1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
41 ** There is a new configure option --with-crt-dir.
42 This is only useful if your crt*.o files are in a non-standard location.
45 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
46 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
47 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
50 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
51 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
52 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
55 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
56 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
57 automatically select it.
60 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
62 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
63 command line arguments no longer have any effect. (They were declared
64 obsolete in Emacs 23.)
67 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
69 ** emacsclient changes
71 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
72 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
73 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
75 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
76 error, its exit status is 1.
78 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
80 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
83 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
85 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
86 initial documentation.
88 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
89 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
91 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
92 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
93 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
94 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
95 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
96 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
98 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
99 value of paragraph base direction at point.
101 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
102 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
105 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
106 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
107 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
109 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
110 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
112 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
113 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
114 is taken from the desktop settings.
116 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
117 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
118 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
121 ** ImageMagick support.
122 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
123 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
124 libraries if they are present at build time. To disable this, use
125 the configure option `--without-imagemagick'.
127 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
128 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
129 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
130 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
132 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
134 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
135 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
137 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
138 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
140 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
143 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
144 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
146 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
147 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
148 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
149 context in their return values.
151 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
152 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
154 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
155 for remote machines which support SELinux.
157 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
158 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
160 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
162 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
163 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
164 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
165 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
167 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
168 scroll a line instead of full screen.
170 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
171 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
175 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
176 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
178 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
179 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
181 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
182 for `list-colors-display'.
184 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
185 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
188 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
189 selected for installation.
191 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
193 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
194 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
195 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
196 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
198 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
199 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
202 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
204 ** completion-at-point is now an alias for complete-symbol.
208 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
209 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
210 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
213 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
214 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region';
215 delete-char, meant for Lisp, does not obey `delete-active-region'.
217 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
218 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
219 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
220 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
222 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
224 ** Selection changes.
226 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
227 changed to conform with other X applications.
229 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t, so active regions set
230 the primary selection.
232 It also accepts a new value, `lazy', which means to only set the
233 primary selection for temporarily active regions (usually made by
234 mouse-dragging or shift-selection).
236 *** `mouse-2' is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
238 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t.
239 Thus, killing and yanking now use the clipboard (in addition to the
242 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
244 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
246 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
249 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
251 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
253 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08. (Close bug#4546?)
255 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
259 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
260 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
261 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
262 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
265 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
266 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
268 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
269 You can get a comparable behavior with:
270 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
271 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
273 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
275 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
278 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
279 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
282 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
283 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
284 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
287 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
288 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
292 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
293 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
294 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
296 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
297 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
299 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
301 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
302 choose a color via list-colors-display.
306 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
307 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
309 ** VC and related modes
311 *** New VC commands: vc-log-incoming, vc-log-outgoing, vc-find-conflicted-file.
313 **** vc-log-incoming for Git runs "git fetch" so that the necessary
314 data is available locally.
316 **** vc-log-incoming and vc-log-outgoing for Git require version 1.7 (or newer).
318 *** New key bindings: C-x v I and C-x v O bound to vc-log-incoming and
319 vc-log-outgoing, respectively.
321 *** The 'g' key in VC diff, log, log-incoming and log-outgoing buffers
322 reruns the corresponding VC command to compute an up to date version
325 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
327 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
328 The log-edit buffers are expected to have a format similar to email messages
329 with headers of the form:
330 Author: <author of this change>
331 Summary: <one line summary of this change>
332 Fixes: <reference to the bug fixed by this change>
333 Some backends handle some of those headers specially, but any unknown header
334 is just left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
336 **** vc-git handles Author: and Date:
337 **** vc-hg handles Author: and Date:
338 **** vc-bzr handles Author:, Date: and Fixes:
339 **** vc-mtn handles Author: and Date:
341 *** Pressing g in a *vc-diff* buffer reruns vc-diff, so it will
342 produce an up to date diff.
344 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
345 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
346 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
348 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
350 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables. The
351 variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', `sql-database' and
352 `sql-port' can now be safely used as local variables.
354 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
356 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
357 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
358 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
359 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
362 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
363 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
364 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
365 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
366 creating the session.
368 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
369 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
370 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
371 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
372 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
374 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
375 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
376 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
377 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
378 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
379 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
380 `sql-send-*' functions.
382 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
383 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
384 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
385 connection is established.
387 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
388 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
389 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
390 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
391 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
392 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
393 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
394 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
395 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
396 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
397 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
398 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
401 (database :default DEF
403 :completion COMPLETE)
406 :completion COMPLETE)
408 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
409 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
410 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
412 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
413 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
414 possible values or a function returning such a list).
416 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
417 An alist for recording different username, database and server
418 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
419 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
421 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
423 (setq sql-connection-alist
424 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
425 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
426 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
428 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
430 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
432 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
433 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
434 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
435 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
437 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
438 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
439 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
440 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
441 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
443 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
444 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
445 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
446 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
449 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
450 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
451 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
452 session and save them as a new connection.
454 *** List database objects and details.
455 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
456 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
457 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
459 **** List all objects.
460 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
461 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
462 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceeding the command by
463 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
464 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
465 separate window in view-mode.
467 **** List Table details.
468 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
469 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
470 the list of columns in the relation. Preceeding the comand with the
471 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
472 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
474 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
475 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
476 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
478 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
479 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
480 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
481 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
482 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
484 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
485 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
486 listing object name completions when being sent text via
487 `sql-send-*' functions.
489 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
491 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
492 enabled by default in 23.1.
496 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
497 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
498 threads simultaneously.
502 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
503 system or session bus.
507 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
508 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old" and "fish".
511 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
513 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode and electric-indent-mode.
515 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
517 ** smie.el is a package providing a simple generic indentation engine.
519 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
520 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
521 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
522 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
525 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
526 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
529 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
531 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
533 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
534 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
535 programmer-visible consequences.
537 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
540 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
541 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and
542 `initial-frame-alist'. With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame'
543 checks the value of the variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to
544 determine whether to create a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.
545 If the alist entries are added, they override the value of
546 `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
548 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
549 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
550 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
551 has now been removed.
553 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
555 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
556 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
557 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
558 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
559 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
560 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
561 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
564 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
566 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char
568 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
569 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
572 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
574 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
575 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
576 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
577 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
578 Together with this new variable come a new hook
579 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
580 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
581 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
584 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
587 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
588 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
589 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
590 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
592 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
593 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
594 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
595 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
597 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
599 ** New completion style `substring'.
603 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
604 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
605 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
606 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
607 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
608 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
610 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
612 ** XML and HTML parsing
614 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
615 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
616 `xml-parse-html-string-internal' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
617 and `xml-parse-string-internal' (which parses XML). Both return an
618 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
620 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
626 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
628 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
629 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
630 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
631 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
632 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
633 displayed with a "spinning bar".
636 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
638 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds emacs with extra
641 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
642 included in binary distribution
644 ** New make target `dist' to create binary disttribution for Windows
648 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
649 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
651 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
652 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
653 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
654 (at your option) any later version.
656 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
657 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
658 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
659 GNU General Public License for more details.
661 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
662 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
667 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"