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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
26
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
29
30 ---
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
33
34 ---
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
39
40 ---
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
44 --without-gconf.
45
46 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
47 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
48 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
49
50 ---
51 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
52 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
53 automatically select it.
54
55 \f
56 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
57
58 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
59 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
60 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
61
62 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
63 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
64
65 ** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used.
66
67 \f
68 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
69
70 ** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
71 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
72
73 ** emacsclient changes
74
75 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
76 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
77 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
78
79 +++
80 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
81
82 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
83 error, its exit status is 1.
84
85 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
86
87 ** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
88 `completing-read-function'
89
90 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
91
92 +++
93 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
94
95 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
96 initial documentation.
97
98 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
99 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
100
101 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
102 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
103 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
104 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
105 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
106 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
107
108 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
109 value of paragraph base direction at point.
110
111 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
112 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
113 Algorithm.
114
115 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
116 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
117 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
118
119 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
120 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
121
122 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
123 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
124 is taken from the desktop settings.
125
126 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
127 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
128 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
129 for this.
130
131 ** ImageMagick support.
132 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
133 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
134 libraries if they are present at build time. To disable this, use
135 the configure option `--without-imagemagick'.
136
137 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
138 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
139 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
140 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
141
142 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
143
144 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
145 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
146
147 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
148 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
149
150 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
151 with Xft. To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
152 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
153
154 +++
155 ** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts
156 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
157 default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
158 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
159 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
160 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
161 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
162
163 On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
164 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
165
166 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
167
168 ** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
169 ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.
170
171 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
172 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
173
174 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
175 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
176 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
177 context in their return values.
178
179 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
180 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
181
182 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
183 for remote machines which support SELinux.
184
185 +++
186 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
187 higher-resolution time stamps.
188
189 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
190 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
191
192 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
193 If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
194 consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.
195
196 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
197 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
198 of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
199 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
200
201 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
202 scroll a line instead of full screen.
203
204 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
205 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
206
207 +++
208 ** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
209 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
210 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
211 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
212 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
213
214 ---
215 ** ``Aggressive'' scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
216 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
217 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
218 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
219 margin.
220
221 ** Trash changes
222
223 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
224 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
225
226 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
227 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
228
229 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
230 for `list-colors-display'.
231
232 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
233 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
234 from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.
235
236 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
237 selected for installation.
238
239 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
240
241 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
242 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
243 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
244 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
245
246 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
247 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
248 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
249
250 ** Custom Themes
251
252 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
253
254 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
255 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
256 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
257 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
258
259 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
260 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
261 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
262 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
263
264 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
265 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
266
267 ** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
268 replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
269
270 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
271
272 \f
273 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
274
275 ** Search changes
276
277 +++
278 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
279 isearch-yank-line.
280
281 +++
282 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.
283
284 +++
285 ** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.
286
287 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
288
289 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
290
291 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
292 also deletes newlines around point.
293
294 ** Deletion changes
295
296 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
297 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
298 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
299 kill instead.
300
301 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
302 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
303 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
304
305 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
306 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
307 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
308 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
309
310 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
311
312 ** Selection changes.
313
314 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
315 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
316 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
317 use the primary selection.
318
319 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
320 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
321
322 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
323 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
324 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
325 the kill-ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
326 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
327
328 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
329 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
330 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
331 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
332 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
333
334 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
335 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
336 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
337
338 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
339 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
340 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
341 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
342
343 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
344 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
345
346 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
347 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
348 between applications.
349
350 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
351
352 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
353 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
354 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
355 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
356
357 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
358
359 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
360 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
361 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
362
363 ** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
364 directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
365 $ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
366
367 \f
368 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
369
370 ** The compile.el mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
371 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
372
373 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
374
375 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
376 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
377 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
378
379 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
380 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
381
382 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
383
384 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
385
386 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
387
388 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
389
390 ** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
391 `browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.
392
393 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers, in certain modes
394 (eg dired, vc-dir, log-edit). For example, adding
395 "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your .dir-locals.el file,
396 will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should
397 call `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
398
399 +++
400 ** You can prevent directory local variables from applying to subdirectories.
401 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
402 settings to indicate said section should not be applied to subdirectories.
403
404 ** ERC changes
405
406 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
407 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
408 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
409 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
410 after connecting.
411
412 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
413 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
414 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
415 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
416
417 ** Eshell changes
418
419 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
420 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
421 exists, that is used instead.
422
423 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
424 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
425
426 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
427 You can get a comparable behavior with:
428 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
429 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
430
431 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
432
433 ** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.
434
435 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
436
437 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
438
439 ---
440 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
441 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
442
443 ---
444 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
445 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
446 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
447
448 ---
449 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
450 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
451
452 ** Customize
453
454 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
455 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
456 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
457
458 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
459 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
460
461 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
462
463 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
464 choose a color via list-colors-display.
465
466 ** Dired-x
467
468 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
469 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
470
471 +++
472 *** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
473 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
474
475 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
476
477 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
478
479 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
480 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
481 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
482 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
483 to a non-zero value.
484
485 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
486 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
487 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
488 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
489 creating the session.
490
491 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
492 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
493 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
494 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
495 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
496
497 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
498 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
499 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
500 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
501 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
502 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
503 `sql-send-*' functions.
504
505 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
506 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
507 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
508 connection is established.
509
510 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
511 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
512 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
513 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
514 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
515 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
516 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
517 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
518 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
519 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
520 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
521 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
522
523 (user :default DEF)
524 (database :default DEF
525 :file FILEPAT
526 :completion COMPLETE)
527 (server :default DEF
528 :file FILEPAT
529 :completion COMPLETE)
530
531 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
532 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
533 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
534
535 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
536 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
537 possible values or a function returning such a list).
538
539 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
540 An alist for recording different username, database and server
541 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
542 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
543
544 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
545
546 (setq sql-connection-alist
547 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
548 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
549 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
550 (sql-user "mmaug")
551 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
552
553 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
554
555 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
556 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
557 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
558 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
559
560 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
561 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
562 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
563 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
564 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
565
566 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
567 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
568 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
569 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
570 have been defined.
571
572 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
573 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
574 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
575 session and save them as a new connection.
576
577 *** List database objects and details.
578 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
579 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
580 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
581
582 **** List all objects.
583 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
584 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
585 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceding the command by
586 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
587 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
588 separate window in view-mode.
589
590 **** List Table details.
591 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
592 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
593 the list of columns in the relation. Preceding the command with the
594 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
595 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
596
597 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
598 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
599 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
600
601 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
602 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
603 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
604 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
605 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
606
607 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
608 This prevents the command interpreter for MySQL and Postgres from
609 listing object name completions when being sent text via
610 `sql-send-*' functions.
611
612 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
613
614 ** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
615
616 ** s-region.el and pc-select are now declared obsolete,
617 superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
618 ** pc-mode.el is also declared obsolete.
619 ** gdb-mi
620
621 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
622 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
623 threads simultaneously.
624
625 ** D-Bus
626
627 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
628 system or session bus.
629
630 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
631 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
632 names anymore.
633
634 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
635 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
636
637 ** Tramp
638
639 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
640
641 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
642 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
643
644 ** VC and related modes
645
646 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
647 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
648 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
649 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
650
651 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
652
653 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
654
655 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
656 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
657 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
658 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
659
660 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
661
662 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
663 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
664 In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
665 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
666
667 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
668
669 **** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
670 binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.
671
672 ** Miscellaneous
673
674 ---
675 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
676
677 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
678
679 *** The new command `info-display-manual' will display an Info manual
680 specified by its name. If that manual is already visited in some Info
681 buffer within the current session, the command will display that
682 buffer. Otherwise, it will load the manual and display it. This is
683 handy if you have many manuals in many Info buffers, and don't
684 remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual you want to
685 consult.
686
687 \f
688 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
689
690 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
691 and electric-layout-mode.
692
693 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
694
695 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
696 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
697 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
698 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
699 secrets.
700
701 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
702 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
703
704 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
705 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
706
707 ** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.
708
709 \f
710 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
711
712 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
713 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
714 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
715 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
716
717 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
718 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
719 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
720 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
721
722 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
723 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
724 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
725 of the header line.
726
727 ** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
728
729 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
730
731 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
732 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
733 programmer-visible consequences.
734
735 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
736 ON unconditionally.
737
738 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
739 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
740 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
741 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
742 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
743 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
744
745 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
746 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
747 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
748 has now been removed.
749
750 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
751
752 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
753 have been removed:
754 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
755 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
756 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
757 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
758 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
759 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
760 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
761 make-local-hook
762
763 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
764 have been removed:
765 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
766 font-lock-defaults-alist
767
768 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
769 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
770
771 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
772
773 \f
774 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
775
776 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
777 The `lexical-binding' variable lets code use lexical scoping for local
778 variables. It is typically set via file-local variables, in which case it
779 applies to all the code in that file.
780
781 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
782 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
783
784 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
785 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
786
787 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
788
789 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
790 declared as dynamically bound.
791
792 ** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
793 Instead, the offending function is removed.
794
795 ** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.
796
797 ** byte-compile-disable-print-circle is obsolete.
798 ** deferred-action-list and deferred-action-function are obsolete.
799 ** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
800 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
801 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
802 jumping all the way to the top-level.
803
804 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
805 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
806
807 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
808 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
809 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
810 obsolete alias.
811
812 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
813 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
814 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
815 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
816 Together with this new variable come a new hook
817 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
818 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
819 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
820 syntactic rules.
821
822 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
823
824 +++
825 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
826 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
827 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
828 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
829
830 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
831 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
832 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
833 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
834
835 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
836
837 ** New completion style `substring'.
838
839 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
840 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
841 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
842 input.
843
844 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
845 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
846 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
847
848 ** Image API
849
850 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
851 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
852 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
853 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
854 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
855 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
856
857 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
858
859 ** XML and HTML parsing
860
861 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
862 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
863 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
864 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
865 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
866
867 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
868
869 ** FIXME GnuTLS
870
871 ** Isearch
872
873 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
874
875 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
876 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
877 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
878 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
879 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
880 displayed with a "spinning bar".
881
882 \f
883 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
884
885 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
886 runtime checks.
887
888 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
889 included in binary distribution.
890
891 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
892
893 \f
894 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
895 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
896
897 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
898 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
899 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
900 (at your option) any later version.
901
902 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
903 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
904 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
905 GNU General Public License for more details.
906
907 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
908 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
909
910 \f
911 Local variables:
912 mode: outline
913 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
914 end: