Document the new BUFFER arg to the `shell' command.
[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 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
12 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
13 charsets in this release.
14
15 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
16
17 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
18
19 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
20 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
21
22 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
23 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
24 to list them.
25
26 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
27 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
28
29 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
30 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
31
32 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
33 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
34 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
35 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
36 necessary changes to unexec.
37
38 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
39 new display features described below.
40
41 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
42 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
43 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
44 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
45 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
46
47 \f
48 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
49
50 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
51
52 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
53 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
54 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
55 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
56 the text.
57
58 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
59
60 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
61 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
62 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
63 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
64 specify a font.
65
66 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
67 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
68 under Lisp changes, below.
69
70 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
71
72 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
73 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
74 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
75 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
76 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
77 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
78 on terminals.
79
80 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
81 supported on character terminals.
82
83 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
84
85 +++
86 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
87
88 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
89 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
90 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
91 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
92
93 - User option: max-mini-window-height
94
95 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
96 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
97 specifies a number of lines.
98
99 Default is 0.25.
100
101 - User option: resize-mini-windows
102
103 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
104 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
105 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
106 again.
107
108 Default is `grow-only'.
109
110 ** LessTif support.
111
112 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
113 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
114
115 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
116
117 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
118 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
119 non-nil.
120
121 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
122
123 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
124 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
125 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
126 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
127 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
128 Emacs.
129
130 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
131 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
132 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
133 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
134 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
135 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
136
137 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
138 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
139 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
140 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
141 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
142 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
143
144 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
145 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
146 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
147 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
148 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
149
150 +++
151 ** Automatic Hscrolling
152
153 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
154 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
155 customized.
156
157 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
158 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
159 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
160 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
161 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
162
163 +++
164 ** Tool bar support.
165
166 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
167 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
168 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
169 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
170 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
171 icons will be used.
172
173 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
174 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
175 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
176
177 +++
178 ** Tooltips.
179
180 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
181 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
182 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
183
184 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
185 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
186 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
187 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
188
189 +++
190 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
191 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
192 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
193 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
194 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
195 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
196
197 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
198 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
199 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
200 customizing face `fringe'.
201
202 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
203 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
204 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
205 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
206 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
207 the window to be partially obscured.)
208
209 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
210 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, now defaults to nil,
211 and its use is deprecated.
212
213 +++
214 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
215
216 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
217 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
218 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
219 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
220 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
221 have enabled one.
222
223 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
224
225 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
226 buffers.
227
228 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
229 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
230
231 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
232
233 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
234 `*') toggles the status.
235
236 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
237
238 +++
239 ** Hourglass pointer
240
241 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
242 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
243
244 +++
245 ** Blinking cursor
246
247 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
248 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
249 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
250 the group `cursor'.
251
252 +++
253 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
254
255 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
256 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
257 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
258 details.
259
260 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
261 have to do anything to activate it.
262
263 +++
264 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
265 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
266 buffer by default.
267
268 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
269 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
270 beginning and end of the buffer.
271
272 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
273 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
274 signaled.
275
276 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
277 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
278
279 +++
280 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
281 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
282 this behavior.
283
284 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
285 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
286 Emacs dump core.
287
288 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
289
290 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
291 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
292 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
293
294 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
295 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
296 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
297
298 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
299 using that menu.
300
301 +++
302 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
303
304 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
305 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
306 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
307 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
308 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
309 whitespace.
310
311 +++
312 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
313 all frames except the selected one.
314
315 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
316 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
317
318 +++
319 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
320 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
321
322 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
323 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
324 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
325 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
326 `Info-use-header-line'.
327
328 +++
329 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
330 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
331
332 +++
333 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
334 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
335 `(msb-mode 1)'.
336
337 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
338 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
339 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
340
341 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
342
343 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
344 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
345 `fr-drdref.tex'.
346
347 +++
348 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
349 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
350 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
351 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
352
353 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable throuh Customize.
354
355 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
356 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
357 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
358 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
359
360 ** The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
361 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
362
363 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
364 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
365 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
366 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
367 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
368 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
369 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
370 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
371
372 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
373 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
374 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
375 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
376 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
377 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
378
379 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
380 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
381
382 +++
383 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
384 point in a pop-up window.
385
386 +++
387 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
388 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
389 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
390
391 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
392 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
393
394 +++
395 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
396 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
397 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
398 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
399
400 +++
401 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
402
403 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
404 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
405
406 +++
407 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
408 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
409 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
410 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
411
412 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
413 group.
414
415 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
416 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
417 are recognized:
418
419 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
420 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
421 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
422 nil -- just delete one character.
423
424 Default value is `untabify'.
425
426 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
427
428 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
429 symbol, not double-quoted.
430
431 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
432 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
433 rnews, rnewspost. Their implementations have been moved to
434 lisp/obsolete.
435
436 +++
437 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
438 system for keyboard input.
439
440 +++
441 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
442 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
443
444 +++
445 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces Emacs to behave
446 as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons. This comes handy
447 with mice that don't report their number of buttons correctly. One
448 example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons, but clicks on the
449 middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
450
451 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
452 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
453 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
454
455 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
456 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
457 non-nil.
458
459 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
460 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
461 `auto-compression-mode' command.
462
463 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
464 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
465 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
466
467 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
468 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
469
470 +++
471 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
472 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
473
474 +++
475 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
476 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
477
478 +++
479 ** Gnus changes.
480
481 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
482 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
483 internationalization and mail-fetching.
484
485 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
486 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
487
488 If you used procmail like in
489
490 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
491 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
492 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
493 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
494
495 this now has changed to
496
497 (setq mail-sources
498 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
499 :suffix ".in")))
500
501 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
502 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
503
504 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
505 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
506 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
507 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
508
509 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
510 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
511 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
512
513 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
514 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
515 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
516 now just a compatibility layer.
517
518 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
519 called to position point.
520
521 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
522 summary buffers and NOV files.
523
524 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
525 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
526
527 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
528 subtly different manner.
529
530 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
531 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
532 ever-changing layouts.
533
534 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
535
536 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
537
538 +++
539 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
540 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
541 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
542 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
543 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
544 on.
545
546 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
547 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
548 file that is already visited under a different name.
549
550 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
551 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
552
553 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
554 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
555 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
556 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
557 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
558 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
559
560 +++
561 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
562 and displays information about that.
563
564 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
565 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
566
567 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
568 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
569 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
570 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
571 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
572 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
573
574 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
575 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
576
577 +++
578 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
579 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
580 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
581 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
582 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
583 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
584 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
585
586 +++
587 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
588 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
589 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
590 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
591 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
592 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
593 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
594 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
595 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
596
597 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
598 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
599
600 +++
601 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
602 displays all characters in that character set.
603
604 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
605 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
606
607 +++
608 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
609 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
610 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
611 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
612
613 +++
614 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
615 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
616 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
617 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
618
619 +++
620 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
621 on the display using several methods
622
623 +++
624 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
625 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
626 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
627
628 +++
629 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
630 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
631
632 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
633
634 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
635 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
636
637 +++
638 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
639 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
640 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
641 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
642
643 +++
644 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
645 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
646 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
647
648 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
649 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
650
651 +++
652 ** New X resources recognized
653
654 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
655 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
656 is useful for debugging X problems.
657
658 Example:
659
660 emacs.synchronous: true
661
662 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
663 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
664 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
665 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
666 visual class names are
667
668 TrueColor
669 PseudoColor
670 DirectColor
671 StaticColor
672 GrayScale
673 StaticGray
674
675 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
676 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
677 meaning.
678
679 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
680 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
681 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
682 visual.
683
684 Example:
685
686 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
687
688 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
689 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
690 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
691 resource values are `true' or `on'.
692
693 Example:
694
695 emacs.privateColormap: true
696
697 +++
698 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
699
700 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
701 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
702
703 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
704 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
705 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
706 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
707
708 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
709 read mail from the menu etc.
710
711 +++
712 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
713 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
714
715 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
716
717 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
718 macros
719
720 Key binding Macro
721 -------------------------
722 C-c C-c C-s @strong
723 C-c C-c C-e @emph
724 C-c C-c u @uref
725 C-c C-c q @quotation
726 C-c C-c m @email
727 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
728 M-RET @item
729
730 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
731
732 ** Changes in Outline mode.
733
734 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
735 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
736 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
737
738 ** Changes to Emacs Server
739
740 +++
741 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
742 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
743 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
744 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
745 buffers to kill, as before.
746
747 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
748 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
749 this way.
750
751 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
752
753 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
754 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
755 use. Default is 1000.
756
757 +++
758 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
759 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
760
761 +++
762 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
763 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
764 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
765 buffers.
766
767 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
768 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
769 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
770
771 ** Faces and frame parameters.
772
773 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
774 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
775 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
776 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
777 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
778 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
779 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
780
781 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
782 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
783 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
784 `default' face and vice versa.
785
786 +++
787 ** New face `menu'.
788
789 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
790
791 +++
792 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
793
794 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
795 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
796 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
797 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
798
799 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
800 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
801 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
802
803 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
804 `ScreenGamma'.
805
806 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
807
808 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
809 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
810 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
811 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
812
813 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
814
815 +++
816 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
817
818 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
819
820 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
821 LessTif/Motif one.
822
823 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
824 LessTif and Motif.
825
826 ** Sound support
827
828 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
829 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
830 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
831
832 +++
833 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
834 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
835 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
836 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
837 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
838 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
839
840 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
841
842 +++
843 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
844
845 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
846 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
847 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
848
849 +++
850 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
851 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
852
853 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
854 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
855 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
856
857 +++
858 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
859
860 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
861 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
862 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
863 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
864
865 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
866 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
867 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
868 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
869
870 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
871 notably at the end of lines.
872
873 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
874 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
875
876 +++
877 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
878
879 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
880 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
881
882 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
883 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
884 after each match to get the replacement text.
885
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', lets
891 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
892 lisp-complete-symbol.
893
894 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
895
896 ** Changes to hideshow.el
897
898 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
899
900 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
901 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
902 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
903 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
904
905 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
906 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
907 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
908 the open block.
909
910 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
911 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
912 the normal block-hiding function.
913
914 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
915
916 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
917 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
918 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
919 for `hs-minor-mode'.
920
921 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
922 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
923
924 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
925
926 +++
927 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
928 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
929 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
930
931 +++
932 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
933 current buffer.
934
935 +++
936 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
937 in a log file.
938
939 +++
940 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
941 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
942 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
943 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
944 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
945 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
946
947 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
948
949 ** Changes to cmuscheme
950
951 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
952 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
953
954 ** Changes in Font Lock
955
956 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
957 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
958
959 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
960 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
961
962 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
963 the face used for each string/comment.
964
965 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
966 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
967
968 ** Changes to Shell mode
969
970 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
971 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
972 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
973 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
974
975 ** Comint (subshell) changes
976
977 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
978 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
979
980 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
981 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
982 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
983 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
984 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
985 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
986
987 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
988 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
989 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
990 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
991 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
992 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
993 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
994 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
995
996 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
997 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
998
999 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
1000 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
1001 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
1002
1003 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
1004 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
1005 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
1006
1007 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
1008 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
1009 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
1010
1011 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
1012 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
1013 argument, it appends to the file.
1014
1015 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1016 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1017 compatibility.
1018
1019 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1020 ring (history).
1021
1022 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1023 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1024 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1025
1026 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1027
1028 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1029 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1030 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1031 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1032 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1033 as correspondent.
1034
1035 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1036 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1037 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1038
1039 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1040 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1041 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1042 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1043 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1044
1045 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1046 like `j'.
1047
1048 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1049 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1050 digest message.
1051
1052 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1053 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1054
1055 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1056 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1057 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1058
1059 ** Changes to TeX mode
1060
1061 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1062 `latex-mode'.
1063
1064 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1065
1066 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1067
1068 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1069
1070 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1071
1072 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1073 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1074 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1075 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1076 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1077 can be edited from that buffer.
1078
1079 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1080 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1081 `A' to use all marked entries).
1082
1083 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1084 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1085
1086 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1087 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1088 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1089 been cited.
1090
1091 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1092 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1093 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1094 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1095
1096 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1097 has the following new features:
1098
1099 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1100 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1101 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1102 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1103
1104 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1105 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1106 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1107 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1108 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1109 defaults to 1.
1110
1111 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1112 file names.
1113
1114 +++
1115 ** Customize changes
1116
1117 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
1118 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
1119 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
1120 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
1121 earlier versions of Emacs.
1122
1123 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
1124 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
1125 default).
1126
1127 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
1128 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
1129 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
1130 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
1131 file.
1132
1133 ** New features in evaluation commands
1134
1135 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
1136 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
1137 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
1138 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
1139 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
1140
1141 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
1142 code when called with a prefix argument.
1143
1144 ** Ispell changes
1145
1146 +++
1147 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1148 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1149 spell-checks the current buffer.
1150
1151 +++
1152 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1153 added.
1154
1155 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1156 correction is made and re-checked.
1157
1158 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1159
1160 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1161 cases.
1162
1163 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1164 on syntax errors.
1165
1166 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1167 end of the buffer.
1168
1169 ** Dired changes
1170
1171 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1172 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1173 is, delete only empty directories.
1174
1175 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1176 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1177 copy directories recursively.
1178
1179 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1180 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1181 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1182
1183 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1184 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1185 directory.
1186
1187 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1188 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1189 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1190 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1191 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1192
1193 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1194 from ls switches.
1195
1196 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1197 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1198 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1199 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1200
1201 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1202 use the -f option when sending mail.
1203
1204 ** CC mode changes.
1205
1206 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1207 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1208 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1209 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1210 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1211 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1212 release.
1213
1214 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
1215 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
1216 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
1217 confusion.
1218
1219 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
1220 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
1221 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
1222 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
1223
1224 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
1225 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
1226
1227 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
1228 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
1229
1230 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
1231 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
1232 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
1233 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
1234
1235 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
1236 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
1237 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
1238 earlier statement. An example:
1239
1240 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1241 if (a[i])
1242 res += a[i]->offset;
1243 else
1244
1245 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1246 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1247 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1248 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1249 the preceding "if".
1250
1251 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1252 by default.
1253
1254 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1255 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1256 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1257 documentation or other natural language text.
1258
1259 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1260 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1261 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1262 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1263 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1264 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1265 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1266
1267 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1268 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1269 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1270 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1271
1272 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1273 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1274 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1275 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1276 Pike mode only.
1277
1278 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1279 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1280 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1281 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1282 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1283 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1284 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1285 is reported afterwards.
1286
1287 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1288 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1289 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1290
1291 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1292 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1293 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1294 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1295 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1296 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1297 groundwork.
1298
1299 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1300 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1301 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1302 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1303 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1304 have to bother.
1305
1306 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1307 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1308 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1309 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1310 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1311 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1312
1313 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1314 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1315 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1316 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1317 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1318 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1319 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1320 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1321
1322 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1323 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1324 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1325 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1326 above.
1327
1328 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1329 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1330 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1331 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1332 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1333 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1334 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1335 function documentation for more info.
1336
1337 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1338 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1339 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1340 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1341 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1342 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1343 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1344 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1345
1346 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1347
1348 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1349 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1350
1351 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1352 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1353 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1354 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1355 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1356 style system.
1357
1358 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1359 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1360 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1361 as far as possible.
1362
1363 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1364 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1365 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1366 chapter about this in the manual.
1367
1368 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1369 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1370 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1371 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1372 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1373
1374 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1375 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1376 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1377
1378 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1379 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1380
1381 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1382 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1383 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1384 inside CC Mode.
1385
1386 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1387 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1388 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1389 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1390 cc-mode/).
1391
1392 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1393 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1394 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1395 literals.
1396
1397 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1398 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1399 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1400 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1401 this function.
1402
1403 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1404 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1405 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1406 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1407 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1408
1409 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1410 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1411 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1412
1413 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1414
1415 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1416 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1417 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1418 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1419
1420 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1421 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1422 the column specified by comment-column.
1423
1424 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1425 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1426 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1427 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1428 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1429 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1430
1431 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1432 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1433 arguments.
1434
1435 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1436
1437 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1438 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1439 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1440 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1441 Provan).
1442
1443 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1444
1445 ** Makefile mode changes
1446
1447 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1448
1449 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1450 Fontlock mode is active.
1451
1452 ** Isearch changes
1453
1454 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1455 so that searches can be resumed.
1456
1457 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1458 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1459 that started the search.
1460
1461 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1462 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1463
1464 +++
1465 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1466
1467 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1468 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1469 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1470 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1471 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1472 `secondary-selection'.
1473
1474 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1475 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1476 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1477 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1478 usual snappy response.
1479
1480 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1481 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1482 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1483 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1484
1485 +++
1486 ** Changes in sort.el
1487
1488 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1489 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1490 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1491 numeric base.
1492
1493 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1494
1495 +++
1496 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1497 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1498 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1499
1500 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1501 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1502
1503 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1504 output ^M at the end of lines.
1505
1506 ** Shell script mode changes.
1507
1508 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1509 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
1510 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1511
1512 ** Etags changes.
1513
1514 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1515
1516 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1517 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1518 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1519 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1520 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1521
1522 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1523 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1524
1525 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1526 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1527
1528 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
1529 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
1530 `template' keywords.
1531
1532 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
1533 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
1534
1535 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1536 types.
1537
1538 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1539
1540 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1541
1542 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1543 are now tagged.
1544
1545 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
1546
1547 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1548 variables are tagged.
1549
1550 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1551
1552 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1553 for PSWrap.
1554
1555 +++
1556 ** Changes in etags.el
1557
1558 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1559 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1560 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1561
1562 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1563 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1564
1565 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1566 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1567 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1568 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1569
1570 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1571
1572 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1573 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1574
1575 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1576
1577 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1578 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1579 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1580
1581 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1582 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1583
1584 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1585 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1586
1587 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
1588 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
1589 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
1590 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
1591 point will go to the beginning of the file.
1592
1593 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
1594 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
1595 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
1596
1597 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
1598 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
1599 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
1600
1601 +++
1602 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1603 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1604 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1605
1606 +++
1607 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1608 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1609 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1610 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
1611 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
1612 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
1613 and Polish `slash'.
1614
1615 +++
1616 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
1617 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
1618 of the tutorial.
1619
1620 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
1621 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
1622 Lisp Coding Convention".
1623
1624 new command old-binding
1625 --- ------- -----------
1626 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
1627 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
1628 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
1629
1630 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
1631 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
1632 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
1633
1634 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
1635 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
1636 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
1637 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
1638 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
1639 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
1640
1641 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
1642 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
1643 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
1644 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
1645 "`", you must type "=q".
1646
1647 +++
1648 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1649 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1650 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1651
1652 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1653
1654 +++
1655 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1656
1657 +++
1658 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1659 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1660 expression from that list, are not checked.
1661
1662 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1663 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1664 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1665 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1666
1667 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1668
1669 +++
1670 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1671 displays local abbrevs, only.
1672
1673 ** VC Changes
1674
1675 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1676 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1677 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1678 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1679 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1680 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1681 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1682 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1683 file is registered in that backend.
1684
1685 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1686 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1687 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1688 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1689 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1690 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1691
1692 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1693 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1694 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1695 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1696 where it doesn't make sense.)
1697
1698 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1699 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1700 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1701
1702 *** General Changes
1703
1704 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1705 checks are always done now.
1706
1707 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1708 operations.
1709
1710 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1711 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1712 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1713
1714 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1715 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1716 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1717 the working file (``merge news'').
1718
1719 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1720 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1721 downwards.
1722
1723 *** Multiple Backends
1724
1725 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1726 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1727 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1728 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1729 local RCS archives.
1730
1731 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1732 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1733 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1734 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1735
1736 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1737 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1738 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1739 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1740 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1741
1742 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1743 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1744 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1745 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1746
1747 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1748 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1749 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1750 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1751
1752 *** Changes for CVS
1753
1754 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1755 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1756 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1757 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1758 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1759 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1760 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1761
1762 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1763 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1764 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1765 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1766 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1767 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1768 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1769 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1770 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1771 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1772 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1773 name.)
1774
1775 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1776 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1777 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1778 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1779 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1780 entire directory tree.
1781
1782 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1783 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1784 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1785 "watched" by other developers.)
1786
1787 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1788 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1789 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1790 starting at the given directory.
1791
1792 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1793
1794 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1795 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1796 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1797 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1798 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1799 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1800 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1801 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1802 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1803
1804 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1805 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1806 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1807 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1808
1809 ** New modes and packages
1810
1811 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1812 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1813 the default is not applicable.
1814
1815 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1816 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1817 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1818
1819 Features are:
1820
1821 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1822 drawn, like this: | \ /
1823 --+-- X
1824 | / \
1825
1826 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1827 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1828 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1829 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1830 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1831 you are drawing.
1832
1833 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1834 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1835
1836 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1837 flood-filling.
1838
1839 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1840 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1841 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1842 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1843
1844 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1845 also do without the mouse.
1846
1847 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1848 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1849 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1850 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1851 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1852
1853 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1854
1855 lines straight-lines
1856 rectangles squares
1857 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1858 ellipses circles
1859 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1860 spray-can setting size for spraying
1861 vaporize line vaporize lines
1862 erase characters erase rectangles
1863
1864 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1865 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1866 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1867 drawing.
1868
1869 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1870 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1871 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1872 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1873
1874 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1875 can be turned off).
1876
1877 +++
1878 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1879 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1880 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1881 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1882 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1883 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1884 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1885 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1886 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1887
1888 +++
1889 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1890 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1891 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1892 on certain projects.
1893
1894 +++
1895 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1896 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1897
1898 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1899
1900 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1901 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1902 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1903 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1904 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1905 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1906 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1907 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1908
1909 +++
1910 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1911 Emacs is idle.
1912
1913 +++
1914 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1915 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1916
1917 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1918 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1919
1920 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1921 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1922 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1923 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1924 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1925
1926 +++
1927 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1928 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1929 separate Texinfo file.
1930
1931 +++
1932 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1933 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1934 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1935 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1936 enter check-in log messages.
1937
1938 +++
1939 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1940 without invoking external programs.
1941
1942 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1943 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1944 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1945 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1946 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1947
1948 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1949 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1950
1951 +++
1952 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1953 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1954
1955 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1956 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1957 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1958 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1959 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1960 single step.
1961
1962 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1963 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1964 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1965 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1966
1967 +++
1968 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1969 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1970 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1971
1972 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1973 PostScript.
1974
1975 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1976
1977 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1978
1979 ; comment (until end of line)
1980 A non-terminal
1981 "C" terminal
1982 ?C? special
1983 $A default non-terminal
1984 $"C" default terminal
1985 $?C? default special
1986 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1987 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1988 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1989 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1990 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1991 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1992 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1993 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1994 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1995 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1996 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1997 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1998 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1999 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2000 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2001
2002 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
2003
2004 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
2005 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
2006 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
2007 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
2008 equal signs of assignments.
2009
2010 +++
2011 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
2012 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
2013
2014 +++
2015 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
2016 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
2017 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
2018
2019 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
2020
2021 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
2022 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
2023 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
2024 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
2025 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
2026 which answers different needs.
2027
2028 +++
2029 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
2030 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
2031 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
2032 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
2033 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
2034 to be enabled.
2035
2036 +++
2037 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
2038 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2039
2040 +++
2041 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2042
2043 +++
2044 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
2045
2046 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2047
2048 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2049 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2050 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2051 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2052 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2053 and background colors.
2054
2055 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2056 Pascal) language.
2057
2058 +++
2059 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2060 the text at point.
2061
2062 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2063
2064 +++
2065 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2066
2067 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2068 whitespace in a file.
2069
2070 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2071 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2072 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2073 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2074 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2075 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2076 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2077
2078 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2079
2080 Here is an example of columns:
2081
2082 horse apple bus
2083 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2084 porcupine strawberry airplane
2085
2086 Doing the following settings:
2087
2088 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2089 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2090 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2091 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2092
2093
2094 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2095
2096 M-x delimit-columns-region
2097
2098 It results:
2099
2100 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2101 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2102 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2103
2104 delim-col has the following options:
2105
2106 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2107 before all columns.
2108
2109 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2110 between each column.
2111
2112 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2113 after all columns.
2114
2115 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2116 each column.
2117
2118 delim-col has the following commands:
2119
2120 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2121 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2122
2123 +++
2124 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2125 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2126 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2127 recent file list can be displayed:
2128
2129 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2130 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2131 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2132
2133 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2134 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2135
2136 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2137 text.
2138
2139 +++
2140 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2141 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2142 specific to Message mode.
2143
2144 +++
2145 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2146 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2147 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2148
2149 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2150 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2151 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2152
2153 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2154 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2155
2156 +++
2157 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2158
2159 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2160 minibuffer with completion.
2161
2162 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2163 with the diary features.
2164
2165 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2166 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2167
2168 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2169 Fill mode.
2170
2171 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
2172 Gnus facilities.
2173
2174 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2175 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2176 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2177 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2178
2179 +++
2180 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2181 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2182
2183 +++
2184 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2185 to be visited as images.
2186
2187 ** Withdrawn packages
2188
2189 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2190 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2191
2192 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2193
2194 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2195
2196 \f
2197 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2198
2199 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2200 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2201 See the sections below for details.
2202
2203 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2204 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2205 Use `copy-sequence' and `set-text-properties'.
2206
2207 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2208 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2209 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2210 these properties are active.
2211
2212 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2213 ranges may affect some code.
2214
2215 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2216 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2217 make a difference to some code.
2218
2219 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2220 operates on the minibuffer.
2221
2222 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2223 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2224 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2225 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2226 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2227 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2228 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2229 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2230 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2231 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2232 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2233 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2234
2235 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2236 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2237 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2238
2239 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2240 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2241 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2242
2243 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2244 long promised.
2245
2246 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2247 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2248 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2249 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2250 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2251 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2252 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2253 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2254
2255 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2256 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2257 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2258 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2259 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2260 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2261 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2262 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2263 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2264 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2265
2266 \f
2267 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2268 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2269
2270 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2271 interactive form of a function.
2272
2273 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2274 between custom options. Example:
2275
2276 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2277 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2278 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2279 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2280 :group 'mule
2281 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2282 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2283
2284 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2285 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2286 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2287
2288 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2289 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2290 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2291 (signal or normal termination).
2292
2293 +++
2294 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2295 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2296
2297 +++
2298 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2299 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2300
2301 +++
2302 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2303 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2304
2305 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2306
2307 +++
2308 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2309 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2310 being deleted.
2311
2312 +++
2313 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2314
2315 +++
2316 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2317 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2318 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2319 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2320 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2321 charset.
2322
2323 +++
2324 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2325 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2326 message.
2327
2328 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2329 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2330
2331 +++
2332 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2333 with the more general `:mask' property.
2334
2335 +++
2336 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2337
2338 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2339 backslash.
2340
2341 +++
2342 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2343 is running in batch mode. For example,
2344
2345 (message "%s" (read t))
2346
2347 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2348 to standard output.
2349
2350 +++
2351 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2352 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2353
2354 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2355 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2356 frame or window.
2357
2358 +++
2359 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2360 were added
2361
2362 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2363
2364 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2365 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2366
2367 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2368
2369 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2370 comparison is done with `eq'.
2371
2372 +++
2373 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2374
2375 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2376 has been changed.
2377
2378 +++
2379 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2380 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2381 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2382
2383 +++
2384 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2385 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2386
2387 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2388 function was declared obsolete.
2389
2390 +++
2391 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2392 retained as an alias).
2393
2394 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2395 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2396 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2397
2398 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2399
2400 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2401
2402 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2403 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2404 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2405 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2406 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2407 means never include the minibuffer window.
2408
2409 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
2410
2411 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2412
2413 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2414
2415 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2416 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2417 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2418 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2419 returned.
2420
2421 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2422 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2423 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2424 minibuffer even if it is active.
2425
2426 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2427 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2428 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2429 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2430 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2431 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2432
2433 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2434 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2435 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2436 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2437 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2438 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2439 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2440
2441 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2442 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2443 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2444
2445 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2446 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2447 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2448 Default value is nil.
2449
2450 +++
2451 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2452 meaning no limit.
2453
2454 +++
2455 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
2456 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
2457 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
2458
2459 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2460 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2461 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2462
2463 +++
2464 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2465 list of a primitive.
2466
2467 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2468
2469 +++
2470 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2471 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2472 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2473 than replacing the local map.
2474
2475 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2476 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2477 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2478 instead.
2479
2480 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2481
2482 +++
2483 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2484 as promised long ago.
2485
2486 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2487
2488 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2489 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2490 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2491
2492 \f
2493 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2494
2495 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2496 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2497 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2498 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2499
2500 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2501
2502 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2503 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2504 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2505 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2506
2507 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2508 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2509 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2510 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2511
2512 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
2513 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
2514 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2515
2516 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2517 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2518 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2519 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2520 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2521 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2522 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2523 eight-bit-graphic.
2524
2525 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2526
2527 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
2528 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2529 character set as previously.
2530
2531 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2532 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2533 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2534
2535 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2536 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2537 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2538 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2539
2540 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2541 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
2542
2543 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2544 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2545 "fontset-default".
2546
2547 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2548 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2549
2550 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2551 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2552 buffers and strings.
2553
2554 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2555 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2556 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2557 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2558 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2559 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2560 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
2561 also been deleted.
2562
2563 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
2564 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
2565 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
2566
2567 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
2568 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
2569 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
2570 may differ between buffer and string text.
2571
2572 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2573 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2574
2575 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
2576 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
2577 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
2578 `composition' from STRING.
2579
2580 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2581 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2582
2583 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2584 obsolete.
2585
2586 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
2587 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
2588
2589 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
2590 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
2591 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
2592 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
2593
2594 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
2595 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
2596 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
2597 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
2598 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
2599 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
2600
2601 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
2602 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
2603 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
2604
2605 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
2606 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
2607 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
2608
2609 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
2610 have been introduced.
2611
2612 +++
2613 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2614 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
2615 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
2616 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
2617 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
2618 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
2619 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
2620 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
2621 their multibyte equivalent.
2622
2623 +++
2624 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
2625 that offset in the file before writing.
2626
2627 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
2628 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
2629
2630 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
2631 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
2632 from which the command was issued.
2633
2634 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
2635 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
2636 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
2637 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
2638 operate on.
2639
2640 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
2641 to `window-buffer-height'.
2642
2643 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
2644
2645 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
2646 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
2647 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2648
2649 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2650 respectively.
2651
2652 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
2653 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2654
2655 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2656 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2657 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2658
2659 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2660 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2661 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2662 is currently displayed in some window.
2663
2664 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2665 argument function's results.
2666
2667 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2668 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
2669
2670 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2671 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2672
2673 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2674 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2675
2676 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2677 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2678 as follows:
2679
2680 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2681 nil don't display a cursor
2682 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2683 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2684 others display a box cursor.
2685
2686 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2687 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2688 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2689 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2690
2691 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2692 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2693 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2694 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2695
2696 Example:
2697
2698 (string-to-syntax "()")
2699 => (4 . 41)
2700
2701 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2702 other than 10.
2703
2704 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2705 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2706
2707 #b1111
2708 => 15
2709 #b-1111
2710 => -15
2711
2712 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2713
2714 #o666
2715 => 438
2716
2717 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2718
2719 #xbeef
2720 => 48815
2721
2722 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2723
2724 #2R-111
2725 => -7
2726 #25rah
2727 => 267
2728
2729 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2730 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2731 and isn't a string.
2732
2733 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2734 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2735 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2736 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2737
2738 +++
2739 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2740
2741 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2742 for a regexp in a string.
2743
2744 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2745 `mouse-position-function'.
2746
2747 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2748 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2749
2750 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2751 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2752
2753 +++
2754 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2755 returns it.
2756
2757 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2758 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2759
2760 +++
2761 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2762 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2763 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2764 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2765 mode.
2766
2767 +++
2768 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2769 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2770
2771 +++
2772 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2773 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2774 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2775 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2776 been performed."
2777
2778 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2779 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2780 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2781 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2782
2783 +++
2784 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2785 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2786 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2787
2788 +++
2789 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2790 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2791 specified table.
2792
2793 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2794
2795 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2796 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2797 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2798 what BODY returns.
2799
2800 +++
2801 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2802 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2803 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
2804 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
2805 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
2806
2807 +++
2808 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2809 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2810
2811 +++
2812 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2813 instead of being optional.
2814
2815 +++
2816 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2817 modify read-only text.
2818
2819 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2820
2821 +++
2822 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2823 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2824 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2825 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2826 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2827
2828 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2829 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2830 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2831 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2832 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2833 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2834 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2835
2836 +++
2837 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2838 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2839 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2840 start sequences.
2841
2842 +++
2843 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2844 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2845
2846 +++
2847 ** New function `propertize'
2848
2849 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2850 strings with text properties.
2851
2852 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2853
2854 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2855 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2856 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2857 specified value of that property. Example:
2858
2859 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2860
2861 +++
2862 ** push and pop macros.
2863
2864 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2865 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2866 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2867
2868 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2869 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2870 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2871
2872 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2873
2874 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2875 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2876
2877 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2878 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2879 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2880 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2881
2882 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2883 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2884 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2885 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2886
2887 +++
2888 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
2889 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
2890 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
2891 or a sign.
2892
2893 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2894 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2895 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2896 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2897 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2898 space, and DEL.
2899 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2900 and DEL.
2901 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2902 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2903 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2904 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2905 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2906 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2907 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2908 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2909 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2910 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2911 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2912 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2913 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2914 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2915 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2916
2917 +++
2918 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2919
2920 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2921
2922 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2923
2924 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2925 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2926
2927 :test TEST
2928
2929 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2930 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2931 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2932
2933 :size SIZE
2934
2935 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2936 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2937
2938 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2939
2940 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2941 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2942 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2943 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2944 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2945
2946 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2947
2948 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2949 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2950 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2951
2952 :weakness WEAK
2953
2954 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2955 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2956 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2957 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2958 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2959
2960 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2961
2962 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2963
2964 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2965
2966 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2967
2968 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2969
2970 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2971 values are shared.
2972
2973 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2974
2975 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2976
2977 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2978
2979 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2980
2981 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2982
2983 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2984
2985 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2986
2987 Returns the size of TABLE.
2988
2989 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2990
2991 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2992
2993 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2994
2995 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2996
2997 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2998
2999 Clear TABLE.
3000
3001 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3002
3003 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3004 not found.
3005
3006 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3007
3008 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3009 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3010
3011 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3012
3013 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3014
3015 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3016
3017 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3018 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3019
3020 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3021
3022 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3023
3024 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3025
3026 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
3027 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
3028 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
3029 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
3030 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
3031
3032 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3033
3034 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
3035 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
3036 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3037
3038 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3039 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3040
3041 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3042 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3043
3044 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3045 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3046
3047 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3048 'case-fold-string-hash))
3049
3050 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3051
3052 +++
3053 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3054
3055 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3056 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3057 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3058
3059 +++
3060 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3061
3062 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3063 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3064
3065 +++
3066 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3067 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3068 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3069 is too short to reach that column.
3070
3071 +++
3072 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3073 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3074 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3075 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3076
3077 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3078 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3079 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3080
3081 +++
3082 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3083 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3084
3085 +++
3086 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3087 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3088
3089 +++
3090 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3091 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3092 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3093 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3094 temporary-file-directory instead.
3095
3096 +++
3097 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3098 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3099 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3100 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3101
3102 +++
3103 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3104 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3105
3106 +++
3107 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3108
3109 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3110 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3111 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3112
3113 +++
3114 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3115
3116 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3117 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3118 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3119 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3120 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3121 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3122
3123 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3124 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3125 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3126 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3127
3128 +++
3129 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3130
3131 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3132 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3133 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3134 result string.
3135
3136 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3137 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3138
3139 Example:
3140
3141 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3142 (s2 "world"))
3143 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3144 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3145 (format s1 s2))
3146
3147 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3148
3149 +++
3150 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3151
3152 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3153 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3154 argument in it.
3155
3156 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3157 (arg "world"))
3158 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3159 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3160 (message msg arg))
3161
3162 +++
3163 ** Sound support
3164
3165 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3166 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3167
3168 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3169 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3170 to enable sound support.
3171
3172 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3173 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3174 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3175 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3176 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3177
3178 The following sound properties are supported:
3179
3180 - `:file FILE'
3181
3182 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3183 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3184
3185 - `:data DATA'
3186
3187 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3188 may be present, but not both.
3189
3190 - `:volume VOLUME'
3191
3192 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3193 0..1. This property is optional.
3194
3195 - `:device DEVICE'
3196
3197 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3198 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3199
3200 Other properties are ignored.
3201
3202 An alternative interface is called as
3203 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3204
3205 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3206
3207 +++
3208 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3209 a keyword symbol.
3210
3211 ** Changes to garbage collection
3212
3213 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3214 of live and free strings.
3215
3216 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3217 strings that have been consed so far.
3218
3219 \f
3220 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3221 Lisp Manual
3222
3223 +++
3224 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3225 mini-windows.
3226
3227 +++
3228 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3229 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3230 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3231
3232 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3233
3234 +++
3235 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3236
3237 +++
3238 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3239 image.
3240
3241 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3242
3243 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3244
3245 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3246 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3247 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3248 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3249 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3250
3251 +++
3252 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3253 has a mask bitmap.
3254
3255 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3256
3257 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3258 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3259 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3260
3261 +++
3262 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3263 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3264
3265 +++
3266 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3267 optional.
3268
3269 +++
3270 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3271 below).
3272
3273 \f
3274 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3275
3276 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3277 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3278 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3279 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3280
3281 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3282 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3283
3284 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3285 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3286 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3287 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3288 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3289 just display it black instead.
3290
3291 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3292 a line like
3293
3294 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3295
3296 in your `.emacs'.
3297
3298 ** New face implementation.
3299
3300 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3301 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3302
3303 +++
3304 *** New faces.
3305
3306 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3307
3308 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3309
3310 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3311 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3312
3313 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3314
3315 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3316
3317 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3318
3319 6. Foreground color.
3320
3321 7. Background color.
3322
3323 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3324
3325 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3326
3327 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3328
3329 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3330
3331 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3332 color.
3333
3334 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3335 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3336
3337 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3338 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3339 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3340 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3341 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3342 attributes mentioned above.
3343
3344 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3345 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3346 created frames.
3347
3348 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3349 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3350 `fully-specified'.
3351
3352 +++
3353 *** Face merging.
3354
3355 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3356 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3357 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3358 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3359 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3360 results in a fully-specified face.
3361
3362 +++
3363 *** Face realization.
3364
3365 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3366 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3367 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3368 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3369 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3370 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3371
3372 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3373 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3374 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3375 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3376
3377 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3378 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3379 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3380 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3381 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3382
3383 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3384 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3385 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3386 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3387 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3388 Emacs.
3389
3390 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3391 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3392 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3393 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3394
3395 +++
3396 **** Clearing face caches.
3397
3398 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3399 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3400 unused fonts.
3401
3402 +++
3403 *** Font selection.
3404
3405 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3406 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3407 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3408
3409 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3410 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3411 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3412 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3413 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3414
3415 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3416 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3417 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3418
3419 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3420
3421 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3422 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3423 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3424 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3425 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3426 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3427 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3428
3429 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3430 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3431 doesn't exist.
3432
3433 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3434 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3435 registry.
3436
3437 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3438 slightly different.
3439
3440 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3441
3442
3443 +++
3444 **** Scalable fonts
3445
3446 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3447 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3448 servers.
3449
3450 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3451 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3452 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3453 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3454 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3455 that list. Example:
3456
3457 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3458
3459 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3460
3461 +++
3462 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3463
3464 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3465
3466 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3467 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3468 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3469
3470 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3471 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3472 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3473 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3474 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3475 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3476 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3477 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3478 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3479 of the face font sort order.
3480
3481 - Function: x-font-family-list
3482
3483 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3484 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3485 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3486 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3487
3488 - Variable: font-list-limit
3489
3490 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3491 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3492 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3493
3494 +++
3495 *** Setting face attributes.
3496
3497 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3498 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3499 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3500 `face-attribute'.
3501
3502 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3503 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3504
3505 The following attributes are recognized:
3506
3507 `:family'
3508
3509 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3510 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3511 and `?' are allowed.
3512
3513 `:width'
3514
3515 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3516 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3517 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3518 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3519
3520 `:height'
3521
3522 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3523 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3524 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3525 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3526
3527 `:weight'
3528
3529 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3530 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3531 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3532
3533 `:slant'
3534
3535 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3536 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3537 `reverse-oblique'.
3538
3539 `:foreground', `:background'
3540
3541 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3542
3543 `:underline'
3544
3545 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3546 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3547 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3548 don't underline.
3549
3550 `:overline'
3551
3552 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3553 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3554 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3555 overline.
3556
3557 `:strike-through'
3558
3559 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3560 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3561 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3562 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3563
3564 `:box'
3565
3566 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3567 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3568 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3569 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3570 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3571 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3572 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3573 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3574 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3575 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3576 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3577 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3578 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3579 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3580 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3581 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3582 box.
3583
3584 `:inverse-video'
3585
3586 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3587 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3588
3589 `:stipple'
3590
3591 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3592 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3593 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3594 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3595 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3596 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3597
3598 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3599 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3600
3601 `:font'
3602
3603 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3604 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3605 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3606 versions of Emacs.
3607
3608 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
3609 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
3610 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
3611
3612 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3613 `defface'.
3614
3615 `:inherit'
3616
3617 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
3618 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
3619 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
3620
3621 *** Face attributes and X resources
3622
3623 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3624 from X resources:
3625
3626 Face attribute X resource class
3627 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
3628 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
3629 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
3630 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
3631 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
3632 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
3633 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
3634 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
3635 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
3636 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
3637 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
3638 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
3639 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
3640 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
3641 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
3642 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
3643 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3644 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
3645 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
3646 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3647
3648 +++
3649 *** Text property `face'.
3650
3651 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
3652 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
3653 specification can be
3654
3655 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
3656
3657 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
3658 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
3659 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
3660 for face attribute names.
3661
3662 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
3663 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
3664 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
3665
3666 +++
3667 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
3668
3669 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
3670 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
3671 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
3672 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
3673 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
3674 used to clear the mapping table.
3675
3676 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
3677
3678 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
3679 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
3680 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
3681 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
3682 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
3683 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3684 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3685 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3686 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3687 modify their color-related behavior.
3688
3689 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3690 any frame type.
3691
3692 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3693
3694 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3695 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3696 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3697 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3698 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3699 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3700 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3701 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3702 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3703
3704 +++
3705 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3706
3707 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3708 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
3709 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
3710 `Inviolable' option.
3711
3712 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3713 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3714 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3715
3716 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3717
3718 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3719 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3720 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3721
3722 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3723 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3724 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3725 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3726 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3727 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3728 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3729 functions.
3730
3731 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3732 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3733 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3734
3735 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3736
3737 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3738
3739 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3740
3741 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3742 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3743 constrained position if that is different.
3744
3745 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3746 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3747 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3748 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3749 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3750 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3751 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3752 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3753 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3754
3755 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3756 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3757 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3758 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3759 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3760
3761 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3762 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3763
3764 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3765
3766 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3767
3768 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3769 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3770 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3771
3772 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3773
3774 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3775 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3776 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3777 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3778 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3779
3780 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3781
3782 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3783 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3784 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3785 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3786 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3787
3788 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3789
3790 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3791 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3792 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3793
3794 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3795
3796 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3797 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3798 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3799
3800 +++
3801 ** Image support.
3802
3803 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3804 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3805 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3806 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3807
3808 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3809 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3810 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3811 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3812 area.
3813
3814 IMAGE is an image specification.
3815
3816 *** Image specifications
3817
3818 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3819 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3820 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3821 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3822 described below are ignored.
3823
3824 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3825
3826 `:ascent ASCENT'
3827
3828 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3829 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3830 to use for its ascent.
3831
3832 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3833 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3834
3835 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3836 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3837 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3838 overlays that apply to the image.
3839
3840 `:margin MARGIN'
3841
3842 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
3843 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
3844 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
3845
3846 `:relief RELIEF'
3847
3848 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3849 around an image.
3850
3851 `:conversion ALGO'
3852
3853 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3854
3855 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3856 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3857
3858 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3859 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3860 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3861 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3862 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3863 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3864 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3865 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3866 below.
3867
3868 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3869 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
3870 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3871
3872 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3873 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3874 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3875 of the factors' absolute values.
3876
3877 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3878
3879 (1 0 0
3880 0 0 0
3881 9 9 -1)
3882
3883 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3884
3885 ( 2 -1 0
3886 -1 0 1
3887 0 1 -2)
3888
3889 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3890 ``disabled''.
3891
3892 `:mask MASK'
3893
3894 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3895 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3896 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3897 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3898 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
3899 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3900 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3901 image.
3902
3903 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3904 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3905 `:mask nil'.
3906
3907 `:file FILE'
3908
3909 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3910 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3911 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3912 may be present in the image specification.
3913
3914 `:data DATA'
3915
3916 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3917 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3918 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3919 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3920
3921 *** Supported image types
3922
3923 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3924
3925 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3926 properties supported are
3927
3928 `:foreground FG'
3929
3930 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
3931 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
3932
3933 `:background BG'
3934
3935 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
3936 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
3937
3938 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3939 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3940 instead of a `:file' property.
3941
3942 `:width WIDTH'
3943
3944 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3945
3946 `:height HEIGHT'
3947
3948 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3949
3950 `:data DATA'
3951
3952 DATA must be either
3953
3954 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3955 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3956
3957 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3958
3959 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3960 bitmap.
3961
3962 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3963 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3964 in the file.
3965
3966 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3967
3968 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3969 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3970 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3971 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3972
3973 Additional image properties supported are:
3974
3975 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3976
3977 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3978 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3979 name.
3980
3981 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3982 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3983
3984 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3985 to display compressed images.
3986
3987 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3988
3989 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3990 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
3991 mono images are
3992
3993 `:foreground FG'
3994
3995 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
3996 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
3997
3998 `:background FG'
3999
4000 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4001 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4002
4003 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4004
4005 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4006 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4007 are:
4008
4009 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4010
4011 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4012 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4013 properties defined.
4014
4015 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4016
4017 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4018 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4019
4020 Additional image properties supported are:
4021
4022 `:index INDEX'
4023
4024 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
4025 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
4026
4027 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
4028 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
4029 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
4030 every 0.1 seconds.
4031
4032 (defun show-anim (file max)
4033 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
4034 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
4035
4036 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4037 (when (= idx max)
4038 (setq idx 0))
4039 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4040 (save-excursion
4041 (set-buffer buffer)
4042 (goto-char (point-min))
4043 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4044 (insert-image img "x"))
4045 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4046
4047 **** PNG, image type `png'
4048
4049 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4050 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4051 properties defined.
4052
4053 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4054
4055 Additional image properties supported are:
4056
4057 `:pt-width WIDTH'
4058
4059 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4060 integer. This is a required property.
4061
4062 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
4063
4064 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4065 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4066
4067 `:bounding-box BOX'
4068
4069 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4070 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4071 files. This is an required property.
4072
4073 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4074 lisp/gs.el.
4075
4076 *** Lisp interface.
4077
4078 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4079 which are supported in the current configuration.
4080
4081 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4082 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4083 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4084 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4085 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4086
4087 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4088
4089 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4090 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4091 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4092 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4093 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4094 buffer.
4095
4096 +++
4097 ** Display margins.
4098
4099 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4100 and images.
4101
4102 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4103 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4104 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4105 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4106 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4107 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4108 of the display margins.
4109
4110 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4111 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4112 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4113 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4114 in this file).
4115
4116 +++
4117 ** Help display
4118
4119 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4120 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4121 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4122 that have a `help-echo' property.
4123
4124 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4125 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4126 the window in which the help was found.
4127
4128 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4129 `help-echo' text property was found.
4130
4131 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4132 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4133
4134 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4135 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4136 mouse.
4137
4138 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4139 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4140
4141 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4142 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4143 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4144 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4145 used as help string.
4146
4147 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4148 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4149 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4150
4151 +++
4152 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4153
4154 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4155 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4156
4157 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4158 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4159 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4160 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4161 used.
4162
4163 (global-set-key [A-down]
4164 #'(lambda ()
4165 (interactive)
4166 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4167 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4168 (global-set-key [A-up]
4169 #'(lambda ()
4170 (interactive)
4171 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4172 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4173
4174 +++
4175 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4176
4177 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4178 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4179 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4180 is called with one argument, POS.
4181
4182 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4183 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4184 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4185 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4186 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4187
4188 +++
4189 ** Tool bar support.
4190
4191 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4192 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4193 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4194 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4195 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4196 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4197
4198 *** Tool bar item definitions
4199
4200 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4201 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4202 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4203
4204 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4205 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4206 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4207 property (see below).
4208
4209 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4210 binding are currently ignored.
4211
4212 The following properties are recognized:
4213
4214 `:enable FORM'.
4215
4216 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4217 or disabled.
4218
4219 `:visible FORM'
4220
4221 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4222
4223 `:filter FUNCTION'
4224
4225 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4226 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4227 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4228
4229 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4230
4231 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4232 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4233
4234 `:image IMAGES'
4235
4236 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4237 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4238 meaning of each of the four elements:
4239
4240 Index Use when item is
4241 ----------------------------------------
4242 0 enabled and selected
4243 1 enabled and deselected
4244 2 disabled and selected
4245 3 disabled and deselected
4246
4247 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4248 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4249
4250 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4251
4252 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4253 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4254
4255 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4256 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4257 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4258 menu bar.
4259
4260 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4261 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4262 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4263
4264 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4265
4266 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4267 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4268 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4269
4270 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4271 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4272
4273 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4274 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4275 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4276 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4277
4278 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4279 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4280
4281 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4282
4283 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4284 a tool bar item. If
4285
4286 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4287 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4288 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4289
4290 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4291
4292 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4293
4294 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4295 item.
4296
4297 ** Mode line changes.
4298
4299 +++
4300 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4301
4302 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4303 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4304 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4305
4306 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4307 a `local-map' text property.
4308
4309 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4310 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4311
4312 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4313 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4314 `local-map' property.
4315
4316 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4317 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4318 example.
4319
4320 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4321 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4322
4323 +++
4324 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4325 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4326
4327 +++
4328 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4329
4330 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4331 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4332 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4333 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4334 line.
4335
4336 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4337 `header-line'.
4338
4339 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4340 position in the header-line.
4341
4342 +++
4343 ** Text property `display'
4344
4345 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4346 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4347 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4348 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4349 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4350
4351 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4352
4353 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4354 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4355
4356 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4357 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4358 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4359 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4360 simpler form STRING as property value.
4361
4362 *** Variable width and height spaces
4363
4364 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4365 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4366 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4367 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4368 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4369 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4370 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4371
4372 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4373 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4374 properties described below.
4375
4376 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4377 characters having the `display' property.
4378
4379 - :width WIDTH
4380
4381 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4382 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4383
4384 - :relative-width FACTOR
4385
4386 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4387 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4388 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4389 width of that character by FACTOR.
4390
4391 - :align-to HPOS
4392
4393 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4394 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4395
4396 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4397
4398 - :height HEIGHT
4399
4400 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4401 normal line height.
4402
4403 - :relative-height FACTOR
4404
4405 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4406 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4407
4408 - :ascent ASCENT
4409
4410 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4411 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4412 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4413 equal to 100.
4414
4415 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4416
4417 *** Images
4418
4419 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4420 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4421 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4422 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4423 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4424 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4425 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4426 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4427 as display specification.
4428
4429 *** Other display properties
4430
4431 - (space-width FACTOR)
4432
4433 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4434 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4435 integer or float.
4436
4437 - (height HEIGHT)
4438
4439 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4440
4441 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4442 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4443 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4444 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4445 a font is available counts as a step.
4446
4447 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4448 as tall as the frame's default font.
4449
4450 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4451 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4452
4453 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4454 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4455
4456 - (raise FACTOR)
4457
4458 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4459 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4460 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4461 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4462 `height' subproperty.
4463
4464 *** Conditional display properties
4465
4466 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4467 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
4468 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
4469 During evaluation, point is temporarily set to the end position of
4470 the text having the `display' property.
4471
4472 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4473 `(:when t SPEC)'.
4474
4475 +++
4476 ** New menu separator types.
4477
4478 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4479 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4480 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4481 to specify other menu separator types.
4482
4483 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4484
4485 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4486 separator occurs.
4487
4488 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4489
4490 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4491
4492 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4493
4494 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4495
4496 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4497
4498 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4499
4500 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4501
4502 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4503
4504 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4505
4506 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4507 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4508
4509 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4510
4511 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4512
4513 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4514
4515 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4516
4517 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4518
4519 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4520
4521 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4522
4523 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4524
4525 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4526
4527 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4528
4529 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4530
4531 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4532
4533 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4534
4535 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4536
4537 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4538 the corresponding single-line separators.
4539
4540 +++
4541 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4542
4543 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4544 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4545 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4546 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4547 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4548 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4549 default foreground is black.
4550
4551 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4552 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4553 `ScrollBarBackground').
4554
4555 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4556 settings for scroll bar colors.
4557
4558 +++
4559 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4560 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4561
4562 ---
4563 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4564 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4565 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4566 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4567 the original window start.
4568
4569 ---
4570 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4571 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4572 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4573
4574 +++
4575 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4576
4577 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4578 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4579 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4580 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4581
4582 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4583 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4584
4585 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4586
4587 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4588 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4589 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4590 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4591 temporarily to nil, for example
4592
4593 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4594 (enlarge-window 10))
4595
4596 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4597 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4598
4599 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4600 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4601 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4602 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4603 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4604 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4605
4606
4607
4608 \f
4609 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4610
4611 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4612 input.
4613
4614 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4615
4616 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4617
4618 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4619 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4620 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4621 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4622 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
4623
4624 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4625 been added.
4626
4627 \f
4628 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4629
4630 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4631
4632
4633 \f
4634 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4635
4636 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4637 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4638 \f
4639 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4640
4641 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4642
4643 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
4644 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
4645 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
4646
4647 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4648 is the one that is used.
4649
4650 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
4651 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
4652 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
4653 separate from the command's regular output.
4654 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
4655 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
4656 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
4657 the buffer name.
4658
4659 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
4660 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
4661 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
4662 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
4663
4664 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
4665 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
4666 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
4667 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
4668
4669 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
4670 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
4671 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
4672 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
4673
4674 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
4675 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
4676 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
4677 they never ignore case.
4678
4679 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
4680 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
4681 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
4682 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
4683 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
4684 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
4685 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
4686
4687 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
4688 the same format that was used in the file before.
4689
4690 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
4691 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
4692
4693 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
4694 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
4695 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
4696
4697 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
4698 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
4699 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
4700 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
4701 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
4702 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
4703 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4704
4705 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4706 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4707 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4708 format. You can now customize these variables.
4709
4710 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4711 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4712 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4713 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4714
4715 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4716 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4717 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4718
4719 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4720 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4721 doesn't have any effect.
4722
4723 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4724 not one per buffer.
4725
4726 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4727 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4728 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4729
4730 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4731 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4732 `auto-show-mode' command.
4733
4734 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4735 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4736 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4737 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4738 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4739
4740 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4741 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4742
4743 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4744 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4745 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4746
4747 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4748 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4749 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4750 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4751
4752 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4753
4754 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4755 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4756 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4757 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4758 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4759
4760 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4761 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4762
4763 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4764 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4765 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4766 `?' on other systems.
4767
4768 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4769 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4770 Unix.
4771
4772 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4773 current codepage when it starts.
4774
4775 ** Mail changes
4776
4777 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4778 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4779 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4780 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4781 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4782 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4783 latin-1:
4784
4785 MIME-version: 1.0
4786 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4787 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4788
4789 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4790 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4791 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4792 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4793 buffer-file-coding-system.
4794
4795 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4796 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4797 mail.
4798
4799 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4800 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4801 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4802 list of possible coding systems.
4803
4804 ** CC Mode changes
4805
4806 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4807 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4808 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4809 docstring for details.
4810
4811 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4812 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4813 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4814 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4815 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4816
4817 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4818 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4819
4820 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4821 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4822
4823 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4824 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4825 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4826 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4827 anonymous classes.
4828
4829 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4830 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4831
4832 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4833 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4834 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4835 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4836
4837 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4838 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4839 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4840 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4841 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4842
4843 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4844
4845 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4846
4847 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4848 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4849
4850 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4851
4852 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4853 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4854 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4855 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4856 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4857
4858 ** Gnus changes.
4859
4860 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4861 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4862 Gnus manual for the full story.
4863
4864 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4865 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4866 group, which is created automatically.
4867
4868 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4869 values.
4870
4871 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4872
4873 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4874 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4875
4876 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4877 `C-u C-c C-c'.
4878
4879 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4880
4881 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4882 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4883
4884 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4885
4886 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4887 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4888
4889 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4890 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4891
4892 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4893 control over simplification.
4894
4895 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4896
4897 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4898 limit.
4899
4900 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4901
4902 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4903
4904 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4905 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4906 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4907
4908 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4909 `a' forces normal posting method.
4910
4911 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4912 -- `W d'.
4913
4914 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4915 to a non-nil value.
4916
4917 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4918 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4919
4920 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4921 has been added.
4922
4923 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4924
4925 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4926
4927 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4928 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4929
4930 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4931 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4932
4933 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4934
4935 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4936 been added.
4937
4938 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4939 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4940
4941 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4942 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4943
4944 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4945
4946 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4947
4948 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4949
4950 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4951
4952 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4953 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4954 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4955
4956 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4957 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4958 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4959 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4960 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4961
4962 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4963 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4964 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4965 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4966
4967 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4968 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4969 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4970 mismatch.
4971
4972 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4973
4974 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4975 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4976
4977 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4978 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4979 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4980 removed from the label.
4981
4982 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4983 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4984
4985 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4986 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4987
4988 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4989 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4990 expressions.
4991
4992 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4993
4994 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4995
4996 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4997 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4998
4999 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5000 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5001 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5002
5003 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5004 changes with a special face.
5005
5006 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5007 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5008 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5009 \f
5010 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5011
5012 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5013 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5014 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5015 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5016 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5017
5018 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5019 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5020 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5021
5022 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5023 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5024 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5025 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5026 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5027 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5028 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
5029 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
5030 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
5031
5032 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
5033 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
5034 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
5035 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
5036 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5037 program.
5038
5039 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5040 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5041 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5042 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5043 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5044 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5045
5046 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5047 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5048 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5049 was not documented clearly before.
5050
5051 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5052 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5053 \f
5054 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5055
5056 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5057 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5058 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5059 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5060
5061 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5062 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5063 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5064
5065 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5066
5067 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5068 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5069
5070 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5071 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5072 integers.
5073
5074 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5075 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5076 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5077 file names and attributes are returned.
5078
5079 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5080 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5081 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5082 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5083 returns the result.
5084
5085 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5086 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5087
5088 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5089
5090 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5091 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5092 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5093 optionally.
5094
5095 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5096 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5097
5098 **
5099 The new function process-running-child-p
5100 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5101 terminal to its own child process.
5102
5103 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5104 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5105 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5106 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5107
5108 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5109 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5110
5111 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5112 :included is an alias for :visible.
5113
5114 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5115 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5116 to move or copy menu entries.
5117
5118 ** Multibyte editing changes
5119
5120 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5121 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5122 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5123 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5124 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5125 (setq char (sref str idx)
5126 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5127 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5128
5129 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5130 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5131 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5132
5133 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5134 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5135 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5136
5137 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5138
5139 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5140 across the boundary.
5141
5142 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5143 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5144 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5145 contains 8-bit characters.
5146 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5147 contains invalid characters.
5148
5149 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5150 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5151 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5152 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5153 way.
5154
5155 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5156 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5157 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5158 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5159
5160 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5161 compose Thai characters in a string.
5162
5163 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5164 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5165 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5166 menus should always use the third argument.
5167
5168 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5169 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5170 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5171 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5172
5173 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5174 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5175 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5176 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5177
5178 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5179 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5180 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5181 echo area contents.
5182
5183 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5184
5185 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5186 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5187 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5188
5189 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5190 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5191 means to clear out that attribute.
5192
5193 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5194 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5195
5196 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5197 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5198 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5199 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5200
5201 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5202 the gap of the current buffer.
5203
5204 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5205 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5206 current buffer.
5207
5208 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5209 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5210 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5211 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5212 \f
5213 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5214
5215 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5216 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5217 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5218 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5219 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5220
5221 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5222 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5223 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5224 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5225 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5226
5227 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5228 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5229 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5230
5231 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5232 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5233 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5234 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5235 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5236 results.
5237
5238 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5239 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5240 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5241 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5242 \f
5243 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5244
5245 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5246 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5247 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5248 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5249
5250 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5251 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5252 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5253 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5254 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5255 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5256 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5257 region.
5258
5259 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5260 selective undo.
5261
5262 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5263 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5264 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5265 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5266 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5267
5268 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5269 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5270 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5271 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5272
5273 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5274 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5275 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5276 something that most users not do.
5277
5278 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5279 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5280 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5281 applications.
5282
5283 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5284 pasting operations.
5285
5286 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5287 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5288 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5289 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5290 `ps-printer-name'.
5291
5292 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5293 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5294 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5295 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5296 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5297 hits a new word.
5298
5299 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5300 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5301 to be confused by TeX commands.
5302
5303 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5304 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5305 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5306 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5307
5308 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5309 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5310 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5311 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5312 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5313
5314 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5315 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5316
5317 ** Changes in input method usage.
5318
5319 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5320 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5321 respectively.
5322
5323 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5324
5325 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5326 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5327
5328 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5329 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5330
5331 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5332
5333 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5334
5335 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5336 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5337
5338 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5339 given in the following case:
5340 o When you are using a complex input method.
5341 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5342
5343 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5344 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5345 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5346 setting it to t is helpful.
5347
5348 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5349
5350 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5351 keys:
5352 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5353 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5354 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5355 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5356 environment.
5357
5358 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5359 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5360 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5361 get
5362
5363 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5364
5365 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5366
5367 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5368 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5369
5370 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5371 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5372 its owner and group.
5373
5374 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5375 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5376
5377 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5378 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5379
5380 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5381 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5382 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5383 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5384
5385 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5386 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5387 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5388 for writing keyboard macros.
5389
5390 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5391 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5392 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5393 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5394 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5395 info.
5396
5397 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5398
5399 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5400 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5401 contents only.
5402
5403 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5404 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5405 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5406 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5407
5408 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5409 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5410 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5411
5412 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5413 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5414 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5415 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5416
5417 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5418 failure if the command produces no output.
5419
5420 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5421 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5422 the mouse.
5423
5424 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5425 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5426 function and variable names.
5427
5428 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5429 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5430 file-coding-system-alist.
5431
5432 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5433 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5434 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5435 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5436 according to the current fontset.
5437
5438 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5439
5440 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5441 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5442 nonascii-insert-offset.
5443
5444 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5445 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5446 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5447 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5448
5449 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5450 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5451
5452 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5453 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5454
5455 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5456 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5457 command keys.
5458
5459 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5460 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5461
5462 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5463 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5464 all variables that have documentation.
5465
5466 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5467 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5468 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5469 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5470 it should show; the default is 20.
5471
5472 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5473 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5474 of your input.
5475
5476 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5477 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5478 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5479 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5480 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5481 Newly added options are included as well.
5482
5483 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5484 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5485 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5486
5487 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5488 Customize menu.
5489
5490 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5491 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5492
5493 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5494 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5495 invoked.
5496
5497 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5498 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5499 The default is 1.
5500
5501 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5502 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5503 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5504 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5505 sensibly.
5506
5507 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5508
5509 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5510 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5511 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5512
5513 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5514 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5515 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5516 every night.
5517
5518 ** Desktop changes
5519
5520 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5521 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5522
5523 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5524 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5525
5526 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5527 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5528
5529 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5530 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5531 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5532 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5533 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5534 made invisible again.
5535
5536 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5537
5538 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5539 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5540 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5541 toggle.
5542
5543 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5544 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5545 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5546 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5547 rmail-default-body-file.
5548
5549 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5550 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5551 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5552
5553 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5554 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5555 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5556
5557 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5558 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5559 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5560 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5561 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5562 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5563
5564 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5565 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5566 provided by feedmail are:
5567
5568 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5569 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5570 there is also a queue for draft messages
5571
5572 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5573 be prompted for confirmation
5574
5575 **** does smart filling of address headers
5576
5577 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5578 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5579 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5580
5581 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5582 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5583 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5584 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5585
5586 ** Dired changes
5587
5588 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5589 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5590
5591 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5592 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5593
5594 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5595 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5596 for a specified regexp.
5597
5598 ** VC Changes
5599
5600 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5601 conveniently.
5602
5603 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5604 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5605 Dired.
5606
5607 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5608 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5609 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5610 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5611
5612 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5613 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5614 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5615 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5616 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5617
5618 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5619 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5620 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5621 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5622 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
5623
5624 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
5625 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
5626 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
5627 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
5628
5629 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
5630 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
5631 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
5632
5633 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
5634 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
5635 session to resolve them.
5636
5637 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
5638 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
5639 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
5640 uses as well).
5641
5642 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
5643 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
5644 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
5645 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
5646 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
5647 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
5648 using ediff.
5649
5650 ** Changes in Font Lock
5651
5652 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
5653 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
5654 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
5655 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
5656 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
5657
5658 ** Frame name display changes
5659
5660 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
5661 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
5662 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
5663 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
5664
5665 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
5666 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
5667 menu.
5668
5669 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5670
5671 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
5672 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
5673 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
5674
5675 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
5676
5677 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
5678 that is, the line after the last line you got.
5679 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
5680
5681 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
5682 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
5683 the following line.
5684
5685 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
5686 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
5687 previously sent input.
5688
5689 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
5690 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
5691 as the search string.
5692
5693 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
5694 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
5695
5696 ** C mode changes
5697
5698 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
5699 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
5700 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
5701 definition.
5702
5703 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
5704 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5705 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5706 style is still the default however.
5707
5708 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5709
5710 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5711 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5712 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5713
5714 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5715 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5716
5717 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5718 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5719
5720 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5721 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5722
5723 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5724 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5725
5726 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5727 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5728 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5729 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5730
5731 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5732
5733 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5734 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5735 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5736
5737 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5738 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5739 expanding dynamically.
5740
5741 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5742 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5743
5744 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5745 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5746 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5747 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5748
5749 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5750
5751 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5752
5753 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5754 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5755 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5756 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5757 against the first word in the title.
5758
5759 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5760 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5761 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5762 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5763 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5764 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5765
5766 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5767 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5768 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5769 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5770
5771 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5772
5773 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5774 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5775 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5776 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5777 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5778 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5779
5780 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5781 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5782
5783 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5784 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5785 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
5786
5787 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5788 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5789
5790 ** Ispell changes.
5791
5792 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5793 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5794 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5795
5796 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5797 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5798 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5799 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5800 include:
5801
5802 o URLs are automatically skipped
5803 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5804
5805 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5806
5807 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5808
5809 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5810 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5811 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5812 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5813
5814 *** New recursive parser.
5815
5816 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5817 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5818 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5819
5820 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5821
5822 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5823 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5824 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5825
5826 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5827
5828 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5829
5830 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5831
5832 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5833
5834 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5835
5836 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5837 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5838
5839 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5840
5841 *** References to external documents.
5842
5843 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5844 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5845 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5846 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5847 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5848 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5849 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5850
5851 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5852
5853 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5854 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5855
5856 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5857 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5858
5859 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5860
5861 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5862 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5863
5864 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5865
5866 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5867 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5868 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5869 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5870 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5871 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5872 more.
5873
5874 *** Support for the varioref package
5875
5876 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5877
5878 *** New hooks
5879
5880 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5881 and citations are created. These hooks are
5882 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5883 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5884
5885 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5886
5887 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5888 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5889
5890 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5891
5892 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5893 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5894 fontified, use
5895
5896 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5897
5898 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5899 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5900 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5901 directories that contain the same file name.
5902
5903 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5904 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5905 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5906 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5907 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5908 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5909 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5910 directory.
5911
5912 ** New modes and packages
5913
5914 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5915 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5916 it, but some do not.
5917
5918 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5919 code.
5920
5921 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5922 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5923 around in a buffer.
5924
5925 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5926
5927 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5928 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5929 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5930 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5931
5932 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5933 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5934 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5935
5936 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5937 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5938 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5939 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5940 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5941 the like.
5942
5943 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5944 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5945
5946 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5947 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5948 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5949 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5950
5951 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5952
5953 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5954 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5955 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5956 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5957 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5958 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5959 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5960 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5961 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5962 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5963 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5964
5965 Platform-specific modes:
5966
5967 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5968 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5969 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5970 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5971 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5972 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5973 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5974 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5975 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5976 \f
5977 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5978
5979 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5980 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5981 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5982 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5983
5984 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5985 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5986 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5987
5988 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5989 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5990 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5991 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5992
5993 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5994 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5995 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5996 environment.
5997
5998 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5999 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6000 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6001 current input method for reading this one event.
6002
6003 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6004 now control whether to output certain characters as
6005 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6006 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6007 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6008 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6009 \f
6010 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6011
6012 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6013 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6014
6015 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6016 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6017 always increases point by 1.
6018
6019 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6020 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6021
6022 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6023
6024 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6025 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6026 default value changed. For example,
6027
6028 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6029 :type 'integer
6030 :group 'foo
6031 :version "20.3")
6032
6033 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6034 :version "20.3")
6035
6036 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
6037 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6038 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6039 `:version' in the top level group.
6040
6041 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6042
6043 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6044 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6045
6046 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6047 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6048 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6049 to themselves.
6050
6051 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6052 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6053 values whatever.
6054
6055 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6056 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6057 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6058
6059 ** Frame-local variables.
6060
6061 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6062 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6063 local bindings for that variable.
6064
6065 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6066 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6067 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6068 parameter name.
6069
6070 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6071 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6072 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6073 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6074
6075 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6076 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6077 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6078 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6079
6080 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6081 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6082 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6083 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6084 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6085
6086 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6087 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6088 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6089 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6090
6091 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6092 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6093
6094 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6095 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6096 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6097
6098 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6099 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6100 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6101 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6102
6103 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6104 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6105 empty input.
6106
6107 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6108 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6109 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6110 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6111 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6112
6113 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6114 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6115 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6116 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6117
6118 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6119 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6120 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6121 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6122 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6123
6124 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6125 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6126 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6127 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6128
6129 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6130 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6131 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6132
6133 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6134 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6135 was directed to display this buffer.
6136
6137 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6138 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6139 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6140 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6141 set-window-configuration.
6142
6143 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6144 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6145 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6146 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6147
6148 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6149 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6150 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6151
6152 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6153 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6154 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6155
6156 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6157 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6158
6159 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6160 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6161
6162 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6163 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6164 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6165
6166 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6167 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6168 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6169 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6170
6171 ** Menu changes
6172
6173 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6174 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6175 better supported.
6176
6177 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6178 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6179 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6180 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6181 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6182
6183 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6184
6185 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6186 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6187 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6188 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6189
6190 The format is:
6191 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6192 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6193 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6194 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6195 The supported properties include
6196
6197 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6198 item is enabled.
6199 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6200 item should appear in the menu.
6201 :filter FILTER-FN
6202 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6203 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6204 It should return a binding to use instead.
6205 :keys DESCRIPTION
6206 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6207 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6208 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6209 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6210 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6211 keyboard binding.
6212 :key-sequence nil
6213 This means that the command normally has no
6214 keyboard equivalent.
6215 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6216 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6217 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6218 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6219 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6220
6221 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6222 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6223
6224 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6225
6226 ** New event types
6227
6228 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6229 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6230 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6231 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6232
6233 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6234
6235 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6236 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6237 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6238 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6239 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6240 forward, away from the user.
6241
6242 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6243
6244 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6245 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6246 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6247 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6248 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6249
6250 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6251
6252 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6253 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6254 that were dragged and dropped.
6255
6256 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6257
6258 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6259
6260 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6261 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6262 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6263
6264 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6265 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6266 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6267
6268 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6269 in Emacs 19 and before.
6270
6271 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6272 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6273
6274 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6275 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6276 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6277 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6278
6279 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6280 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6281 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6282 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6283 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6284
6285 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6286 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6287 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6288 consistent with the new representation.
6289
6290 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6291 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6292 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6293 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6294
6295 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6296 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6297 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6298
6299 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6300 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6301 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6302
6303 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6304 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6305 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6306
6307 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6308 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6309
6310 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6311 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6312
6313 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6314 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6315 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6316 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6317
6318 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6319 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6320
6321 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6322 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6323 buffer or string being searched.
6324
6325 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6326 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6327 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6328 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6329 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6330 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6331 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6332
6333 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6334
6335 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6336 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6337 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6338 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6339 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6340 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6341 define-coding-system-alias.
6342
6343 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6344 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6345 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6346 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6347 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6348 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6349 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6350 `iso-8859-1'.
6351
6352 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6353 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6354 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6355 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6356
6357 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6358 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6359 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6360 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6361
6362 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6363 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6364 This function requires a user interaction.
6365
6366 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6367 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6368 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6369 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6370 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6371 select-safe-coding-system.
6372
6373 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6374 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6375 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6376 was done.
6377
6378 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6379 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6380 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6381
6382 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6383 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6384 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6385 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6386
6387 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6388 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6389 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6390 converted.
6391
6392 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6393 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6394
6395 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6396 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6397 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6398 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6399 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6400 range of characters.
6401
6402 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6403 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6404
6405 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6406 in the current buffer at position POS.
6407
6408 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6409 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6410 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6411 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6412 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6413 binding input-method-function to nil.
6414
6415 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6416 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6417 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6418 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6419 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6420
6421 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6422 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6423
6424 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6425 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6426
6427 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6428 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6429 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6430 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6431 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6432 \f
6433 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6434
6435 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6436 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6437 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6438 tree structure.
6439
6440 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6441 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6442
6443 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6444 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6445 in your .emacs file.)
6446
6447 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6448 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6449
6450 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6451 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6452
6453 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6454 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6455 kills the region.
6456
6457 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6458 delete the character before point, as usual.
6459
6460 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6461 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6462 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6463
6464 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6465 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6466 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6467 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6468 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6469 past.)
6470
6471 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6472 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6473 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6474 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6475 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6476
6477 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6478 and is an alias for it.
6479
6480 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6481 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6482
6483 ** Scrolling changes
6484
6485 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6486 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6487
6488 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6489 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6490 where it started.
6491
6492 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6493 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6494 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6495 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6496
6497 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6498 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6499 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6500 recenters the window.
6501
6502 ** International character set support (MULE)
6503
6504 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6505 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6506 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6507 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6508 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6509 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6510
6511 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6512 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6513 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6514 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6515 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6516
6517 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6518 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6519 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6520 language, to make it possible to type them.
6521
6522 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6523 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6524
6525 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6526 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6527
6528 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6529
6530 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6531
6532 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6533 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6534 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6535 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6536 characters for their work until they want to change.
6537
6538 *** Input methods
6539
6540 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6541 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6542 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6543 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6544 support several input methods.
6545
6546 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6547 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6548 work.
6549
6550 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6551 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6552 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6553 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6554 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6555 letter.
6556
6557 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6558 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6559 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6560 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6561 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6562
6563 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6564 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6565 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6566 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6567
6568 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6569 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6570 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6571 the first guess is wrong.
6572
6573 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6574 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6575
6576 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6577 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6578 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6579 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6580
6581 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6582 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6583 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6584 translate automatically to and from either one.
6585
6586 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6587
6588 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6589 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6590 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6591 what you want.
6592
6593 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6594 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6595 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6596 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6597
6598 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6599 character conversion as well.
6600
6601 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6602
6603 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6604 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6605 requires using many fonts.
6606
6607 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6608 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6609
6610 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6611 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6612 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6613 you would use a font.
6614
6615 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6616 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6617 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6618
6619 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6620 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6621 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6622 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
6623 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
6624
6625 *** Defining fontsets.
6626
6627 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
6628 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
6629 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
6630
6631 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
6632 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
6633 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
6634 standard fontset are created automatically.
6635
6636 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
6637 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
6638 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
6639 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
6640 name is `fontset-startup'.
6641
6642 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
6643 The resource value should have this form:
6644 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
6645 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
6646 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
6647 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
6648 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
6649 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
6650 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
6651 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
6652 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
6653
6654 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
6655 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
6656 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
6657
6658 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
6659 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
6660 following resource,
6661 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
6662 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
6663 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
6664 Here is the substitution rule:
6665 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
6666 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
6667 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
6668 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
6669 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
6670
6671 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
6672 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
6673 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
6674
6675 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
6676 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
6677 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
6678 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
6679 fontsets.
6680
6681 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
6682 defaults for a particular choice of language.
6683
6684 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
6685 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
6686 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
6687 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
6688 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
6689 system for new files that you create.
6690
6691 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
6692 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
6693 whole Emacs session.
6694
6695 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
6696 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
6697 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
6698
6699 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
6700 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
6701 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
6702 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
6703 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6704
6705 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6706 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6707 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6708 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6709 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6710
6711 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6712 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6713
6714 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6715 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6716
6717 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6718 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6719
6720 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6721 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6722 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6723 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6724 of the file.
6725
6726 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6727 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6728 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6729 translated into that character code.
6730
6731 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6732 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6733
6734 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6735
6736 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6737 the coding system for keyboard input.
6738
6739 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6740 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6741 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6742
6743 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6744
6745 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6746 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6747 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6748 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6749 designed to work with terminals.
6750
6751 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6752 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6753 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6754 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6755 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6756 in the corresponding buffer.
6757
6758 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6759
6760 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6761 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6762 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6763
6764 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6765 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6766 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6767 want to use.
6768
6769 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6770 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6771
6772 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6773 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6774 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6775 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6776
6777 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6778 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6779 related information.
6780
6781 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6782 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6783 scripts.
6784
6785 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6786 information about the support for a particular language.
6787 You specify the language as an argument.
6788
6789 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6790 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6791 first dash.
6792
6793 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6794 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6795 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6796 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6797
6798 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6799 B big5 (Chinese)
6800 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6801 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6802 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6803 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6804 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6805 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6806 K euc-korea (Korean)
6807 R koi8 (Russian)
6808 Q tibetan
6809 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6810 T lao
6811 T tis620 (Thai)
6812 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6813 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6814 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6815 v viqr (Vietnamese)
6816 z hz (Chinese)
6817
6818 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6819 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6820 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6821 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6822
6823 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6824 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6825
6826 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6827 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6828 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6829 Rmail files themselves.
6830
6831 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6832 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6833
6834 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6835 for sending mail:
6836
6837 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6838 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6839 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6840 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6841 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6842
6843 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6844 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6845 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6846 translations.
6847
6848 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6849 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6850 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6851 without any conversion.
6852
6853 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6854 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6855 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6856 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6857
6858 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6859 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6860
6861 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6862 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6863
6864 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6865 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6866
6867 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6868 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6869 in the buffer before point.
6870
6871 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6872 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6873 you are using.
6874
6875 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6876 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6877
6878 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6879
6880 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6881 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6882
6883 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6884 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6885 can become a bottleneck.
6886
6887 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6888 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6889 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6890 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6891 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6892 so useful that the change is worth while.
6893
6894 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6895 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6896 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6897 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6898
6899 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6900 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6901 show-paren-mode.
6902
6903 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6904 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6905 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6906
6907 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6908 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6909 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6910
6911 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6912 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6913 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6914
6915 ** Changes in View mode.
6916
6917 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6918 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6919
6920 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6921 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6922
6923 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6924 previous state.
6925
6926 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6927 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6928
6929 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6930 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6931 not just the selected window.
6932
6933 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6934 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6935 turns View mode on or off.
6936
6937 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6938 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6939 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6940
6941 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6942 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6943
6944 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6945 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6946 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6947 which version to compare with.
6948
6949 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6950 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6951
6952 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6953 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6954 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6955 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6956
6957 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6958 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6959 blocks, all of them or none.
6960
6961 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6962 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6963 confirmation first.
6964
6965 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6966 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6967 However, the mode will not be changed if
6968 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6969 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6970 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6971 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6972
6973 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6974
6975 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6976 these commands do not change the major mode.
6977
6978 ** M-x occur changes.
6979
6980 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6981 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6982
6983 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6984 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6985 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6986
6987 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6988 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6989 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6990 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6991 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6992
6993 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6994 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6995 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6996 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6997
6998 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6999 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7000 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7001
7002 ** Outline mode changes.
7003
7004 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7005
7006 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7007
7008 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7009 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7010 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7011 was already active.
7012
7013 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7014 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7015 get confused by it.
7016
7017 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7018 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7019
7020 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7021
7022 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7023 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7024 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7025 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7026
7027 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7028 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7029 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
7030
7031 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7032 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7033 values.
7034
7035 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
7036 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
7037 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7038 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7039
7040 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7041 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7042 can be. The default value is 30.
7043
7044 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7045
7046 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7047 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7048 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7049 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7050 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7051 behavior.
7052
7053 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7054 compose-mail-other-frame.
7055
7056 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7057 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7058 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7059 buffer that shows the original message.
7060
7061 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7062 with separator lines around the contents.
7063
7064 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7065 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7066 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7067 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7068
7069 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7070
7071 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7072 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7073 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7074 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7075
7076 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7077 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7078 /etc/passwd.
7079
7080 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7081 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7082 /etc/passwd.
7083
7084 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7085 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7086 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7087 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7088
7089 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7090 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7091 be taken to be magic.
7092
7093 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7094 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7095 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7096
7097 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7098 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7099
7100 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7101 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7102
7103 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7104
7105 new key dired.el binding old key
7106 ------- ---------------- -------
7107 * c dired-change-marks c
7108 * m dired-mark m
7109 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7110 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7111 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7112 * u dired-unmark u
7113 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7114 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
7115 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7116 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7117 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7118 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7119
7120 ** Rmail changes.
7121
7122 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7123 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7124 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7125 each time you run it.
7126
7127 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7128 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7129
7130 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7131 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7132 means to move in the opposite direction.
7133
7134 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7135 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7136
7137 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7138 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7139 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7140 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7141 for output.
7142
7143 ** Gnus changes.
7144
7145 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7146
7147 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7148 Gnus.
7149
7150 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7151 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7152
7153 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7154 article mode line.
7155
7156 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7157
7158 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7159
7160 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7161
7162 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7163 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7164 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7165
7166 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7167
7168 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7169
7170 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7171 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7172
7173 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7174 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7175 used to pick articles.
7176
7177 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7178 another have been added.
7179
7180 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7181
7182 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7183 generating lines in buffers.
7184
7185 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7186 `M-C-_'.
7187
7188 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7189
7190 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7191
7192 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7193
7194 *** Scores can be decayed.
7195
7196 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7197
7198 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7199 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7200
7201 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7202 the native server.
7203
7204 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7205
7206 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7207 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
7208
7209 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7210
7211 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7212 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7213
7214 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7215 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7216
7217 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7218 a group.
7219
7220 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7221 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7222
7223 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7224
7225 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7226
7227 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7228
7229 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7230
7231 Use the `Y c' command.
7232
7233 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7234
7235 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7236
7237 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7238
7239 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7240 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7241
7242 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7243
7244 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7245
7246 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7247 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7248
7249 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7250
7251 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7252 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7253 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7254 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7255 this issue.)
7256
7257 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7258 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7259 particular news group. This can be done by:
7260
7261 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7262
7263 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7264 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7265 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7266 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7267 for reading and posting).
7268
7269 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7270 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7271 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7272 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7273 there.
7274
7275 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7276 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7277
7278 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7279 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7280 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7281 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7282 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7283
7284 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7285 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7286
7287 ** CC mode changes.
7288
7289 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7290 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7291 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7292 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7293 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7294 loaded.
7295
7296 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7297 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7298 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7299 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7300 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7301 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7302
7303 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7304 of the current buffer.
7305
7306 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7307 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7308 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7309
7310 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7311 style that the Python developers like.
7312
7313 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7314 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7315 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7316
7317 ** VC Changes [new]
7318
7319 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7320 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7321 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7322
7323 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7324 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7325 developers.
7326
7327 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7328 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7329
7330 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7331 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7332 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7333 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7334
7335 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7336 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7337
7338 ** Calendar changes.
7339
7340 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7341 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7342 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7343 following/previous years.
7344
7345 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7346 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7347 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7348 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7349 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7350 supposed attribute of God.
7351
7352 ** ps-print changes
7353
7354 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7355 layout.
7356
7357 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7358
7359 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7360 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7361 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7362 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7363
7364 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7365 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7366 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7367
7368 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7369 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7370
7371 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7372 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7373 printing for your printer.
7374
7375 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7376 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7377
7378 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7379 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7380
7381 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7382 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7383 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7384 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7385 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7386 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7387 The default value is nil.
7388
7389 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7390 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7391
7392 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7393 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7394 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7395 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7396 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7397 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7398 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7399
7400 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7401 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7402
7403 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7404 The default is 0 ("black").
7405
7406 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7407 The default is 0 ("black").
7408
7409 border-width Specify the border width.
7410 The default is 0.4.
7411
7412 Any other property is ignored.
7413
7414 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7415 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7416 documentation).
7417
7418 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7419 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7420 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7421 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7422 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7423 controlling headers.
7424
7425 *** Color management (subgroup)
7426
7427 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7428 color.
7429
7430 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7431
7432 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7433 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7434 background should be used. Valid values are:
7435
7436 t always use face background color.
7437 nil never use face background color.
7438 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7439
7440 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7441
7442 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7443 sheet of paper.
7444
7445 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7446 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7447
7448 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7449 each page.
7450
7451 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7452 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7453 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7454
7455 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7456 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8
7457 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4
7458
7459 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7460 8 7 6 5 8 7 6 5
7461 12 11 10 9 4 3 2 1
7462
7463 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7464 2 5 8 11 2 5 8 11
7465 3 6 9 12 1 4 7 10
7466
7467 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7468 11 8 5 2 11 8 5 2
7469 12 9 6 3 10 7 4 1
7470
7471 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7472
7473 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7474
7475 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7476 RGB color.
7477
7478 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7479 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7480 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7481
7482 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7483 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7484 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7485 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7486 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7487 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 +
7488 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 +
7489 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 +
7490 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7491 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7492 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7493 10 + 10 +
7494 11 + 11 +
7495 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7496 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7497 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7498 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7499 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7500 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7501 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7502 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7503 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7504 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7505 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7506 21 + 21 XXXXXXXX +
7507 22 + 22 +
7508 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7509
7510 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7511
7512
7513 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7514
7515 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7516 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7517 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7518 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7519 to "-P".
7520
7521 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7522 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7523 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7524
7525 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7526 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7527 do so.
7528
7529 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7530
7531 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7532 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7533 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7534 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7535 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7536 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7537 `setpagedevice'.
7538
7539 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7540 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7541 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7542
7543 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7544 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7545 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7546 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7547 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7548 its TO, are ignored.
7549
7550 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7551 pages. Valid values are:
7552
7553 nil print all pages.
7554
7555 `even-page' print only even pages.
7556
7557 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7558
7559 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7560 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7561 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7562 print only the even sheet of paper.
7563
7564 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7565 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7566 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7567 only the odd sheet of paper.
7568
7569 Any other value is treated as nil.
7570
7571 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7572 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7573 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7574
7575 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7576
7577 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7578 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7579
7580 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7581 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7582 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7583 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7584 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7585 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7586 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7587
7588 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7589 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7590 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
7591 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
7592 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
7593 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
7594 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
7595
7596 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7597
7598 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7599 messages should be sent.
7600
7601 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
7602 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
7603 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
7604
7605 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7606
7607 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7608 points for line numbers.
7609
7610 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7611 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7612
7613 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
7614 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
7615 to 2, the printing will look like:
7616
7617 1 one line
7618 one line
7619 3 one line
7620 one line
7621 5 one line
7622 one line
7623 ...
7624
7625 Valid values are:
7626
7627 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
7628 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
7629 is used.
7630
7631 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
7632 zebra stripe is to be printed.
7633
7634 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
7635
7636 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
7637 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
7638 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
7639 3, the output will look like:
7640
7641 one line
7642 one line
7643 3 one line
7644 one line
7645 one line
7646 6 one line
7647 one line
7648 one line
7649 9 one line
7650 one line
7651 ...
7652
7653 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
7654 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
7655
7656 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
7657 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7658 `ps-font-size').
7659
7660 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
7661 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7662 `ps-font-size').
7663
7664 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
7665
7666 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
7667 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
7668
7669 ** hideshow changes.
7670
7671 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
7672 C++, ; for lisp).
7673
7674 *** Support for java-mode added.
7675
7676 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
7677 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
7678
7679 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
7680 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
7681 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
7682
7683 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
7684 robust and a lot faster.
7685
7686 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
7687
7688 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
7689 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
7690 documentation for more details.
7691
7692 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
7693
7694 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
7695 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
7696 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
7697 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
7698 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
7699
7700 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
7701 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
7702 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
7703 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
7704
7705 ** Font Lock mode
7706
7707 *** Custom support
7708
7709 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
7710 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
7711 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
7712 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
7713 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
7714 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
7715
7716 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
7717
7718 *** Maximum decoration
7719
7720 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
7721 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
7722 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
7723 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
7724 to get the old behavior.
7725
7726 *** New support
7727
7728 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
7729
7730 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
7731 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
7732
7733 *** Configurable support
7734
7735 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
7736 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
7737 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
7738 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
7739 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
7740 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
7741 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
7742
7743 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
7744 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
7745 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
7746
7747 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
7748
7749 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
7750 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
7751 for any mode.
7752
7753 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
7754
7755 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
7756
7757 in your ~/.emacs.
7758
7759 *** New faces
7760
7761 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
7762 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
7763 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
7764 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
7765
7766 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
7767
7768 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
7769 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
7770 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
7771
7772 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
7773
7774 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
7775 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
7776 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
7777 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
7778 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
7779 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
7780 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
7781
7782 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
7783 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
7784 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
7785 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
7786 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
7787 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
7788
7789 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
7790
7791 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
7792 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
7793 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
7794 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
7795
7796 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
7797 settings.
7798
7799 ** Ada mode changes.
7800
7801 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
7802 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
7803 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
7804 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
7805 stubs.
7806
7807 *** There are two new commands:
7808 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
7809 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
7810
7811 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
7812 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
7813 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
7814
7815 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
7816 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
7817 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
7818
7819 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
7820 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
7821 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
7822 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
7823
7824 ** Scheme mode changes.
7825
7826 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
7827 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
7828 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
7829 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
7830 have any effect.
7831
7832 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
7833 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
7834 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
7835 variables as buffer-local variables.
7836
7837 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
7838 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
7839
7840 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
7841
7842 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
7843 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
7844 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
7845 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
7846
7847 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
7848 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
7849 buffer in Emacs.
7850
7851 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
7852 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
7853 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
7854 option takes precedence.
7855
7856 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
7857 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
7858 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
7859
7860 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
7861 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
7862 the current defun.
7863
7864 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
7865 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
7866
7867 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
7868 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
7869 necessary).
7870
7871 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
7872 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
7873 these register values no longer become completely useless.
7874 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
7875 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
7876 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
7877
7878 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
7879 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
7880 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
7881 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
7882
7883 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
7884 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
7885 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
7886 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
7887 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
7888
7889 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
7890 since it applies only to the current frame.
7891
7892 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
7893 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
7894 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
7895
7896 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
7897 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
7898 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
7899 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
7900 instead of just the file you are editing.
7901
7902 ** RefTeX mode
7903
7904 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
7905 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
7906 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
7907 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
7908 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
7909
7910 C-c ( reftex-label
7911 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
7912 knows which kind of label is needed.
7913
7914 C-c ) reftex-reference
7915 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
7916 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
7917
7918 C-c [ reftex-citation
7919 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
7920 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
7921
7922 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
7923 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
7924
7925 C-c = reftex-toc
7926 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
7927 can quickly jump to every section.
7928
7929 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
7930 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
7931 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
7932 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
7933 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
7934
7935 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7936
7937 *** Info documentation is now available.
7938
7939 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
7940 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
7941
7942 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
7943 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
7944
7945 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
7946 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
7947
7948 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
7949 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
7950 appropriate functions.
7951
7952 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
7953 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
7954
7955 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
7956 been cleaned.
7957
7958 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
7959 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
7960
7961 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
7962 shall be delimited.
7963
7964 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
7965 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
7966 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
7967
7968 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
7969 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
7970 prefixed with `ALT'.
7971
7972 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
7973 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
7974 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
7975 documentation).
7976
7977 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
7978 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
7979 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
7980
7981 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
7982 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
7983
7984 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
7985 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
7986 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
7987
7988 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
7989
7990 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
7991
7992 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
7993 from alien sources.
7994
7995 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
7996 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
7997 crossref entries.
7998
7999 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8000 region.
8001
8002 *** Added support for imenu.
8003
8004 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8005 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8006 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8007 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8008
8009 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8010 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8011
8012 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8013
8014 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8015
8016 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8017 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8018 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8019 as an argument.
8020
8021 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8022 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8023
8024 ** browse-url changes
8025
8026 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8027 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8028 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8029 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8030 customization variables.
8031
8032 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8033
8034 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
8035 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
8036 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8037
8038 ** Changes in Ediff
8039
8040 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8041 pops up the Info file for this command.
8042
8043 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8044 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8045 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8046 directories).
8047
8048 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8049 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8050 files in the same directory.
8051
8052 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8053 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8054 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8055
8056 ** Changes in Viper
8057
8058 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8059 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8060 instead of vip-.
8061 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8062 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8063 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8064 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8065 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8066 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8067 color when Viper is in insert state.
8068 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8069 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8070 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8071
8072 ** Etags changes.
8073
8074 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8075 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8076 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8077 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8078 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8079
8080 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8081
8082 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8083 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8084
8085 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8086 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8087 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8088
8089 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8090 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8091 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8092 methods and protocols.
8093
8094 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8095 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8096 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8097 paragraph name.
8098
8099 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8100 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8101 at least M times and as many as N times.
8102
8103 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8104 in files has changed slightly.
8105
8106 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8107 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8108 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8109 with old time-stamp-format values.
8110
8111 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8112 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8113 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8114 reasons.
8115
8116 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8117 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8118 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8119 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8120 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8121 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8122
8123 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8124 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8125 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8126
8127 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8128 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8129 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8130 recommended now will continue to work then.
8131
8132 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8133 details.
8134
8135 ** There are some additional major modes:
8136
8137 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8138 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8139 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8140
8141 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8142 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8143 into Emacs.
8144
8145 ** New Lisp packages include:
8146
8147 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8148
8149 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8150 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8151
8152 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8153
8154 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8155 in shell buffers.
8156
8157 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8158 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8159 and `elint-defun'.
8160
8161 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8162 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8163 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8164 strings or comments.
8165
8166 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8167 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8168 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8169 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8170 at these points.
8171
8172 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8173 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8174
8175 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8176 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8177
8178 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8179
8180 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8181 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8182
8183 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8184
8185 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8186
8187 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8188
8189 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8190 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8191
8192 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8193 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8194 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8195 original place after inserting the copy.
8196
8197 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8198 on the buffer.
8199
8200 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8201 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8202 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8203
8204 Enable mouse-drag with:
8205 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8206 -or-
8207 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8208
8209 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8210 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8211
8212 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8213 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8214
8215 *** ogonek
8216
8217 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8218 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8219 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8220 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8221 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8222 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8223 instance) and vice versa.
8224
8225 To use this package load it using
8226 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8227 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8228 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8229 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8230 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8231 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8232
8233 *** Interface to ph.
8234
8235 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8236
8237 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8238 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8239 these servers.
8240
8241 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8242
8243 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8244 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8245 while the real cursor does not move.
8246
8247 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8248 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8249
8250 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8251 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8252
8253 ** movemail change
8254
8255 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8256 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8257 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8258 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8259
8260 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8261 \f
8262 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8263
8264 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8265
8266 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8267 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8268 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8269 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8270 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8271
8272 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8273 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8274 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8275 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8276 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8277 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8278 \f
8279 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8280
8281 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8282 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8283 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8284 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8285
8286 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8287 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8288
8289 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8290 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8291 "win".
8292
8293 ** Basic Lisp changes
8294
8295 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8296 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8297
8298 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8299 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8300 or by the user.
8301
8302 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8303
8304 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8305
8306 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8307 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8308
8309 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8310 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8311 its argument.
8312
8313 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8314
8315 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8316
8317 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8318
8319 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8320 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8321 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8322 `format' function.
8323
8324 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8325 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8326 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8327
8328 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8329 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8330 adding one of these suffixes.
8331
8332 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8333 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8334 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8335
8336 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8337 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8338
8339 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8340
8341 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8342 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8343
8344 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8345 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8346
8347 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8348
8349 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8350 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8351
8352 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8353 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8354 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8355 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8356
8357 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8358 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8359 of the last form.
8360
8361 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8362 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8363 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8364 as the last form.
8365
8366 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8367 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8368 matches.
8369
8370 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8371
8372 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8373 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8374 Then it returns that string.
8375
8376 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8377
8378 (with-output-to-string
8379 (princ "The buffer is ")
8380 (princ (buffer-name)))
8381
8382 returns "The buffer is foo".
8383
8384 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8385 is non-nil.
8386
8387 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8388 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8389 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8390
8391 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8392 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8393
8394 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8395 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8396 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8397 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8398 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8399 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8400
8401 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8402 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8403 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8404 characters".
8405
8406 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8407 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8408 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8409 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8410 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8411
8412 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8413 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8414 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8415 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8416
8417 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8418 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8419
8420 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8421
8422 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8423 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8424 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8425 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8426 guaranteed.
8427
8428 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8429 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8430 character).
8431
8432 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8433
8434 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8435 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8436 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8437 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8438 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8439
8440 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8441
8442 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8443 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8444 more than the number of characters.
8445
8446 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8447 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8448 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8449 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8450 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8451 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8452
8453 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8454 and returns a string containing those characters.
8455
8456 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8457 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8458 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8459 character, sref signals an error.
8460
8461 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8462 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8463 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8464
8465 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8466 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8467 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8468
8469 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8470 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8471 to a vector of the characters in it.
8472
8473 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8474 of a string. You call it as follows:
8475
8476 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8477
8478 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8479 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8480 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8481 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8482 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8483
8484 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8485 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8486
8487 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8488 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8489
8490 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8491 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8492 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8493 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8494
8495 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8496
8497 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8498
8499 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8500 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8501 are not included in the resulting value.
8502
8503 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8504 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8505 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8506 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8507
8508 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8509 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8510 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8511 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8512 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8513 column START-COLUMN.
8514
8515 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8516 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8517 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8518 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8519 changed text, before the change.
8520
8521 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8522 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8523 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8524
8525 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8526
8527 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8528
8529 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8530 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8531
8532 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8533 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8534 which identify the character within that character set.
8535
8536 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8537 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8538 opposite of split-char.
8539
8540 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8541 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8542
8543 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8544 of all the characters in a string.
8545
8546 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8547 and specifying coding systems.
8548
8549 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8550 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8551 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8552 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8553 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8554 as what to do about code conversion.)
8555
8556 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8557 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8558
8559 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8560 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8561 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8562
8563 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8564 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8565 to match against a file name.
8566
8567 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8568 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8569 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8570 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8571 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8572 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8573
8574 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8575 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8576
8577 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8578 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8579
8580 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8581 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8582 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8583 service names.
8584
8585 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8586 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8587 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8588 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8589 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8590 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8591
8592 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8593 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8594
8595 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8596 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8597 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
8598 start the subprocess.
8599
8600 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
8601 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
8602 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
8603 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
8604 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
8605
8606 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
8607 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
8608 subprocess.
8609
8610 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
8611 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
8612 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
8613 connection permanently or until overridden.
8614
8615 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
8616 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
8617 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
8618 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
8619 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
8620 system for one operation at a time.
8621
8622 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
8623 files, subprocesses or network connections.
8624
8625 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
8626 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
8627 The value is a cons cell,
8628 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
8629 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
8630 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
8631 input to the subprocess.
8632
8633 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
8634 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
8635
8636 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
8637 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
8638 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
8639
8640 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
8641 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
8642 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
8643 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
8644 customization.
8645
8646 Thus, instead of writing
8647
8648 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
8649 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
8650
8651 you would now write this:
8652
8653 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
8654 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
8655 :type 'boolean
8656 :group foo)
8657
8658 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
8659 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
8660 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
8661 for a description of them.
8662
8663 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
8664 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
8665
8666 (defgroup ispell nil
8667 "Spell checking using Ispell."
8668 :group 'processes)
8669
8670 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
8671 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
8672 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
8673 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
8674 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
8675
8676 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
8677 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
8678 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
8679 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
8680 first-level subgroups.
8681
8682 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
8683
8684 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
8685 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
8686
8687 ** easy-mmode
8688
8689 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
8690 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
8691 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
8692 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
8693 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
8694 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
8695
8696 ** Text property changes
8697
8698 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
8699 text property.
8700
8701 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
8702 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
8703 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
8704 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
8705 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
8706
8707 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
8708 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
8709 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
8710 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
8711
8712 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
8713 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
8714 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
8715
8716 ** Changes in invisibility features
8717
8718 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
8719 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
8720 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
8721 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
8722 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
8723 make the overlay visible.
8724
8725 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
8726 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
8727 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
8728 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
8729 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
8730 t when it should hide it.
8731
8732 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
8733
8734 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
8735 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
8736 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
8737 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
8738 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
8739 Here is an example of how to do this:
8740
8741 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
8742 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8743 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
8744 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8745
8746 ...
8747 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
8748
8749 ...
8750 ;; When done with the overlays:
8751 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8752 ;; Or respectively:
8753 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8754
8755 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
8756
8757 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
8758 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
8759 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
8760 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
8761
8762 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
8763 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
8764 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
8765
8766 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
8767 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
8768
8769 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
8770 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
8771
8772 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
8773 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
8774 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
8775
8776 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
8777 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
8778 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
8779 determine the syntax type of the character.
8780
8781 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
8782 of the current buffer.
8783
8784 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
8785 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
8786 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
8787
8788 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
8789 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
8790 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
8791 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
8792 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
8793
8794 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
8795 text property.
8796
8797 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
8798 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
8799 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
8800
8801 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
8802 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
8803 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
8804 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
8805 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
8806
8807 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
8808 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
8809 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
8810
8811 ** Changes in face features
8812
8813 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
8814 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
8815
8816 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
8817 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
8818
8819 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
8820 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
8821
8822 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
8823 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
8824
8825 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
8826 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
8827 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
8828 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
8829 overlay property).
8830
8831 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
8832 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
8833
8834 ** Changes in file-handling functions
8835
8836 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
8837 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
8838 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
8839 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
8840
8841 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
8842 begins with ~.
8843
8844 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
8845 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
8846
8847 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8848 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
8849
8850 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
8851 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
8852
8853 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
8854 character code conversion as well as other things.
8855
8856 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
8857 (formerly it did not).
8858
8859 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
8860 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
8861
8862 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
8863 instead of constant strings.
8864
8865 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
8866 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
8867 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
8868
8869 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
8870 in the same way as before.
8871
8872 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
8873 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
8874 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
8875
8876 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
8877 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
8878 else, and returns nil.
8879
8880 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
8881 directory cannot be listed.
8882
8883 ** Changes in minibuffer input
8884
8885 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
8886 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
8887 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
8888 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
8889 ways:
8890
8891 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
8892 It is available through the history command M-n.
8893
8894 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
8895 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
8896 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
8897 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
8898 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
8899
8900 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
8901 argument in this way.
8902
8903 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
8904 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
8905 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
8906
8907 ** Echo area features
8908
8909 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
8910 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
8911 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
8912 after the echo area is cleared.
8913
8914 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
8915 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
8916
8917 ** Keyboard input features
8918
8919 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
8920 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
8921
8922 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
8923 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
8924 by keyboard macros.
8925
8926 ** Frame-related changes
8927
8928 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
8929 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
8930 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
8931
8932 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
8933 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
8934 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
8935
8936 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
8937 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
8938 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
8939 in the selected frame.
8940
8941 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
8942 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
8943 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
8944
8945 ** X Windows features
8946
8947 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
8948 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
8949 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
8950
8951 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
8952 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
8953
8954 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
8955 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
8956 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
8957
8958 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
8959 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
8960
8961 ** Subprocess features
8962
8963 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
8964 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
8965 automatically.
8966
8967 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
8968 and returns the output from the command as a string.
8969
8970 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
8971 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
8972
8973 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
8974 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
8975
8976 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
8977 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
8978 goes after the other menu items.
8979
8980 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
8981 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
8982 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
8983 are in use.
8984
8985 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
8986 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
8987
8988 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
8989 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
8990 form.
8991
8992 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
8993 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
8994 but its hook is still run.
8995
8996 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
8997 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
8998
8999 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9000 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9001 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9002
9003 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9004 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9005 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9006 warned.
9007
9008 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9009 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9010
9011 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9012 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9013 functions like display-time.
9014
9015 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9016 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9017
9018 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9019 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9020 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9021
9022 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9023 if there is an error in compilation.
9024
9025 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9026 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9027 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9028 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9029
9030 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
9031 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
9032 the *scratch* buffer.
9033
9034 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
9035 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
9036 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
9037 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9038
9039 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9040 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9041 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9042
9043 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9044 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9045 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9046 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9047
9048 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9049 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9050 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9051
9052 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9053 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9054 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9055 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9056 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9057 files at all.
9058
9059 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9060 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9061 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9062 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9063
9064 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9065 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9066 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9067 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9068
9069 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9070
9071 ** imenu.el changes.
9072
9073 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9074 item from menu created by imenu.
9075
9076 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9077 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9078 select one of those items.
9079 \f
9080 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9081
9082 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9083 Copyright information:
9084
9085 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9086
9087 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9088 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9089 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9090 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9091
9092 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9093 of this document, or of portions of it,
9094 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9095 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9096 \f
9097 Local variables:
9098 mode: outline
9099 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
9100 end: