676 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6677 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6678 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6679 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6680 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6681 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6682 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6684 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6686 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6687 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6688 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6689 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6690 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6691 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6692 define-coding-system-alias.
6694 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6695 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6696 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6697 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6698 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6699 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6700 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6703 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6704 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6705 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6706 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6708 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6709 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6710 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6711 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6713 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6714 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6715 This function requires a user interaction.
6717 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6718 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6719 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6720 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6721 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6722 select-safe-coding-system.
6724 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6725 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6726 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6729 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6730 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6731 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6733 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6734 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6735 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6736 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6738 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6739 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6740 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6743 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6744 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6746 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6747 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6748 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6749 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6750 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6751 range of characters.
6753 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6754 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6756 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6757 in the current buffer at position POS.
6759 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6760 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6761 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6762 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6763 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6764 binding input-method-function to nil.
6766 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6767 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6768 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6769 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6770 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6772 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6773 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6775 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6776 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6778 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6779 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6780 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6781 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6782 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6784 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6786 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6787 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6788 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6791 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6792 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6794 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6795 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6796 in your .emacs file.)
6798 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6799 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6801 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6802 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6804 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6805 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6808 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6809 delete the character before point, as usual.
6811 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6812 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6813 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6815 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6816 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6817 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6818 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6819 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6822 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6823 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6824 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6825 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6826 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6828 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6829 and is an alias for it.
6831 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6832 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6834 ** Scrolling changes
6836 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6837 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6839 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6840 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6843 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6844 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6845 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6846 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6848 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6849 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6850 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6851 recenters the window.
6853 ** International character set support (MULE)
6855 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6856 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6857 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6858 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6859 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6860 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6862 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6863 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6864 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6865 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6866 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6868 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6869 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6870 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6871 language, to make it possible to type them.
6873 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6874 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6876 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6877 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6879 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6881 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6883 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6884 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6885 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6886 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6887 characters for their work until they want to change.
6891 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6892 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6893 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6894 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6895 support several input methods.
6897 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6898 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6901 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6902 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6903 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6904 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6905 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6908 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6909 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6910 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6911 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6912 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6914 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6915 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6916 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6917 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6919 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6920 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6921 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6922 the first guess is wrong.
6924 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6925 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6927 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6928 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6929 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6930 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6932 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6933 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6934 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6935 translate automatically to and from either one.
6937 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6939 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6940 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6941 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6944 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6945 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6946 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6947 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6949 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6950 character conversion as well.
6952 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6954 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6955 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6956 requires using many fonts.
6958 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6959 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6961 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6962 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6963 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6964 you would use a font.
6966 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6967 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6968 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6970 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6971 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6972 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6973 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
6974 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
6976 *** Defining fontsets.
6978 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
6979 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
6980 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
6982 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
6983 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
6984 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
6985 standard fontset are created automatically.
6987 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
6988 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
6989 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
6990 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
6991 name is `fontset-startup'.
6993 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
6994 The resource value should have this form:
6995 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
6996 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
6997 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
6998 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
6999 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
7000 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
7001 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
7002 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
7003 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
7005 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
7006 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
7007 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
7009 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
7010 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
7012 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
7013 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
7014 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
7015 Here is the substitution rule:
7016 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
7017 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
7018 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
7019 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
7020 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
7022 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
7023 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
7024 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
7026 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
7027 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
7028 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
7029 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
7032 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
7033 defaults for a particular choice of language.
7035 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
7036 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
7037 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
7038 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
7039 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
7040 system for new files that you create.
7042 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
7043 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
7044 whole Emacs session.
7046 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
7047 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
7048 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
7050 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
7051 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
7052 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
7053 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
7054 coding systems that Emacs supports.
7056 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
7057 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
7058 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
7059 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
7060 is used for *the immediately following command*.
7062 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
7063 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
7065 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
7066 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
7068 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
7069 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
7071 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
7072 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
7073 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
7074 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
7077 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
7078 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
7079 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
7080 translated into that character code.
7082 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
7083 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
7085 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
7087 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
7088 the coding system for keyboard input.
7090 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
7091 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
7092 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
7094 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
7096 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
7097 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
7098 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
7099 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
7100 designed to work with terminals.
7102 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
7103 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
7104 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
7105 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
7106 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
7107 in the corresponding buffer.
7109 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
7111 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
7112 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
7113 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
7115 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
7116 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
7117 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
7120 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
7121 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
7123 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
7124 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
7125 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
7126 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
7128 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
7129 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
7130 related information.
7132 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
7133 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
7136 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
7137 information about the support for a particular language.
7138 You specify the language as an argument.
7140 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
7141 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
7144 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
7145 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
7146 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
7147 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
7149 A alternativnyj (Russian)
7151 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
7152 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
7153 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
7154 E euc-japan (Japanese)
7155 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7156 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
7157 K euc-korea (Korean)
7160 S shift_jis (Japanese)
7163 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
7164 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7165 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
7169 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
7170 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
7171 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
7172 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
7174 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
7175 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
7177 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
7178 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
7179 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
7180 Rmail files themselves.
7182 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
7183 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
7185 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
7188 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
7189 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
7190 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
7191 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
7192 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
7194 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
7195 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
7196 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
7199 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
7200 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
7201 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
7202 without any conversion.
7204 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
7205 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
7206 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
7207 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
7209 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
7210 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
7212 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
7213 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
7215 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
7216 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
7218 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
7219 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
7220 in the buffer before point.
7222 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
7223 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
7226 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
7227 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
7229 ** File locking works with NFS now.
7231 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
7232 in the same directory as FILENAME.
7234 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
7235 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
7236 can become a bottleneck.
7238 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
7239 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
7240 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
7241 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
7242 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
7243 so useful that the change is worth while.
7245 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
7246 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
7247 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
7248 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
7250 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
7251 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
7254 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
7255 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
7256 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
7258 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
7259 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
7260 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
7262 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
7263 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
7264 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
7266 ** Changes in View mode.
7268 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
7269 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
7271 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
7272 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
7274 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
7277 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
7278 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
7280 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
7281 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
7282 not just the selected window.
7284 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
7285 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
7286 turns View mode on or off.
7288 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
7289 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
7290 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
7292 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
7293 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
7295 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
7296 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
7297 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
7298 which version to compare with.
7300 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7301 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7303 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
7304 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
7305 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
7306 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
7308 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
7309 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
7310 blocks, all of them or none.
7312 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
7313 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
7316 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
7317 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
7318 However, the mode will not be changed if
7319 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
7320 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
7321 not suitable for ordinary files, or
7322 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
7324 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7326 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7327 these commands do not change the major mode.
7329 ** M-x occur changes.
7331 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7332 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7334 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
7335 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
7336 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
7338 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
7339 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
7340 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
7341 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
7342 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
7344 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
7345 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
7346 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
7347 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
7349 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7350 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7351 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7353 ** Outline mode changes.
7355 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7357 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7359 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7360 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7361 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7364 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7365 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7368 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7369 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7371 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7373 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7374 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7375 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7376 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7378 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7379 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7380 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
7382 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7383 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7386 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
7387 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
7388 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7389 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7391 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7392 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7393 can be. The default value is 30.
7395 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7397 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7398 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7399 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7400 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7401 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7404 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7405 compose-mail-other-frame.
7407 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7408 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7409 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7410 buffer that shows the original message.
7412 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7413 with separator lines around the contents.
7415 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7416 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7417 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7418 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7420 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7422 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7423 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7424 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7425 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7427 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7428 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7431 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7432 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7435 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7436 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7437 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7438 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7440 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7441 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7442 be taken to be magic.
7444 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7445 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7446 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7448 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7449 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7451 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7452 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7454 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7456 new key dired.el binding old key
7457 ------- ---------------- -------
7458 * c dired-change-marks c
7460 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7461 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7462 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7464 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7465 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
7466 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7467 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7468 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7469 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7473 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7474 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7475 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7476 each time you run it.
7478 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7479 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7481 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7482 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7483 means to move in the opposite direction.
7485 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7486 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7488 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7489 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7490 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7491 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7496 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7498 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7501 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7502 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7504 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7507 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7509 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7511 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7513 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7514 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7515 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7517 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7519 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7521 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7522 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7524 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7525 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7526 used to pick articles.
7528 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7529 another have been added.
7531 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7533 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7534 generating lines in buffers.
7536 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7539 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7541 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7543 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7545 *** Scores can be decayed.
7547 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7549 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7550 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7552 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7555 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7557 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7558 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
7560 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7562 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7563 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7565 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7566 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7568 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7571 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7572 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7574 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7576 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7578 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7580 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7582 Use the `Y c' command.
7584 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7586 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7588 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7590 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7591 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7593 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7595 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7597 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7598 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7600 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7602 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7603 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7604 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7605 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7608 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7609 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7610 particular news group. This can be done by:
7612 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7614 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7615 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7616 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7617 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7618 for reading and posting).
7620 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7621 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7622 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7623 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7626 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7627 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7629 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7630 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7631 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7632 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7633 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7635 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7636 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7640 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7641 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7642 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7643 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7644 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7647 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7648 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7649 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7650 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7651 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7652 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7654 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7655 of the current buffer.
7657 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7658 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7659 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7661 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7662 style that the Python developers like.
7664 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7665 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7666 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7670 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7671 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7672 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7674 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7675 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7678 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7679 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7681 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7682 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7683 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7684 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7686 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7687 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7689 ** Calendar changes.
7691 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7692 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7693 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7694 following/previous years.
7696 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7697 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7698 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7699 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7700 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7701 supposed attribute of God.
7705 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7708 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7710 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7711 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7712 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7713 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7715 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7716 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7717 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7719 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7720 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7722 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7723 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7724 printing for your printer.
7726 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7727 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7729 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7730 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7732 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7733 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7734 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7735 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7736 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7737 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7738 The default value is nil.
7740 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7741 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7743 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7744 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7745 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7746 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7747 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7748 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7749 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7751 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7752 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7754 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7755 The default is 0 ("black").
7757 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7758 The default is 0 ("black").
7760 border-width Specify the border width.
7763 Any other property is ignored.
7765 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7766 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7769 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7770 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7771 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7772 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7773 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7774 controlling headers.
7776 *** Color management (subgroup)
7778 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7781 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7783 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7784 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7785 background should be used. Valid values are:
7787 t always use face background color.
7788 nil never use face background color.
7789 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7791 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7793 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7796 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7797 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7799 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7802 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7803 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7804 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7806 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7810 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7814 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7818 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7822 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7824 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7826 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7829 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7830 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7831 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7833 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7834 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7835 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7836 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7837 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7841 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7842 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7843 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7846 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7847 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7848 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7849 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7850 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7851 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7852 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7853 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7854 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7855 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7856 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7859 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7861 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7864 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7866 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7867 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7868 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7869 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7872 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7873 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7874 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7876 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7877 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7880 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7882 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7883 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7884 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7885 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7886 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7887 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7890 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7891 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7892 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7894 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7895 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7896 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7897 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7898 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7899 its TO, are ignored.
7901 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7902 pages. Valid values are:
7904 nil print all pages.
7906 `even-page' print only even pages.
7908 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7910 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7911 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7912 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7913 print only the even sheet of paper.
7915 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7916 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7917 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7918 only the odd sheet of paper.
7920 Any other value is treated as nil.
7922 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7923 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7924 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7926 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7928 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7929 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7931 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7932 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7933 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7934 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7935 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7936 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7937 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7939 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7940 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7941 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
7942 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
7943 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
7944 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
7945 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
7947 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7949 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7950 messages should be sent.
7952 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
7953 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
7954 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
7956 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7958 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7959 points for line numbers.
7961 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7962 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7964 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
7965 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
7966 to 2, the printing will look like:
7978 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
7979 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
7982 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
7983 zebra stripe is to be printed.
7985 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
7987 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
7988 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
7989 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
7990 3, the output will look like:
8004 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
8005 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
8007 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
8008 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8011 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
8012 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8015 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
8017 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
8018 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
8020 ** hideshow changes.
8022 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
8025 *** Support for java-mode added.
8027 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
8028 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
8030 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
8031 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
8032 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
8034 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
8035 robust and a lot faster.
8037 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
8039 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
8040 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
8041 documentation for more details.
8043 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
8045 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
8046 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
8047 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
8048 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
8049 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
8051 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
8052 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
8053 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
8054 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
8060 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
8061 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
8062 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
8063 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
8064 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
8065 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
8067 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
8069 *** Maximum decoration
8071 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
8072 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
8073 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
8074 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
8075 to get the old behavior.
8079 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
8081 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
8082 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
8084 *** Configurable support
8086 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
8087 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
8088 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
8089 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
8090 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
8091 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
8092 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
8094 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
8095 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
8096 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
8098 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
8100 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
8101 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
8104 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
8106 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
8112 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
8113 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
8114 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
8115 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
8117 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
8119 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
8120 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
8121 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
8123 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
8125 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
8126 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
8127 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
8128 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
8129 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
8130 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
8131 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
8133 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
8134 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
8135 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
8136 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
8137 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
8138 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
8140 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
8142 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
8143 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
8144 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
8145 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
8147 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
8150 ** Ada mode changes.
8152 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
8153 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
8154 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
8155 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
8158 *** There are two new commands:
8159 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
8160 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
8162 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
8163 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
8164 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
8166 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
8167 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
8168 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
8170 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
8171 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
8172 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
8173 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
8175 ** Scheme mode changes.
8177 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
8178 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
8179 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
8180 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
8183 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
8184 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
8185 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
8186 variables as buffer-local variables.
8188 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
8191 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
8193 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
8194 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
8195 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
8196 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
8198 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
8199 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
8202 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
8203 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
8204 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
8205 option takes precedence.
8207 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
8208 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
8209 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
8211 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
8212 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
8215 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
8216 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
8218 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
8219 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
8222 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
8223 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
8224 these register values no longer become completely useless.
8225 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
8226 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
8227 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
8229 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
8230 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
8231 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
8232 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
8234 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
8235 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
8236 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
8237 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
8238 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
8240 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
8241 since it applies only to the current frame.
8243 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
8244 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
8245 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
8247 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
8248 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
8249 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
8250 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
8251 instead of just the file you are editing.
8255 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
8256 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
8257 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
8258 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
8259 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
8262 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
8263 knows which kind of label is needed.
8265 C-c ) reftex-reference
8266 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
8267 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
8269 C-c [ reftex-citation
8270 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
8271 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
8273 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
8274 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
8277 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
8278 can quickly jump to every section.
8280 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
8281 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
8282 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
8283 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
8284 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
8286 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8288 *** Info documentation is now available.
8290 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
8291 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8293 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8294 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8296 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8297 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8299 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
8300 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
8301 appropriate functions.
8303 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8304 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
8306 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8309 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8310 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8312 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8315 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8316 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8317 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8319 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
8320 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
8321 prefixed with `ALT'.
8323 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
8324 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
8325 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
8328 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
8329 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
8330 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
8332 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8333 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8335 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
8336 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
8337 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
8339 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8341 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8343 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8346 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8347 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8350 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8353 *** Added support for imenu.
8355 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8356 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8357 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8358 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8360 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8361 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8363 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8365 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8367 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8368 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8369 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8372 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8373 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8375 ** browse-url changes
8377 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8378 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8379 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8380 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8381 customization variables.
8383 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8385 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
8386 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
8387 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8391 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8392 pops up the Info file for this command.
8394 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8395 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8396 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8399 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8400 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8401 files in the same directory.
8403 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8404 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8405 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8409 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8410 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8412 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8413 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8414 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8415 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8416 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8417 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8418 color when Viper is in insert state.
8419 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8420 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8421 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8425 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8426 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8427 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8428 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8429 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8431 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8433 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8434 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8436 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8437 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8438 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8440 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8441 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8442 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8443 methods and protocols.
8445 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8446 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8447 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8450 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8451 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8452 at least M times and as many as N times.
8454 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8455 in files has changed slightly.
8457 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8458 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8459 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8460 with old time-stamp-format values.
8462 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8463 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8464 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8467 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8468 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8469 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8470 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8471 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8472 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8474 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8475 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8476 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8478 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8479 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8480 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8481 recommended now will continue to work then.
8483 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8486 ** There are some additional major modes:
8488 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8489 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8490 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8492 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8493 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8496 ** New Lisp packages include:
8498 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8500 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8501 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8503 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8505 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8508 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8509 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8512 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8513 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8514 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8515 strings or comments.
8517 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8518 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8519 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8520 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8523 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8524 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8526 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8527 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8529 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8531 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8532 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8534 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8536 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8538 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8540 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8541 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8543 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8544 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8545 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8546 original place after inserting the copy.
8548 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8551 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8552 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8553 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8555 Enable mouse-drag with:
8556 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8558 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8560 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8561 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8563 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8564 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8568 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8569 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8570 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8571 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8572 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8573 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8574 instance) and vice versa.
8576 To use this package load it using
8577 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8578 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8579 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8580 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8581 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8582 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8584 *** Interface to ph.
8586 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8588 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8589 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8592 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8594 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8595 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8596 while the real cursor does not move.
8598 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8599 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8601 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8602 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8606 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8607 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8608 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8609 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8611 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8613 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8615 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8617 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8618 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8619 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8620 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8621 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8623 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8624 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8625 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8626 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8627 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8628 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8630 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8632 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8633 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8634 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8635 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8637 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8638 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8640 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8641 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8644 ** Basic Lisp changes
8646 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8647 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8649 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8650 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8653 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8655 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8657 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8658 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8660 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8661 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8664 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8666 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8668 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8670 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8671 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8672 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8675 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8676 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8677 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8679 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8680 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8681 adding one of these suffixes.
8683 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8684 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8685 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8687 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8688 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8690 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8692 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8693 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8695 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8696 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8698 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8700 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8701 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8703 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8704 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8705 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8706 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8708 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8709 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8712 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8713 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8714 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8717 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8718 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8721 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8723 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8724 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8725 Then it returns that string.
8727 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8729 (with-output-to-string
8730 (princ "The buffer is ")
8731 (princ (buffer-name)))
8733 returns "The buffer is foo".
8735 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8738 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8739 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8740 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8742 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8743 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8745 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8746 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8747 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8748 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8749 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8750 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8752 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8753 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8754 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8757 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8758 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8759 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8760 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8761 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8763 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8764 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8765 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8766 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8768 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8769 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8771 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8773 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8774 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8775 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8776 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8779 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8780 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8783 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8785 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8786 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8787 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8788 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8789 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8791 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8793 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8794 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8795 more than the number of characters.
8797 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8798 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8799 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8800 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8801 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8802 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8804 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8805 and returns a string containing those characters.
8807 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8808 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8809 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8810 character, sref signals an error.
8812 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8813 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8814 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8816 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8817 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8818 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8820 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8821 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8822 to a vector of the characters in it.
8824 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8825 of a string. You call it as follows:
8827 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8829 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8830 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8831 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8832 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8833 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8835 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8836 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8838 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8839 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8841 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8842 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8843 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8844 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8846 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8848 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8850 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8851 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8852 are not included in the resulting value.
8854 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8855 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8856 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8857 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8859 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8860 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8861 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8862 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8863 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8864 column START-COLUMN.
8866 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8867 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8868 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8869 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8870 changed text, before the change.
8872 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8873 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8874 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8876 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8878 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8880 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8881 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8883 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8884 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8885 which identify the character within that character set.
8887 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8888 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8889 opposite of split-char.
8891 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8892 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8894 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8895 of all the characters in a string.
8897 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8898 and specifying coding systems.
8900 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8901 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8902 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8903 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8904 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8905 as what to do about code conversion.)
8907 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8908 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8910 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8911 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8912 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8914 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8915 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8916 to match against a file name.
8918 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8919 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8920 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8921 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8922 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8923 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8925 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8926 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8928 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8929 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8931 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8932 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8933 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8936 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8937 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8938 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8939 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8940 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8941 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8943 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8944 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8946 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8947 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8948 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
8949 start the subprocess.
8951 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
8952 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
8953 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
8954 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
8955 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
8957 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
8958 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
8961 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
8962 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
8963 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
8964 connection permanently or until overridden.
8966 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
8967 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
8968 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
8969 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
8970 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
8971 system for one operation at a time.
8973 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
8974 files, subprocesses or network connections.
8976 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
8977 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
8978 The value is a cons cell,
8979 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
8980 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
8981 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
8982 input to the subprocess.
8984 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
8985 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
8987 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
8988 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
8989 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
8991 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
8992 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
8993 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
8994 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
8997 Thus, instead of writing
8999 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
9000 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
9002 you would now write this:
9004 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
9005 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
9009 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
9010 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
9011 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
9012 for a description of them.
9014 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
9015 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
9017 (defgroup ispell nil
9018 "Spell checking using Ispell."
9021 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
9022 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
9023 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
9024 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
9025 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
9027 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
9028 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
9029 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
9030 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
9031 first-level subgroups.
9033 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
9035 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
9036 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
9040 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
9041 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
9042 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
9043 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
9044 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
9045 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
9047 ** Text property changes
9049 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
9052 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
9053 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
9054 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
9055 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
9056 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
9058 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
9059 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
9060 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
9061 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
9063 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
9064 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
9065 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
9067 ** Changes in invisibility features
9069 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
9070 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
9071 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
9072 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
9073 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
9074 make the overlay visible.
9076 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
9077 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
9078 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
9079 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
9080 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
9081 t when it should hide it.
9083 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
9085 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
9086 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
9087 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
9088 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
9089 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
9090 Here is an example of how to do this:
9092 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
9093 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9094 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
9095 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9098 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
9101 ;; When done with the overlays:
9102 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9104 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9106 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
9108 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
9109 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
9110 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
9111 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
9113 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
9114 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
9115 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
9117 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
9118 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
9120 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
9121 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
9123 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
9124 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
9125 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
9127 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
9128 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
9129 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
9130 determine the syntax type of the character.
9132 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
9133 of the current buffer.
9135 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
9136 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
9137 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
9139 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
9140 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
9141 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
9142 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
9143 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
9145 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
9148 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
9149 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
9150 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
9152 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
9153 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
9154 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
9155 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
9156 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
9158 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
9159 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
9160 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
9162 ** Changes in face features
9164 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
9165 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
9167 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
9168 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
9170 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
9171 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
9173 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
9174 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
9176 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
9177 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
9178 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
9179 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
9182 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
9183 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
9185 ** Changes in file-handling functions
9187 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
9188 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
9189 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
9190 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
9192 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
9195 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
9196 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
9198 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9199 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
9201 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
9202 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
9204 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
9205 character code conversion as well as other things.
9207 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
9208 (formerly it did not).
9210 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
9211 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
9213 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
9214 instead of constant strings.
9216 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
9217 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
9218 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
9220 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
9221 in the same way as before.
9223 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
9224 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
9225 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
9227 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
9228 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
9229 else, and returns nil.
9231 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
9232 directory cannot be listed.
9234 ** Changes in minibuffer input
9236 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
9237 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
9238 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
9239 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
9242 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
9243 It is available through the history command M-n.
9245 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
9246 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
9247 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
9248 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
9249 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
9251 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
9252 argument in this way.
9254 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
9255 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
9256 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
9258 ** Echo area features
9260 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
9261 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
9262 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
9263 after the echo area is cleared.
9265 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
9266 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
9268 ** Keyboard input features
9270 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
9271 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
9273 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
9274 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
9277 ** Frame-related changes
9279 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
9280 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
9281 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
9283 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
9284 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
9285 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
9287 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
9288 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
9289 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
9290 in the selected frame.
9292 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
9293 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
9294 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
9296 ** X Windows features
9298 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
9299 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
9300 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
9302 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9303 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9305 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
9306 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
9307 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
9309 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9310 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9312 ** Subprocess features
9314 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9315 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9318 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9319 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9321 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9322 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9324 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9325 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9327 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
9328 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
9329 goes after the other menu items.
9331 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
9332 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
9333 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
9336 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9337 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9339 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9340 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9343 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
9344 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
9345 but its hook is still run.
9347 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9348 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9350 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9351 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9352 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9354 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9355 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9356 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9359 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9360 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9362 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9363 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9364 functions like display-time.
9366 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9367 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9369 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9370 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9371 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9373 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9374 if there is an error in compilation.
9376 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9377 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9378 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9379 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9381 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
9382 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
9383 the *scratch* buffer.
9385 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
9386 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
9387 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
9388 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9390 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9391 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9392 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9394 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9395 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9396 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9397 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9399 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9400 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9401 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9403 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9404 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9405 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9406 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9407 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9410 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9411 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9412 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9413 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9415 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9416 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9417 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9418 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9420 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9422 ** imenu.el changes.
9424 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9425 item from menu created by imenu.
9427 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9428 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9429 select one of those items.
9431 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9433 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9434 Copyright information:
9436 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9438 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9439 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9440 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9441 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9443 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9444 of this document, or of portions of it,
9445 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9446 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9450 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"