(clear_garbaged_frames): Redraw the frame only if its
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
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.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
10
11 +++
12 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now return buffesr whose names begin
13 with a space, if they visit files.
14
15 ** tab-always-indent can be set to `never' to make sure indent-for-tab-command
16 always tabs rather than indents.
17
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).
21
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.
24
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.
28
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.
34
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.
38
39 ** Byte compiler warning and error messages have been brought more
40 in line with the output of other GNU tools.
41
42 ** Lisp-mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
43
44 ** perl-mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
45
46 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
47 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
48 `same-window'.
49
50 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
51 much pure storage it will approximately need.
52
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 `$$'.
56
57 +++
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.
64
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.
68
69 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
70
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.
74
75 ** New modes and packages
76
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'
80 settings.
81
82 *** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
83 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
84
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
88 commands.
89
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
92 SQL buffer.
93
94 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
95 (function (lambda ()
96 (master-mode t)
97 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
98 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
99 (function (lambda ()
100 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
101
102 \f
103 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
104
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.
108
109 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
110 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
111 clone to the other.
112
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.
119
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.
123
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.
127
128 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
129 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
130
131 +++
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.
135
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.
139
140 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
141
142 ** `define-derived-mode' now accepts nil as the parent.
143
144 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
145
146 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
147
148 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
149
150 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
151 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
152
153 ** Variable aliases have been implemented
154
155 - Macro: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR
156
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
160 value of BASE-VAR.
161
162 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
163
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.
167
168 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
169 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
170
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.
173
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.
176
177 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
178 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
179
180 ** New packages:
181
182 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
183 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
184
185 \f
186 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
187
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.
191
192 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
193
194 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
195
196 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
197 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
198 to list them.
199
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.
205
206 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
207 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
208
209 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
210 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
211
212 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
213 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
214
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.
220
221 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
222 new display features described below.
223
224 \f
225 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
226
227 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
228
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
233 the text.
234
235 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
236
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
241 specify a font.
242
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.
246
247 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
248
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
255 on terminals.
256
257 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
258 supported on character terminals.
259
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.
264
265 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
266
267 ** Sound support
268
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
273 sound support.
274
275 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
276
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:
281
282 - User option: max-mini-window-height
283
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.
287
288 Default is 0.25.
289
290 - User option: resize-mini-windows
291
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
295 again.
296
297 Default is `grow-only'.
298
299 ** LessTif support.
300
301 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
302 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
303
304 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
305
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
308 non-nil.
309
310 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
311
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.
315
316 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
317
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
323 Emacs.
324
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.
331
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.
338
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.
344
345 ** Tool bar support.
346
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
352 icons will be used.
353
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.
357
358 ** Tooltips.
359
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'.
363
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'.
368
369 ** Automatic Hscrolling
370
371 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
372 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
373 customized.
374
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.
380
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.
387
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'.
392
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.)
399
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.
404
405 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
406
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
412 have enabled one.
413
414 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
415
416 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
417 buffers.
418
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.
421
422 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
423
424 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
425 `*') toggles the status.
426
427 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
428
429 ** Hourglass pointer
430
431 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
432 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
433
434 ** Blinking cursor
435
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
439 the group `cursor'.
440
441 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
442
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
446 details.
447
448 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
449 have to do anything to activate it.
450
451 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
452
453 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
454 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
455
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.
464
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.
471
472 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
473 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
474
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
477 buffer by default.
478
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.
482
483 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
484 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
485 signaled.
486
487 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
488 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
489
490 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
491 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
492 this behavior.
493
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
496 Emacs dump core.
497
498 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
499
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.
503
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.
507
508 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
509 using that menu.
510
511 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
512
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
518 whitespace.
519
520 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
521 all frames except the selected one.
522
523 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
524 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
525
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'.
531
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.
535
536 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
537
538 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
539 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
540 `fr-drdref.tex'.
541
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.
546
547 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
548
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.
553
554 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
555 point in a pop-up window.
556
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'.
560
561 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
562 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
563
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.
568
569 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
570
571 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
572 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
573
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'.
577
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
580 non-nil.
581
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.
585
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.
588
589 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
590 and displays information about that.
591
592 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
593 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
594
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'.
601
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'.
604
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.
612
613 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
614 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
615
616 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
617 system for keyboard input.
618
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.
628
629 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
630 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
631
632 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
633 displays all characters in that character set.
634
635 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
636 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
637
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.
641
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)
648 and Polish `slash'.
649
650 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
651 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
652 of the tutorial.
653
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".
657
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
663
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
667
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
674
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
678 package.
679
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".
685
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
691 on.
692
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'.
697
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.
702
703 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
704 on the display using several methods
705
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.
709
710 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
711 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
712
713 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
714
715 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
716 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
717
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.
722
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.
726
727 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
728 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
729
730 ** New X resources recognized
731
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.
735
736 Example:
737
738 emacs.synchronous: true
739
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
745
746 TrueColor
747 PseudoColor
748 DirectColor
749 StaticColor
750 GrayScale
751 StaticGray
752
753 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
754 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
755 meaning.
756
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
760 visual.
761
762 Example:
763
764 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
765
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'.
770
771 Example:
772
773 emacs.privateColormap: true
774
775 ** Faces and frame parameters.
776
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'.
784
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.
789
790 ** New face `menu'.
791
792 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
793
794 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
795
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.
800
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).
804
805 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
806 `ScreenGamma'.
807
808 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
809
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.
814
815 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
816
817 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
818
819 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
820
821 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
822 LessTif/Motif one.
823
824 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
825 LessTif and Motif.
826
827 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
828
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.
832
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).
835
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'.
839
840 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
841
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.
846
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.
851
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
855 buffers.
856
857 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
858
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'.
862
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.
869
870 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
871
872 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
873 notably at the end of lines.
874
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.
877
878 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
879
880 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
881 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
882
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.
886
887 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
888 you edit the replacement string.
889
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.
893
894 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
895
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.
898
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.
903
904 --
905 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
906 read mail from the menu etc.
907
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.
912
913 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
914 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
915
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
921 of Emacs.
922
923 ** Customize changes
924
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.
930
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
933 default).
934
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
939 file.
940
941 ** New features in evaluation commands
942
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.
948
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
953 printed).
954
955 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
956 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
957
958 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
959 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
960
961 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
962 code when called with a prefix argument.
963
964 ** CC mode changes.
965
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
972 release.
973
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
977 confusion.
978
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.
983
984 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
985 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
986
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)".
989
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()".
994
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:
999
1000 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1001 if (a[i])
1002 res += a[i]->offset;
1003 else
1004
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
1009 the preceding "if".
1010
1011 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1012 by default.
1013
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.
1018
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.
1026
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.
1031
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
1036 Pike mode only.
1037
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.
1046
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.
1050
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
1057 groundwork.
1058
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
1064 have to bother.
1065
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.
1072
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.
1081
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
1086 above.
1087
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.
1096
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.
1105
1106 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1107
1108 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1109 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1110
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
1116 style system.
1117
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
1121 as far as possible.
1122
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.
1127
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.
1133
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.
1137
1138 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1139 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1140
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
1144 inside CC Mode.
1145
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/
1150 cc-mode/).
1151
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.
1157
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
1161 literals.
1162
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
1167 this function.
1168
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.
1174
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.
1178
1179 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1180
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.
1185
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.
1189
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.
1196
1197 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1198 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1199 arguments.
1200
1201 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1202
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
1207 Provan).
1208
1209 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1210
1211 ** Dired changes
1212
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.
1216
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.
1220
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.
1224
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
1227 directory.
1228
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.
1234
1235 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1236 from ls switches.
1237
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.
1242
1243 ** Gnus changes.
1244
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.
1248
1249 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1250 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1251
1252 If you used procmail like in
1253
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")
1258
1259 this now has changed to
1260
1261 (setq mail-sources
1262 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1263 :suffix ".in")))
1264
1265 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1266 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1267
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.
1272
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.
1276
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.
1281
1282 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1283 Gnus facilities.
1284
1285 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1286 called to position point.
1287
1288 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1289 summary buffers and NOV files.
1290
1291 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1292 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1293
1294 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1295 subtly different manner.
1296
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.
1300
1301 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1302
1303 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1304
1305 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1306
1307 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1308 macros
1309
1310 Key binding Macro
1311 -------------------------
1312 C-c C-c C-s @strong
1313 C-c C-c C-e @emph
1314 C-c C-c u @uref
1315 C-c C-c q @quotation
1316 C-c C-c m @email
1317 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1318 M-RET @item
1319
1320 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1321
1322 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1323
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.
1327
1328 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1329
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.
1335
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
1338 this way.
1339
1340 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1341 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1342
1343 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1344
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.
1348
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).
1351
1352 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1353
1354 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1355
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'.
1360
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
1364 the open block.
1365
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.
1369
1370 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
1371
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'.
1376
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.
1379
1380 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
1381
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.
1385
1386 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
1387 current buffer.
1388
1389 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
1390 in a log file.
1391
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.
1398
1399 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
1400
1401 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1402
1403 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
1404 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
1405
1406 ** Changes in Font Lock
1407
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.
1410
1411 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
1412 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
1413
1414 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
1415 the face used for each string/comment.
1416
1417 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
1418 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
1419
1420 ** Changes to Shell mode
1421
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).
1426
1427 ** Comint (subshell) changes
1428
1429 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
1430 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
1431
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.
1438
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'.
1447
1448 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
1449 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
1450
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.
1454
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.
1458
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'.
1462
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.
1466
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
1469 compatibility.
1470
1471 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1472 ring (history).
1473
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 "^#".
1477
1478 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1479
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
1485 as correspondent.
1486
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.
1490
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.
1496
1497 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1498 like `j'.
1499
1500 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1501 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1502 digest message.
1503
1504 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1505 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1506
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.
1510
1511 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
1512 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
1513
1514 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1515 use the -f option when sending mail.
1516
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.
1523
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.
1527
1528 ** Changes to TeX mode
1529
1530 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1531 `latex-mode'.
1532
1533 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1534
1535 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1536
1537 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1538
1539 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1540
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.
1547
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).
1551
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.
1554
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
1558 been cited.
1559
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.
1564
1565 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1566 has the following new features:
1567
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.
1572
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
1578 defaults to 1.
1579
1580 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1581 file names.
1582
1583 ** Ispell changes
1584
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.
1588
1589 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1590 added.
1591
1592 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1593 correction is made and re-checked.
1594
1595 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1596
1597 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1598 cases.
1599
1600 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1601 on syntax errors.
1602
1603 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1604 end of the buffer.
1605
1606 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1607
1608 ** Makefile mode changes
1609
1610 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1611
1612 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1613 Fontlock mode is active.
1614
1615 ** Isearch changes
1616
1617 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1618 so that searches can be resumed.
1619
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.
1623
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.
1626
1627 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1628
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'.
1635
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.
1641
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'.
1646
1647 ** VC Changes
1648
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.
1658
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.
1665
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.)
1671
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.
1675
1676 *** General Changes
1677
1678 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1679 checks are always done now.
1680
1681 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1682 operations.
1683
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'.
1687
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'').
1692
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
1695 downwards.
1696
1697 *** Multiple Backends
1698
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
1703 local RCS archives.
1704
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.)
1709
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.
1715
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.
1720
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.
1725
1726 *** Changes for CVS
1727
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.
1735
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
1747 name.)
1748
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.
1755
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.)
1760
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.
1765
1766 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1767
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'.
1777
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.
1782
1783 ** New modes and packages
1784
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.
1788
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 \.
1792
1793 Features are:
1794
1795 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1796 drawn, like this: | \ /
1797 --+-- X
1798 | / \
1799
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
1805 you are drawing.
1806
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 >.
1809
1810 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1811 flood-filling.
1812
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.
1817
1818 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1819 also do without the mouse.
1820
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.
1826
1827 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1828
1829 lines straight-lines
1830 rectangles squares
1831 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1832 ellipses circles
1833 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1834 spray-can setting size for spraying
1835 vaporize line vaporize lines
1836 erase characters erase rectangles
1837
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
1841 drawing.
1842
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>.
1847
1848 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1849 can be turned off).
1850
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.
1860
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.
1865
1866 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1867 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1868
1869 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1870
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.
1879
1880 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1881 Emacs is idle.
1882
1883 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1884 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1885
1886 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1887 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1888
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.
1894
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.
1898
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.
1904
1905 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1906 without invoking external programs.
1907
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.
1913
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.
1916
1917 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1918 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1919
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
1925 single step.
1926
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.
1931
1932 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1933 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1934 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1935
1936 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1937 PostScript.
1938
1939 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1940
1941 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1942
1943 ; comment (until end of line)
1944 A non-terminal
1945 "C" terminal
1946 ?C? special
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}*]
1965
1966 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1967
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.
1973
1974 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1975 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1976
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'.
1980
1981 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1982
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.
1989
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
1995 to be enabled.
1996
1997 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1998 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1999
2000 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2001
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.
2005
2006 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2007
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.
2014
2015 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2016 Pascal) language.
2017
2018 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2019 the text at point.
2020
2021 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2022
2023 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2024
2025 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2026 whitespace in a file.
2027
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.
2035
2036 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2037
2038 Here is an example of columns:
2039
2040 horse apple bus
2041 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2042 porcupine strawberry airplane
2043
2044 Doing the following settings:
2045
2046 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2047 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2048 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2049 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2050
2051
2052 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2053
2054 M-x delimit-columns-region
2055
2056 It results:
2057
2058 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2059 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2060 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2061
2062 delim-col has the following options:
2063
2064 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2065 before all columns.
2066
2067 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2068 between each column.
2069
2070 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2071 after all columns.
2072
2073 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2074 each column.
2075
2076 delim-col has the following commands:
2077
2078 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2079 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2080
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:
2085
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
2089
2090 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2091 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2092
2093 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2094 text.
2095
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.
2099
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'.
2103
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.
2107
2108 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2109 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2110
2111 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2112
2113 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2114 minibuffer with completion.
2115
2116 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2117 with the diary features.
2118
2119 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2120 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2121
2122 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2123 Fill mode.
2124
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.
2129
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
2132 `.g'.
2133
2134 ** Changes in sort.el
2135
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
2139 numeric base.
2140
2141 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2142
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.)
2146
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.
2149
2150 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2151 output ^M at the end of lines.
2152
2153 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2154 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2155
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
2158 `(msb-mode 1)'.
2159
2160 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2161 group.
2162
2163 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2164 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2165 are recognized:
2166
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.
2171
2172 Default value is `untabify'.
2173
2174 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2175
2176 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2177 symbol, not double-quoted.
2178
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.
2183
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.
2187
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.
2191
2192 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2193 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2194
2195 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2196 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2197
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.
2200
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.
2207
2208 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2209 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2210
2211 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2212
2213 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2214 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2215
2216 ** Shell script mode changes.
2217
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.
2221
2222 ** Etags changes.
2223
2224 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2225
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.
2231
2232 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2233 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2234
2235 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2236 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2237
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.
2241
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.
2244
2245 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2246 types.
2247
2248 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2249
2250 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2251
2252 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2253 are now tagged.
2254
2255 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2256
2257 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2258 variables are tagged.
2259
2260 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2261
2262 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2263 for PSWrap.
2264
2265 ** Changes in etags.el
2266
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.
2270
2271 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2272 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2273
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.
2278
2279 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2280
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.
2283
2284 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2285
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))
2289
2290 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2291 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2292
2293 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2294 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2295
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.
2301
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.
2305
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.
2309
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.
2313
2314 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2315
2316 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2317
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.
2321
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.
2326
2327 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2328
2329 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2330 displays local abbrevs, only.
2331
2332 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2333 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2334
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.
2338
2339 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2340 to be visited as images.
2341
2342 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
2343 were added to compile.el.
2344
2345 ** Withdrawn packages
2346
2347 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2348 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2349
2350 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2351
2352 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2353
2354 \f
2355 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2356
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.
2360
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'.
2364
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.
2369
2370 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2371 ranges may affect some code.
2372
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.
2376
2377 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2378 operates on the minibuffer.
2379
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.
2392
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.
2396
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.
2400
2401 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2402 long promised.
2403
2404 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
2405 string.
2406
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.
2415
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.
2426
2427 \f
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.)
2430
2431 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
2432
2433 ** The new function amimate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
2434 allows the animated display of strings.
2435
2436 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2437 interactive form of a function.
2438
2439 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2440 between custom options. Example:
2441
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])."
2446 :group 'mule
2447 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2448 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2449
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.
2453
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).
2458
2459 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2460 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2461
2462 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2463 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2464
2465 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2466 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2467
2468 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2469
2470 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2471 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2472 being deleted.
2473
2474 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2475
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
2481 charset.
2482
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
2485 message.
2486
2487 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2488 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2489
2490 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2491 with the more general `:mask' property.
2492
2493 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2494
2495 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2496 backslash.
2497
2498 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2499 is running in batch mode. For example,
2500
2501 (message "%s" (read t))
2502
2503 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2504 to standard output.
2505
2506 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2507 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2508
2509 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2510 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2511 frame or window.
2512
2513 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2514 were added
2515
2516 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2517
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'.
2520
2521 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2522
2523 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2524 comparison is done with `eq'.
2525
2526 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2527
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'.
2531
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.
2535
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.
2538
2539 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2540 function was declared obsolete.
2541
2542 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2543 retained as an alias).
2544
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.
2548
2549 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2550
2551 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2552
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.
2559
2560 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
2561
2562 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2563
2564 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2565
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
2570 returned.
2571
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.
2576
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.
2583
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.
2591
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.
2595
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.
2600
2601 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2602 meaning no limit.
2603
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.
2607
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,
2611
2612 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2613 list of a primitive.
2614
2615 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2616
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.
2621
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'
2625 instead.
2626
2627 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2628
2629 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2630 as promised long ago.
2631
2632 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2633
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.
2637
2638 \f
2639 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2640
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.
2645
2646 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
2647 regular expressions.
2648
2649 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
2650
2651 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2652
2653 - Macro: rx SEXP
2654
2655 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2656
2657 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
2658 notation.
2659
2660 STRING
2661 matches string STRING literally.
2662
2663 CHAR
2664 matches character CHAR literally.
2665
2666 `not-newline'
2667 matches any character except a newline.
2668 .
2669 `anything'
2670 matches any character
2671
2672 `(any SET)'
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.
2675
2676 '(in SET)'
2677 like `any'.
2678
2679 `(not (any SET))'
2680 matches any character not in SET
2681
2682 `line-start'
2683 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
2684 in the text being matched
2685
2686 `line-end'
2687 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
2688
2689 `string-start'
2690 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2691 string being matched against.
2692
2693 `string-end'
2694 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2695 string being matched against.
2696
2697 `buffer-start'
2698 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2699 buffer being matched against.
2700
2701 `buffer-end'
2702 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2703 buffer being matched against.
2704
2705 `point'
2706 matches the empty string, but only at point.
2707
2708 `word-start'
2709 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2710 word.
2711
2712 `word-end'
2713 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
2714
2715 `word-boundary'
2716 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2717 word.
2718
2719 `(not word-boundary)'
2720 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
2721 word.
2722
2723 `digit'
2724 matches 0 through 9.
2725
2726 `control'
2727 matches ASCII control characters.
2728
2729 `hex-digit'
2730 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2731
2732 `blank'
2733 matches space and tab only.
2734
2735 `graphic'
2736 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2737 space, and DEL.
2738
2739 `printing'
2740 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2741 and DEL.
2742
2743 `alphanumeric'
2744 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2745 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2746
2747 `letter'
2748 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2749 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2750
2751 `ascii'
2752 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2753
2754 `nonascii'
2755 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2756
2757 `lower'
2758 matches anything lower-case.
2759
2760 `upper'
2761 matches anything upper-case.
2762
2763 `punctuation'
2764 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2765 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2766
2767 `space'
2768 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2769
2770 `word'
2771 matches anything that has word syntax.
2772
2773 `(syntax SYNTAX)'
2774 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
2775 of the following symbols.
2776
2777 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
2778 `punctuation' (\\s.)
2779 `word' (\\sw)
2780 `symbol' (\\s_)
2781 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
2782 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
2783 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
2784 `string-quote' (\\s\")
2785 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
2786 `escape' (\\s\\)
2787 `character-quote' (\\s/)
2788 `comment-start' (\\s<)
2789 `comment-end' (\\s>)
2790
2791 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
2792 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
2793
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.
2797
2798 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
2799 `base-vowel' (\\c1)
2800 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
2801 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
2802 `tone-mark' (\\c4)
2803 `symbol' (\\c5)
2804 `digit' (\\c6)
2805 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
2806 `vowel-sign' (\\c8)
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)
2818 `ascii' (\\ca)
2819 `arabic' (\\cb)
2820 `chinese' (\\cc)
2821 `ethiopic' (\\ce)
2822 `greek' (\\cg)
2823 `korean' (\\ch)
2824 `indian' (\\ci)
2825 `japanese' (\\cj)
2826 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
2827 `latin' (\\cl)
2828 `lao' (\\co)
2829 `tibetan' (\\cq)
2830 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
2831 `thai' (\\ct)
2832 `vietnamese' (\\cv)
2833 `hebrew' (\\cw)
2834 `cyrillic' (\\cy)
2835 `can-break' (\\c|)
2836
2837 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
2838 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
2839
2840 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2841 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
2842
2843 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2844 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
2845 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
2846
2847 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2848 another name for `submatch'.
2849
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
2853 regular expression.
2854
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.
2860
2861 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
2862 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
2863
2864 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
2865 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2866
2867 `(0+ SEXP)'
2868 like `zero-or-more'.
2869
2870 `(* SEXP)'
2871 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2872
2873 `(*? SEXP)'
2874 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2875
2876 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
2877 matches one or more occurrences of A.
2878
2879 `(1+ SEXP)'
2880 like `one-or-more'.
2881
2882 `(+ SEXP)'
2883 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2884
2885 `(+? SEXP)'
2886 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2887
2888 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
2889 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
2890
2891 `(optional SEXP)'
2892 like `zero-or-one'.
2893
2894 `(? SEXP)'
2895 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2896
2897 `(?? SEXP)'
2898 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2899
2900 `(repeat N SEXP)'
2901 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2902
2903 `(repeat N M SEXP)'
2904 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2905
2906 `(eval FORM)'
2907 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
2908 `regexp-quote' it.
2909
2910 `(regexp REGEXP)'
2911 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
2912
2913 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2914
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.
2919
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.
2924
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.
2928
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
2936 eight-bit-graphic.
2937
2938 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2939
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.
2943
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.
2947
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.
2952
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.
2955
2956 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2957 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2958 "fontset-default".
2959
2960 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2961 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2962
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.
2966
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
2974 also been deleted.
2975
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.
2979
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.
2984
2985 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2986 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2987
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.
2992
2993 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2994 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2995
2996 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2997 obsolete.
2998
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.
3001
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.
3006
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.
3013
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.
3017
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.
3021
3022 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
3023 have been introduced.
3024
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.
3034
3035 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
3036 that offset in the file before writing.
3037
3038 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
3039 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
3040
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.
3044
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
3049 operate on.
3050
3051 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
3052 to `window-buffer-height'.
3053
3054 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
3055
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.
3059
3060 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
3061 respectively.
3062
3063 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
3064 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
3065
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.
3069
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.
3074
3075 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
3076 argument function's results.
3077
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
3082 sequence).
3083
3084 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
3085 header in the list of headers passed to it.
3086
3087 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
3088 ignores differences in case and text representation.
3089
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
3092 as follows:
3093
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.
3099
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.
3104
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'.
3109
3110 Example:
3111
3112 (string-to-syntax "()")
3113 => (4 . 41)
3114
3115 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
3116 other than 10.
3117
3118 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
3119 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
3120
3121 #b1111
3122 => 15
3123 #b-1111
3124 => -15
3125
3126 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
3127
3128 #o666
3129 => 438
3130
3131 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
3132
3133 #xbeef
3134 => 48815
3135
3136 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
3137
3138 #2R-111
3139 => -7
3140 #25rah
3141 => 267
3142
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
3145 and isn't a string.
3146
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.
3151
3152 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
3153
3154 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
3155 for a regexp in a string.
3156
3157 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
3158 `mouse-position-function'.
3159
3160 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
3161 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
3162
3163 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
3164 Keywords are now always considered constants.
3165
3166 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
3167 returns it.
3168
3169 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
3170 returned by function `recent-keys'.
3171
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
3176 mode.
3177
3178 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
3179 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
3180
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
3185 been performed."
3186
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.
3191
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.
3195
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
3198 specified table.
3199
3200 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
3201
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
3205 what BODY returns.
3206
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 `\').
3212
3213 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
3214 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
3215
3216 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
3217 instead of being optional.
3218
3219 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
3220 modify read-only text.
3221
3222 ** New functions and variables for locales.
3223
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.
3229
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.
3237
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
3241 start sequences.
3242
3243 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
3244 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
3245
3246 ** New function `propertize'
3247
3248 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
3249 strings with text properties.
3250
3251 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
3252
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:
3257
3258 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
3259
3260 ** push and pop macros.
3261
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.
3265
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).
3269
3270 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
3271
3272 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
3273 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
3274
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.
3279
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.
3284
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
3288 or a sign.
3289
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,
3295 space, and DEL.
3296 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3297 and DEL.
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.
3313
3314 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
3315
3316 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
3317
3318 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
3319
3320 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
3321 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
3322
3323 :test TEST
3324
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'.
3328
3329 :size SIZE
3330
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.
3333
3334 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
3335
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.
3341
3342 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3343
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.
3347
3348 :weakness WEAK
3349
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.
3355
3356 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3357
3358 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3359
3360 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3361
3362 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3363
3364 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3365
3366 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3367 values are shared.
3368
3369 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3370
3371 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3372
3373 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3374
3375 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
3376
3377 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
3378
3379 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
3380
3381 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3382
3383 Returns the size of TABLE.
3384
3385 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
3386
3387 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
3388
3389 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
3390
3391 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
3392
3393 - Function: clrhash TABLE
3394
3395 Clear TABLE.
3396
3397 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3398
3399 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3400 not found.
3401
3402 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3403
3404 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3405 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3406
3407 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3408
3409 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3410
3411 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3412
3413 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3414 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3415
3416 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3417
3418 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3419
3420 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3421
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).
3427
3428 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3429
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.
3433
3434 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3435 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3436
3437 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3438 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3439
3440 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3441 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3442
3443 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3444 'case-fold-string-hash))
3445
3446 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3447
3448 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3449
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.
3453
3454 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3455
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.
3458
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.
3463
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.
3468
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.
3472
3473 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3474 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3475
3476 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3477 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3478
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.
3484
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.
3489
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.
3492
3493 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3494
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.
3498
3499 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3500
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.
3507
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'.
3512
3513 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3514
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
3518 result string.
3519
3520 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3521 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3522
3523 Example:
3524
3525 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3526 (s2 "world"))
3527 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3528 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3529 (format s1 s2))
3530
3531 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3532
3533 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3534
3535 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3536 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3537 argument in it.
3538
3539 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3540 (arg "world"))
3541 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3542 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3543 (message msg arg))
3544
3545 ** Sound support
3546
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).
3549
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.
3553
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.
3559
3560 The following sound properties are supported:
3561
3562 - `:file FILE'
3563
3564 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3565 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3566
3567 - `:data DATA'
3568
3569 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3570 may be present, but not both.
3571
3572 - `:volume VOLUME'
3573
3574 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3575 0..1. This property is optional.
3576
3577 - `:device DEVICE'
3578
3579 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3580 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3581
3582 Other properties are ignored.
3583
3584 An alternative interface is called as
3585 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3586
3587 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3588
3589 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3590 a keyword symbol.
3591
3592 ** Changes to garbage collection
3593
3594 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3595 of live and free strings.
3596
3597 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3598 strings that have been consed so far.
3599
3600 \f
3601 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3602 Lisp Manual
3603
3604 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3605 mini-windows.
3606
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.
3610
3611 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3612
3613 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3614
3615 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3616 image.
3617
3618 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3619
3620 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3621
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.
3627
3628 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3629 has a mask bitmap.
3630
3631 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3632
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.
3636
3637 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3638 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3639
3640 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3641 optional.
3642
3643 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3644 below).
3645
3646 \f
3647 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3648
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.
3653
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.
3656
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.
3663
3664 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3665 a line like
3666
3667 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3668
3669 in your `.emacs'.
3670
3671 ** New face implementation.
3672
3673 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3674 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3675
3676 *** New faces.
3677
3678 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3679
3680 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3681
3682 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3683 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3684
3685 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3686
3687 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3688
3689 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3690
3691 6. Foreground color.
3692
3693 7. Background color.
3694
3695 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3696
3697 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3698
3699 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3700
3701 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3702
3703 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3704 color.
3705
3706 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3707 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3708
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.
3715
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
3718 created frames.
3719
3720 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3721 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3722 `fully-specified'.
3723
3724 *** Face merging.
3725
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.
3732
3733 *** Face realization.
3734
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.
3741
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.
3746
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.
3752
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
3758 Emacs.
3759
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.
3764
3765 **** Clearing face caches.
3766
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
3769 unused fonts.
3770
3771 *** Font selection.
3772
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.
3776
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.
3782
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.
3786
3787 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3788
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.
3796
3797 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3798 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3799 doesn't exist.
3800
3801 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3802 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3803 registry.
3804
3805 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3806 slightly different.
3807
3808 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3809
3810
3811 **** Scalable fonts
3812
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
3815 servers.
3816
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
3822 that list. Example:
3823
3824 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3825
3826 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3827
3828 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3829
3830 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3831
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 `*'.
3835
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.
3846
3847 - Function: x-font-family-list
3848
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.
3853
3854 - Variable: font-list-limit
3855
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.
3859
3860 *** Setting face attributes.
3861
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
3865 `face-attribute'.
3866
3867 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3868 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3869
3870 The following attributes are recognized:
3871
3872 `:family'
3873
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.
3877
3878 `:width'
3879
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'.
3884
3885 `:height'
3886
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.
3891
3892 `:weight'
3893
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'.
3897
3898 `:slant'
3899
3900 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3901 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3902 `reverse-oblique'.
3903
3904 `:foreground', `:background'
3905
3906 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3907
3908 `:underline'
3909
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
3913 don't underline.
3914
3915 `:overline'
3916
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
3920 overline.
3921
3922 `:strike-through'
3923
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.
3928
3929 `:box'
3930
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
3947 box.
3948
3949 `:inverse-video'
3950
3951 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3952 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3953
3954 `:stipple'
3955
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.
3962
3963 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3964 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3965
3966 `:font'
3967
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
3971 versions of Emacs.
3972
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."
3976
3977 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3978 `defface'.
3979
3980 `:inherit'
3981
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.
3985
3986 *** Face attributes and X resources
3987
3988 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3989 from X resources:
3990
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
4012
4013 *** Text property `face'.
4014
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
4018
4019 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
4020
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.
4025
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.
4029
4030 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
4031
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.
4038
4039 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
4040
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.
4051
4052 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
4053 any frame type.
4054
4055 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
4056
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'.
4066
4067 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
4068 display can display image files.
4069
4070 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
4071
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.
4076
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.
4080
4081 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
4082
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).
4086
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
4094 functions.
4095
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.
4099
4100 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
4101
4102 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
4103
4104 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
4105
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.
4109
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'.
4119
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.
4125
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.
4128
4129 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
4130
4131 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
4132
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.
4136
4137 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4138
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.
4144
4145 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4146
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.
4152
4153 - Function: field-string &optional POS
4154
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.
4158
4159 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
4160
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.
4164
4165 ** Image support.
4166
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.
4171
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
4176 area.
4177
4178 IMAGE is an image specification.
4179
4180 *** Image specifications
4181
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.
4187
4188 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
4189
4190 `:ascent ASCENT'
4191
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.
4195
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.
4198
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.
4203
4204 `:margin MARGIN'
4205
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.
4209
4210 `:relief RELIEF'
4211
4212 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
4213 around an image.
4214
4215 `:conversion ALGO'
4216
4217 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
4218
4219 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
4220 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
4221
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
4230 below.
4231
4232 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
4233 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
4234 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
4235
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.
4240
4241 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
4242
4243 (1 0 0
4244 0 0 0
4245 9 9 -1)
4246
4247 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
4248
4249 ( 2 -1 0
4250 -1 0 1
4251 0 1 -2)
4252
4253 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
4254 ``disabled''.
4255
4256 `:mask MASK'
4257
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
4265 image.
4266
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
4269 `:mask nil'.
4270
4271 `:file FILE'
4272
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.
4277
4278 `:data DATA'
4279
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.
4284
4285 *** Supported image types
4286
4287 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
4288
4289 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
4290 properties supported are
4291
4292 `:foreground FG'
4293
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.
4296
4297 `:background BG'
4298
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.
4301
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.
4305
4306 `:width WIDTH'
4307
4308 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4309
4310 `:height HEIGHT'
4311
4312 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4313
4314 `:data DATA'
4315
4316 DATA must be either
4317
4318 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4319 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4320
4321 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4322
4323 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4324 bitmap.
4325
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
4328 in the file.
4329
4330 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4331
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'.
4336
4337 Additional image properties supported are:
4338
4339 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4340
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
4343 name.
4344
4345 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4346 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4347
4348 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4349 to display compressed images.
4350
4351 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4352
4353 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4354 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4355 mono images are
4356
4357 `:foreground FG'
4358
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.
4361
4362 `:background FG'
4363
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.
4366
4367 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4368
4369 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4370 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4371 are:
4372
4373 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4374
4375 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4376 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4377 properties defined.
4378
4379 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4380
4381 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4382 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4383
4384 Additional image properties supported are:
4385
4386 `:index INDEX'
4387
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.
4390
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
4394 every 0.1 seconds.
4395
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))
4399
4400 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4401 (when (= idx max)
4402 (setq idx 0))
4403 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4404 (save-excursion
4405 (set-buffer buffer)
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)))
4410
4411 **** PNG, image type `png'
4412
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
4415 properties defined.
4416
4417 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4418
4419 Additional image properties supported are:
4420
4421 `:pt-width WIDTH'
4422
4423 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4424 integer. This is a required property.
4425
4426 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
4427
4428 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4429 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4430
4431 `:bounding-box BOX'
4432
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.
4436
4437 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4438 lisp/gs.el.
4439
4440 *** Lisp interface.
4441
4442 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4443 which are supported in the current configuration.
4444
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.
4450
4451 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4452
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
4458 buffer.
4459
4460 ** Display margins.
4461
4462 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4463 and images.
4464
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.
4472
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
4477 in this file).
4478
4479 ** Help display
4480
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.
4485
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.
4489
4490 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4491 `help-echo' text property was found.
4492
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.
4495
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
4498 mouse.
4499
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.
4502
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.
4508
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.
4512
4513 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4514
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.
4517
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
4522 used.
4523
4524 (global-set-key [A-down]
4525 #'(lambda ()
4526 (interactive)
4527 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4528 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4529 (global-set-key [A-up]
4530 #'(lambda ()
4531 (interactive)
4532 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4533 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4534
4535 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4536
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.
4541
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.
4547
4548 ** Tool bar support.
4549
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.
4556
4557 *** Tool bar item definitions
4558
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...)'.
4562
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).
4567
4568 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4569 binding are currently ignored.
4570
4571 The following properties are recognized:
4572
4573 `:enable FORM'.
4574
4575 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4576 or disabled.
4577
4578 `:visible FORM'
4579
4580 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4581
4582 `:filter FUNCTION'
4583
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.
4587
4588 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4589
4590 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4591 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4592
4593 `:image IMAGES'
4594
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:
4598
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
4605
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.
4608
4609 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4610
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.
4613
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
4617 menu bar.
4618
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.
4622
4623 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4624
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.
4628
4629 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4630 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4631
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.
4636
4637 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4638 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4639
4640 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4641
4642 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4643 a tool bar item. If
4644
4645 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4646 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4647 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4648
4649 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4650
4651 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4652
4653 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4654 item.
4655
4656 ** Mode line changes.
4657
4658 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4659
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.
4663
4664 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4665 a `local-map' text property.
4666
4667 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4668 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4669
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.
4673
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
4676 example.
4677
4678 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4679 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4680
4681 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4682 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4683
4684 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4685
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
4690 line.
4691
4692 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4693 `header-line'.
4694
4695 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4696 position in the header-line.
4697
4698 ** Text property `display'
4699
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.
4705
4706 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4707
4708 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4709 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4710
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.
4716
4717 *** Variable width and height spaces
4718
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.
4726
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.
4730
4731 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4732 characters having the `display' property.
4733
4734 - :width WIDTH
4735
4736 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4737 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4738
4739 - :relative-width FACTOR
4740
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.
4745
4746 - :align-to HPOS
4747
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.
4750
4751 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4752
4753 - :height HEIGHT
4754
4755 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4756 normal line height.
4757
4758 - :relative-height FACTOR
4759
4760 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4761 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4762
4763 - :ascent ASCENT
4764
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
4768 equal to 100.
4769
4770 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4771
4772 *** Images
4773
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.
4783
4784 *** Other display properties
4785
4786 - (space-width FACTOR)
4787
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
4790 integer or float.
4791
4792 - (height HEIGHT)
4793
4794 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4795
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.
4801
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.
4804
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.
4807
4808 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4809 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4810
4811 - (raise FACTOR)
4812
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.
4818
4819 *** Conditional display properties
4820
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.
4829
4830 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4831 `(when t . SPEC)'.
4832
4833 ** New menu separator types.
4834
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.
4839
4840 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4841
4842 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4843 separator occurs.
4844
4845 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4846
4847 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4848
4849 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4850
4851 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4852
4853 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4854
4855 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4856
4857 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4858
4859 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4860
4861 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4862
4863 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4864 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4865
4866 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4867
4868 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4869
4870 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4871
4872 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4873
4874 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4875
4876 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4877
4878 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4879
4880 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4881
4882 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4883
4884 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4885
4886 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4887
4888 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4889
4890 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4891
4892 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4893
4894 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4895 the corresponding single-line separators.
4896
4897 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4898
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.
4906
4907 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4908 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4909 `ScrollBarBackground').
4910
4911 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4912 settings for scroll bar colors.
4913
4914 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4915 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4916
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.
4922
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.
4926
4927 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4928
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.
4933
4934 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4935 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4936
4937 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4938
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
4944
4945 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4946 (enlarge-window 10))
4947
4948 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4949 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4950
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).
4957
4958
4959 \f
4960 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4961
4962 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4963 input.
4964
4965 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4966
4967 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4968
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.
4974
4975 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4976 been added.
4977
4978 \f
4979 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4980
4981 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4982
4983
4984 \f
4985 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4986
4987 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4988 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4989 \f
4990 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4991
4992 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4993
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.
4997
4998 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4999 is the one that is used.
5000
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
5008 the buffer name.
5009
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.
5014
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.
5019
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.
5024
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.
5029
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.
5037
5038 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
5039 the same format that was used in the file before.
5040
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.
5043
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.
5047
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).
5055
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.
5060
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.
5065
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.
5069
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.
5073
5074 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
5075 not one per buffer.
5076
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)
5080
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.
5084
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.
5090
5091 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
5092 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
5093
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.
5097
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.
5102
5103 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
5104
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.
5110
5111 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
5112 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
5113
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.
5118
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
5121 Unix.
5122
5123 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
5124 current codepage when it starts.
5125
5126 ** Mail changes
5127
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
5134 latin-1:
5135
5136 MIME-version: 1.0
5137 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
5138 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
5139
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.
5145
5146 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
5147 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
5148 mail.
5149
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.
5154
5155 ** CC Mode changes
5156
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.
5161
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.
5167
5168 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
5169 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
5170
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.
5173
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
5178 anonymous classes.
5179
5180 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
5181 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
5182
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.
5187
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).
5193
5194 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
5195
5196 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
5197
5198 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
5199 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
5200
5201 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
5202
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).
5208
5209 ** Gnus changes.
5210
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.
5214
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.
5218
5219 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
5220 values.
5221
5222 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
5223
5224 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
5225 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
5226
5227 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
5228 `C-u C-c C-c'.
5229
5230 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
5231
5232 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
5233 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
5234
5235 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
5236
5237 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
5238 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
5239
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.
5242
5243 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
5244 control over simplification.
5245
5246 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
5247
5248 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
5249 limit.
5250
5251 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
5252
5253 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
5254
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.
5258
5259 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
5260 `a' forces normal posting method.
5261
5262 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
5263 -- `W d'.
5264
5265 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
5266 to a non-nil value.
5267
5268 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
5269 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
5270
5271 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
5272 has been added.
5273
5274 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
5275
5276 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
5277
5278 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
5279 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
5280
5281 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
5282 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
5283
5284 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
5285
5286 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
5287 been added.
5288
5289 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
5290 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5291
5292 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5293 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5294
5295 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5296
5297 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5298
5299 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5300
5301 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5302
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 "".
5306
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.
5312
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.
5317
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
5321 mismatch.
5322
5323 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5324
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.
5327
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.
5332
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'.
5335
5336 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5337 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5338
5339 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5340 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5341 expressions.
5342
5343 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5344
5345 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5346
5347 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5348 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5349
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'.
5353
5354 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5355 changes with a special face.
5356
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.
5360 \f
5361 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5362
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.
5368
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.
5372
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.)
5382
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
5388 program.
5389
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.
5396
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.
5401
5402 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5403 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5404 \f
5405 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5406
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.
5411
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.
5415
5416 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5417
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.
5420
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
5423 integers.
5424
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.
5429
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
5434 returns the result.
5435
5436 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5437 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5438
5439 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5440
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
5444 optionally.
5445
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.
5448
5449 **
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.
5453
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.
5458
5459 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5460 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5461
5462 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5463 :included is an alias for :visible.
5464
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.
5468
5469 ** Multibyte editing changes
5470
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.
5479
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))
5483
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:
5487
5488 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5489
5490 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5491 across the boundary.
5492
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.
5499
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
5504 way.
5505
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.
5510
5511 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5512 compose Thai characters in a string.
5513
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.
5518
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.
5523
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.
5528
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
5532 echo area contents.
5533
5534 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5535
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.
5539
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.
5543
5544 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5545 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5546
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.
5551
5552 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5553 the gap of the current buffer.
5554
5555 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5556 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5557 current buffer.
5558
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.
5563 \f
5564 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5565
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.
5571
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.
5577
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.
5581
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
5587 results.
5588
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.
5593 \f
5594 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5595
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.
5600
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
5608 region.
5609
5610 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5611 selective undo.
5612
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.
5618
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.
5623
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.
5628
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
5632 applications.
5633
5634 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5635 pasting operations.
5636
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
5641 `ps-printer-name'.
5642
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
5648 hits a new word.
5649
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.
5653
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.
5658
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.
5664
5665 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5666 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5667
5668 ** Changes in input method usage.
5669
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
5672 respectively.
5673
5674 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5675
5676 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5677 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5678
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'.
5681
5682 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5683
5684 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5685
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.
5688
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.
5693
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.
5698
5699 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5700
5701 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5702 keys:
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
5707 environment.
5708
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
5712 get
5713
5714 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5715
5716 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5717
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.
5720
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.
5724
5725 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5726 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5727
5728 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5729 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5730
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.
5735
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.
5740
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
5746 info.
5747
5748 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5749
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
5752 contents only.
5753
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.
5758
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.
5762
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.
5767
5768 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5769 failure if the command produces no output.
5770
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
5773 the mouse.
5774
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.
5778
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.
5782
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.
5788
5789 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5790
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.
5794
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.
5799
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.
5802
5803 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5804 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5805
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
5808 command keys.
5809
5810 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5811 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5812
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.
5816
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.
5822
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
5825 of your input.
5826
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.
5833
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.
5837
5838 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5839 Customize menu.
5840
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.
5843
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
5846 invoked.
5847
5848 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5849 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5850 The default is 1.
5851
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
5856 sensibly.
5857
5858 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5859
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.
5863
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
5867 every night.
5868
5869 ** Desktop changes
5870
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.
5873
5874 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5875 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5876
5877 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5878 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5879
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.
5886
5887 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5888
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
5892 toggle.
5893
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.
5899
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.
5903
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.
5907
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.
5914
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:
5918
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
5922
5923 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5924 be prompted for confirmation
5925
5926 **** does smart filling of address headers
5927
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
5931
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)
5936
5937 ** Dired changes
5938
5939 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5940 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5941
5942 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5943 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5944
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.
5948
5949 ** VC Changes
5950
5951 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5952 conveniently.
5953
5954 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5955 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5956 Dired.
5957
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).
5962
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.
5968
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.
5974
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.
5979
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.
5983
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.
5987
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
5991 uses as well).
5992
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,
5999 using ediff.
6000
6001 ** Changes in Font Lock
6002
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.
6008
6009 ** Frame name display changes
6010
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.
6015
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
6018 menu.
6019
6020 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6021
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.
6025
6026 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
6027
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.
6031
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
6034 the following line.
6035
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.
6039
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.
6043
6044 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
6045 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
6046
6047 ** C mode changes
6048
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
6052 definition.
6053
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.
6058
6059 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
6060
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.
6064
6065 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
6066 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
6067
6068 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
6069 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
6070
6071 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
6072 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
6073
6074 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
6075 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
6076
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.
6081
6082 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
6083
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'.
6087
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.
6091
6092 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
6093 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
6094
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'.
6099
6100 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
6101
6102 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6103
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.
6109
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.
6116
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.
6121
6122 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
6123
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.
6130
6131 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
6132 Editing group once the package is loaded.
6133
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.
6137
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.
6140
6141 ** Ispell changes.
6142
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.
6146
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
6151 include:
6152
6153 o URLs are automatically skipped
6154 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
6155
6156 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
6157
6158 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6159
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.
6164
6165 *** New recursive parser.
6166
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.
6170
6171 *** Parsing only part of a document.
6172
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.
6176
6177 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
6178
6179 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
6180
6181 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
6182
6183 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
6184
6185 *** Using multiple selection buffers
6186
6187 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
6188 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
6189
6190 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
6191
6192 *** References to external documents.
6193
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.
6201
6202 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
6203
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.
6206
6207 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
6208 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
6209
6210 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
6211
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'.
6214
6215 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
6216
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
6223 more.
6224
6225 *** Support for the varioref package
6226
6227 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
6228
6229 *** New hooks
6230
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'.
6235
6236 *** Citations outside LaTeX
6237
6238 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
6239 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
6240
6241 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
6242
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
6245 fontified, use
6246
6247 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
6248
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.
6253
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
6261 directory.
6262
6263 ** New modes and packages
6264
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.
6268
6269 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
6270 code.
6271
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
6274 around in a buffer.
6275
6276 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
6277
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.
6282
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.
6286
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
6292 the like.
6293
6294 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6295 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6296
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.
6301
6302 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6303
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
6315
6316 Platform-specific modes:
6317
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
6327 \f
6328 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6329
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.
6334
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.
6338
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.
6343
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
6347 environment.
6348
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.
6353
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).
6360 \f
6361 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6362
6363 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6364 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6365
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.
6369
6370 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6371 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6372
6373 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6374
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,
6378
6379 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6380 :type 'integer
6381 :group 'foo
6382 :version "20.3")
6383
6384 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6385 :version "20.3")
6386
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.
6391
6392 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6393
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.
6396
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
6400 to themselves.
6401
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
6404 values whatever.
6405
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*.
6409
6410 ** Frame-local variables.
6411
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.
6415
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
6419 parameter name.
6420
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.
6425
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.
6430
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.
6436
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.
6441
6442 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6443 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6444
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.
6448
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.
6453
6454 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6455 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6456 empty input.
6457
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.
6463
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.
6468
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.
6474
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.
6479
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.
6483
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.
6487
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.
6493
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.
6498
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).
6502
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.
6506
6507 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6508 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6509
6510 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6511 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6512
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.
6516
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.
6521
6522 ** Menu changes
6523
6524 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6525 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6526 better supported.
6527
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.
6533
6534 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6535
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'.
6540
6541 The format is:
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
6547
6548 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6549 item is enabled.
6550 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6551 item should appear in the menu.
6552 :filter FILTER-FN
6553 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6554 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6555 It should return a binding to use instead.
6556 :keys DESCRIPTION
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
6562 keyboard binding.
6563 :key-sequence nil
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.
6571
6572 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6573 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6574
6575 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6576
6577 ** New event types
6578
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:
6583
6584 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6585
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.
6592
6593 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6594
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:
6600
6601 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6602
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.
6606
6607 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6608
6609 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6610
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.
6614
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.
6618
6619 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6620 in Emacs 19 and before.
6621
6622 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6623 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6624
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.
6629
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.
6635
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.
6640
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.
6645
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.
6649
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.
6653
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.
6657
6658 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6659 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6660
6661 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6662 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6663
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.
6668
6669 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6670 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6671
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.
6675
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.
6683
6684 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6685
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.
6693
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
6701 `iso-8859-1'.
6702
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)
6707
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.
6712
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.
6716
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.
6723
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
6727 was done.
6728
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.
6732
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.
6737
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
6741 converted.
6742
6743 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6744 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6745
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.
6752
6753 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6754 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6755
6756 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6757 in the current buffer at position POS.
6758
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.
6765
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.
6771
6772 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6773 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6774
6775 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6776 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6777
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.
6783 \f
6784 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6785
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
6789 tree structure.
6790
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.
6793
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.)
6797
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.
6800
6801 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6802 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6803
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
6806 kills the region.
6807
6808 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6809 delete the character before point, as usual.
6810
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.)
6814
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
6820 past.)
6821
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.
6827
6828 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6829 and is an alias for it.
6830
6831 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6832 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6833
6834 ** Scrolling changes
6835
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.
6838
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
6841 where it started.
6842
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.
6847
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.
6852
6853 ** International character set support (MULE)
6854
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")
6861
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.
6867
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.
6872
6873 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6874 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6875
6876 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6877 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6878
6879 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6880
6881 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6882
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.
6888
6889 *** Input methods
6890
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.
6896
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
6899 work.
6900
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
6906 letter.
6907
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".
6913
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.
6918
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.
6923
6924 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6925 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6926
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.
6931
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.
6936
6937 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6938
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
6942 what you want.
6943
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.
6948
6949 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6950 character conversion as well.
6951
6952 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6953
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.
6957
6958 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6959 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6960
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.
6965
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.
6969
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.
6975
6976 *** Defining fontsets.
6977
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.
6981
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.
6986
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'.
6992
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.
7004
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.
7008
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
7011 following resource,
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.)
7021
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.
7025
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
7030 fontsets.
7031
7032 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
7033 defaults for a particular choice of language.
7034
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.
7041
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.
7045
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").
7049
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.
7055
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*.
7061
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.
7064
7065 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
7066 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
7067
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.
7070
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
7075 of the file.
7076
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.
7081
7082 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
7083 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
7084
7085 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
7086
7087 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
7088 the coding system for keyboard input.
7089
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.
7093
7094 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
7095
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.
7101
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.
7108
7109 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
7110
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.
7114
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
7118 want to use.
7119
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.
7122
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.
7127
7128 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
7129 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
7130 related information.
7131
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
7134 scripts.
7135
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.
7139
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
7142 first dash.
7143
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:
7148
7149 A alternativnyj (Russian)
7150 B big5 (Chinese)
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)
7158 R koi8 (Russian)
7159 Q tibetan
7160 S shift_jis (Japanese)
7161 T lao
7162 T tis620 (Thai)
7163 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
7164 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7165 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
7166 v viqr (Vietnamese)
7167 z hz (Chinese)
7168
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.
7173
7174 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
7175 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
7176
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.
7181
7182 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
7183 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
7184
7185 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
7186 for sending mail:
7187
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.
7193
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
7197 translations.
7198
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.
7203
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.
7208
7209 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
7210 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
7211
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.
7214
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.
7217
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.
7221
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
7224 you are using.
7225
7226 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
7227 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
7228
7229 ** File locking works with NFS now.
7230
7231 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
7232 in the same directory as FILENAME.
7233
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.
7237
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.
7244
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.
7249
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
7252 show-paren-mode.
7253
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.
7257
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.
7261
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.
7265
7266 ** Changes in View mode.
7267
7268 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
7269 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
7270
7271 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
7272 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
7273
7274 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
7275 previous state.
7276
7277 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
7278 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
7279
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.
7283
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.
7287
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.
7291
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.
7294
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.
7299
7300 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7301 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7302
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.
7307
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.
7311
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
7314 confirmation first.
7315
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.
7323
7324 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7325
7326 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7327 these commands do not change the major mode.
7328
7329 ** M-x occur changes.
7330
7331 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7332 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7333
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.
7337
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.
7343
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.
7348
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.
7352
7353 ** Outline mode changes.
7354
7355 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7356
7357 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7358
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
7362 was already active.
7363
7364 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7365 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7366 get confused by it.
7367
7368 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7369 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7370
7371 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7372
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.
7377
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.
7381
7382 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7383 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7384 values.
7385
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).
7390
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.
7394
7395 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7396
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
7402 behavior.
7403
7404 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7405 compose-mail-other-frame.
7406
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.
7411
7412 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7413 with separator lines around the contents.
7414
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.
7419
7420 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7421
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.
7426
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
7429 /etc/passwd.
7430
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:
7433 /etc/passwd.
7434
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:'.
7439
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.
7443
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.
7447
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.)
7450
7451 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7452 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7453
7454 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7455
7456 new key dired.el binding old key
7457 ------- ---------------- -------
7458 * c dired-change-marks c
7459 * m dired-mark m
7460 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7461 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7462 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7463 * u dired-unmark u
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-{
7470
7471 ** Rmail changes.
7472
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.
7477
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.
7480
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.
7484
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.
7487
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
7492 for output.
7493
7494 ** Gnus changes.
7495
7496 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7497
7498 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7499 Gnus.
7500
7501 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7502 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7503
7504 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7505 article mode line.
7506
7507 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7508
7509 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7510
7511 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7512
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'.
7516
7517 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7518
7519 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7520
7521 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7522 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7523
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.
7527
7528 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7529 another have been added.
7530
7531 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7532
7533 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7534 generating lines in buffers.
7535
7536 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7537 `M-C-_'.
7538
7539 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7540
7541 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7542
7543 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7544
7545 *** Scores can be decayed.
7546
7547 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7548
7549 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7550 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7551
7552 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7553 the native server.
7554
7555 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7556
7557 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7558 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
7559
7560 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7561
7562 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7563 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7564
7565 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7566 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7567
7568 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7569 a group.
7570
7571 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7572 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7573
7574 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7575
7576 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7577
7578 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7579
7580 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7581
7582 Use the `Y c' command.
7583
7584 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7585
7586 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7587
7588 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7589
7590 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7591 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7592
7593 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7594
7595 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7596
7597 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7598 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7599
7600 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7601
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
7606 this issue.)
7607
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:
7611
7612 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7613
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).
7619
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
7624 there.
7625
7626 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7627 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7628
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))
7634
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.
7637
7638 ** CC mode changes.
7639
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
7645 loaded.
7646
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.
7653
7654 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7655 of the current buffer.
7656
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.
7660
7661 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7662 style that the Python developers like.
7663
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.
7667
7668 ** VC Changes [new]
7669
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).
7673
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
7676 developers.
7677
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.
7680
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.
7685
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.
7688
7689 ** Calendar changes.
7690
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.
7695
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.
7702
7703 ** ps-print changes
7704
7705 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7706 layout.
7707
7708 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7709
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.
7714
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).
7718
7719 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7720 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7721
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.
7725
7726 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7727 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7728
7729 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7730 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7731
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.
7739
7740 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7741 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7742
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").
7750
7751 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7752 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7753
7754 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7755 The default is 0 ("black").
7756
7757 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7758 The default is 0 ("black").
7759
7760 border-width Specify the border width.
7761 The default is 0.4.
7762
7763 Any other property is ignored.
7764
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
7767 documentation).
7768
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.
7775
7776 *** Color management (subgroup)
7777
7778 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7779 color.
7780
7781 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7782
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:
7786
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.
7790
7791 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7792
7793 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7794 sheet of paper.
7795
7796 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7797 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7798
7799 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7800 each page.
7801
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:
7805
7806 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7807 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8
7808 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4
7809
7810 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7811 8 7 6 5 8 7 6 5
7812 12 11 10 9 4 3 2 1
7813
7814 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7815 2 5 8 11 2 5 8 11
7816 3 6 9 12 1 4 7 10
7817
7818 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7819 11 8 5 2 11 8 5 2
7820 12 9 6 3 10 7 4 1
7821
7822 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7823
7824 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7825
7826 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7827 RGB color.
7828
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):
7832
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 +
7838 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 +
7839 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 +
7840 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 +
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 +
7844 10 + 10 +
7845 11 + 11 +
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 +
7857 21 + 21 XXXXXXXX +
7858 22 + 22 +
7859 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7860
7861 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7862
7863
7864 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7865
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
7870 to "-P".
7871
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.
7875
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
7878 do so.
7879
7880 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7881
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
7888 `setpagedevice'.
7889
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).
7893
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.
7900
7901 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7902 pages. Valid values are:
7903
7904 nil print all pages.
7905
7906 `even-page' print only even pages.
7907
7908 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7909
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.
7914
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.
7919
7920 Any other value is treated as nil.
7921
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:
7925
7926 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7927
7928 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7929 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7930
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
7938
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
7946
7947 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7948
7949 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7950 messages should be sent.
7951
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'.
7955
7956 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7957
7958 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7959 points for line numbers.
7960
7961 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7962 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7963
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:
7967
7968 1 one line
7969 one line
7970 3 one line
7971 one line
7972 5 one line
7973 one line
7974 ...
7975
7976 Valid values are:
7977
7978 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
7979 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
7980 is used.
7981
7982 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
7983 zebra stripe is to be printed.
7984
7985 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
7986
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:
7991
7992 one line
7993 one line
7994 3 one line
7995 one line
7996 one line
7997 6 one line
7998 one line
7999 one line
8000 9 one line
8001 one line
8002 ...
8003
8004 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
8005 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
8006
8007 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
8008 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8009 `ps-font-size').
8010
8011 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
8012 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8013 `ps-font-size').
8014
8015 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
8016
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.
8019
8020 ** hideshow changes.
8021
8022 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
8023 C++, ; for lisp).
8024
8025 *** Support for java-mode added.
8026
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.
8029
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'.
8033
8034 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
8035 robust and a lot faster.
8036
8037 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
8038
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.
8042
8043 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
8044
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.
8050
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.
8055
8056 ** Font Lock mode
8057
8058 *** Custom support
8059
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.
8066
8067 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
8068
8069 *** Maximum decoration
8070
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.
8076
8077 *** New support
8078
8079 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
8080
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.
8083
8084 *** Configurable support
8085
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.
8093
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.
8097
8098 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
8099
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,
8102 for any mode.
8103
8104 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
8105
8106 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
8107
8108 in your ~/.emacs.
8109
8110 *** New faces
8111
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.
8116
8117 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
8118
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.
8122
8123 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
8124
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.
8132
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.
8139
8140 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
8141
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'.
8146
8147 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
8148 settings.
8149
8150 ** Ada mode changes.
8151
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
8156 stubs.
8157
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.
8161
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.
8165
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.
8169
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.
8174
8175 ** Scheme mode changes.
8176
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
8181 have any effect.
8182
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.
8187
8188 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
8189 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
8190
8191 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
8192
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.
8197
8198 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
8199 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
8200 buffer in Emacs.
8201
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.
8206
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).
8210
8211 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
8212 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
8213 the current defun.
8214
8215 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
8216 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
8217
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
8220 necessary).
8221
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.
8228
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.
8233
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.
8239
8240 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
8241 since it applies only to the current frame.
8242
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.)
8246
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.
8252
8253 ** RefTeX mode
8254
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:
8260
8261 C-c ( reftex-label
8262 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
8263 knows which kind of label is needed.
8264
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}.
8268
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.
8272
8273 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
8274 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
8275
8276 C-c = reftex-toc
8277 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
8278 can quickly jump to every section.
8279
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
8285
8286 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8287
8288 *** Info documentation is now available.
8289
8290 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
8291 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8292
8293 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8294 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8295
8296 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8297 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8298
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.
8302
8303 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8304 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
8305
8306 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8307 been cleaned.
8308
8309 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8310 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8311
8312 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8313 shall be delimited.
8314
8315 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8316 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8317 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8318
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'.
8322
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
8326 documentation).
8327
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.
8331
8332 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8333 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8334
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).
8338
8339 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8340
8341 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8342
8343 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8344 from alien sources.
8345
8346 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8347 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8348 crossref entries.
8349
8350 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8351 region.
8352
8353 *** Added support for imenu.
8354
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.
8359
8360 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8361 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8362
8363 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8364
8365 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8366
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
8370 as an argument.
8371
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).
8374
8375 ** browse-url changes
8376
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.
8382
8383 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8384
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'.
8388
8389 ** Changes in Ediff
8390
8391 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8392 pops up the Info file for this command.
8393
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
8397 directories).
8398
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.
8402
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.)
8406
8407 ** Changes in Viper
8408
8409 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8410 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8411 instead of vip-.
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.
8422
8423 ** Etags changes.
8424
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.
8430
8431 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8432
8433 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8434 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8435
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.
8439
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.
8444
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
8448 paragraph name.
8449
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.
8453
8454 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8455 in files has changed slightly.
8456
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.
8461
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
8465 reasons.
8466
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".
8473
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.
8477
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.
8482
8483 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8484 details.
8485
8486 ** There are some additional major modes:
8487
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.
8491
8492 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8493 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8494 into Emacs.
8495
8496 ** New Lisp packages include:
8497
8498 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8499
8500 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8501 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8502
8503 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8504
8505 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8506 in shell buffers.
8507
8508 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8509 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8510 and `elint-defun'.
8511
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.
8516
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
8521 at these points.
8522
8523 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8524 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8525
8526 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8527 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8528
8529 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8530
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.
8533
8534 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8535
8536 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8537
8538 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8539
8540 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8541 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8542
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.
8547
8548 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8549 on the buffer.
8550
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.
8554
8555 Enable mouse-drag with:
8556 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8557 -or-
8558 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8559
8560 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8561 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8562
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.
8565
8566 *** ogonek
8567
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.
8575
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'.
8583
8584 *** Interface to ph.
8585
8586 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8587
8588 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8589 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8590 these servers.
8591
8592 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8593
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.
8597
8598 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8599 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8600
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.
8603
8604 ** movemail change
8605
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.
8610
8611 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8612 \f
8613 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8614
8615 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8616
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.
8622
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.
8629 \f
8630 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8631
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.
8636
8637 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8638 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8639
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
8642 "win".
8643
8644 ** Basic Lisp changes
8645
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.
8648
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
8651 or by the user.
8652
8653 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8654
8655 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8656
8657 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8658 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8659
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
8662 its argument.
8663
8664 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8665
8666 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8667
8668 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8669
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
8673 `format' function.
8674
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.
8678
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.
8682
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.
8686
8687 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8688 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8689
8690 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8691
8692 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8693 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8694
8695 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8696 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8697
8698 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8699
8700 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8701 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8702
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'.
8707
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
8710 of the last form.
8711
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)
8715 as the last form.
8716
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
8719 matches.
8720
8721 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8722
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.
8726
8727 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8728
8729 (with-output-to-string
8730 (princ "The buffer is ")
8731 (princ (buffer-name)))
8732
8733 returns "The buffer is foo".
8734
8735 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8736 is non-nil.
8737
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.
8741
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).
8744
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))).
8751
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
8755 characters".
8756
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.
8762
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.
8767
8768 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8769 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8770
8771 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8772
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,
8777 guaranteed.
8778
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
8781 character).
8782
8783 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8784
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.
8790
8791 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8792
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.
8796
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.
8803
8804 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8805 and returns a string containing those characters.
8806
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.
8811
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).
8815
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).
8819
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.
8823
8824 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8825 of a string. You call it as follows:
8826
8827 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8828
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.
8834
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.
8837
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.
8840
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.)
8845
8846 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8847
8848 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8849
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.
8853
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.
8858
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.
8865
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.
8871
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.
8875
8876 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8877
8878 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8879
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.)
8882
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.
8886
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.
8890
8891 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8892 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8893
8894 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8895 of all the characters in a string.
8896
8897 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8898 and specifying coding systems.
8899
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.)
8906
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.
8909
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.
8913
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.
8917
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.
8924
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.
8927
8928 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8929 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8930
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
8934 service names.
8935
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.
8942
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.
8945
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.
8950
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.
8956
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
8959 subprocess.
8960
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.
8965
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.
8972
8973 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
8974 files, subprocesses or network connections.
8975
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.
8983
8984 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
8985 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
8986
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.
8990
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
8995 customization.
8996
8997 Thus, instead of writing
8998
8999 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
9000 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
9001
9002 you would now write this:
9003
9004 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
9005 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
9006 :type 'boolean
9007 :group foo)
9008
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.
9013
9014 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
9015 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
9016
9017 (defgroup ispell nil
9018 "Spell checking using Ispell."
9019 :group 'processes)
9020
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.
9026
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.
9032
9033 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
9034
9035 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
9036 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
9037
9038 ** easy-mmode
9039
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'.
9046
9047 ** Text property changes
9048
9049 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
9050 text property.
9051
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.
9057
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.
9062
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.
9066
9067 ** Changes in invisibility features
9068
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.
9075
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.
9082
9083 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
9084
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:
9091
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)
9096
9097 ...
9098 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
9099
9100 ...
9101 ;; When done with the overlays:
9102 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9103 ;; Or respectively:
9104 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9105
9106 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
9107
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.
9112
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.
9116
9117 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
9118 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
9119
9120 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
9121 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
9122
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).
9126
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.
9131
9132 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
9133 of the current buffer.
9134
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.
9138
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).
9144
9145 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
9146 text property.
9147
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.
9151
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.
9157
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'.
9161
9162 ** Changes in face features
9163
9164 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
9165 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
9166
9167 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
9168 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
9169
9170 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
9171 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
9172
9173 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
9174 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
9175
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
9180 overlay property).
9181
9182 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
9183 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
9184
9185 ** Changes in file-handling functions
9186
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.
9191
9192 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
9193 begins with ~.
9194
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.
9197
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.
9200
9201 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
9202 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
9203
9204 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
9205 character code conversion as well as other things.
9206
9207 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
9208 (formerly it did not).
9209
9210 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
9211 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
9212
9213 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
9214 instead of constant strings.
9215
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.
9219
9220 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
9221 in the same way as before.
9222
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.
9226
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.
9230
9231 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
9232 directory cannot be listed.
9233
9234 ** Changes in minibuffer input
9235
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
9240 ways:
9241
9242 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
9243 It is available through the history command M-n.
9244
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.
9250
9251 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
9252 argument in this way.
9253
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.
9257
9258 ** Echo area features
9259
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.
9264
9265 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
9266 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
9267
9268 ** Keyboard input features
9269
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.
9272
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
9275 by keyboard macros.
9276
9277 ** Frame-related changes
9278
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.
9282
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.
9286
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.
9291
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.
9295
9296 ** X Windows features
9297
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.
9301
9302 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9303 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9304
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.
9308
9309 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9310 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9311
9312 ** Subprocess features
9313
9314 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9315 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9316 automatically.
9317
9318 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9319 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9320
9321 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9322 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9323
9324 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9325 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9326
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.
9330
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
9334 are in use.
9335
9336 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9337 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9338
9339 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9340 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9341 form.
9342
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.
9346
9347 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9348 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9349
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.
9353
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
9357 warned.
9358
9359 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9360 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9361
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.
9365
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.
9368
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.
9372
9373 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9374 if there is an error in compilation.
9375
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.
9380
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.
9384
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.
9389
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.
9393
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.
9398
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.
9402
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
9408 files at all.
9409
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.
9414
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.
9419
9420 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9421
9422 ** imenu.el changes.
9423
9424 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9425 item from menu created by imenu.
9426
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.
9430 \f
9431 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9432
9433 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9434 Copyright information:
9435
9436 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9437
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.
9442
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.
9447 \f
9448 Local variables:
9449 mode: outline
9450 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
9451 end: