1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
41 ** There is a new configure option --with-crt-dir.
42 This is only useful if your crt*.o files are in a non-standard location.
45 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
46 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
47 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
50 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
51 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
52 These is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
55 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
58 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
60 ** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
61 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
62 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
64 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
66 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
69 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
71 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
72 initial documentation.
74 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
75 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
77 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
78 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
79 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
80 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
81 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
82 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
84 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
85 value of paragraph base direction at point.
87 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
88 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
91 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
92 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
93 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
95 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
96 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
98 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
99 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
100 is taken from the desktop settings.
102 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
105 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
106 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
108 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
109 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
110 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
111 context in their return values.
113 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
114 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
116 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
117 for remote machines which support SELinux.
119 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
120 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
121 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
122 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
124 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
125 scroll a line instead of full screen.
127 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
128 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position.
132 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
133 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
135 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
136 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
138 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
139 for `list-colors-display'.
141 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
142 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
143 from elpa.gnu.org. `M-x package-list-packages' shows a list of
144 packages, which can be selected for installation.
146 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
147 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
148 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
149 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
152 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
154 ** completion-at-point is now an alias for complete-symbol.
156 ** mouse-region-delete-keys has been deleted.
160 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
161 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
162 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
165 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
166 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region';
167 delete-char, meant for Lisp, does not obey `delete-active-region'.
169 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
170 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
171 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
172 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
174 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
177 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
179 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
181 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
182 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
184 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
185 You can get a comparable behavior with:
186 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
187 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
189 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
192 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
193 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
194 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
196 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
197 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
199 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
201 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
202 choose a color via list-colors-display.
206 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
207 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
209 ** VC and related modes
211 *** New VC commands: vc-log-incoming, vc-log-outgoing, vc-find-conflicted-file.
213 **** vc-log-incoming for Git runs "git fetch" so that the necessary
214 data is available locally.
216 **** vc-log-incoming and vc-log-outgoing for Git require version 1.7 (or newer).
218 *** New key bindings: C-x v I and C-x v O bound to vc-log-incoming and
219 vc-log-outgoing, respectively.
221 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
223 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
224 The log-edit buffers are expected to have a format similar to email messages
225 with headers of the form:
226 Author: <author of this change>
227 Summary: <one line summary of this change>
228 Fixes: <reference to the bug fixed by this change>
229 Some backends handle some of those headers specially, but any unknown header
230 is just left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
232 **** vc-git handles Author: and Date:
233 **** vc-hg handles Author: and Date:
234 **** vc-bzr handles Author:, Date: and Fixes:
235 **** vc-mtn handles Author: and Date:
237 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
238 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
239 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
241 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
243 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables.
244 The variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', and
245 `sql-database' can now be safely used as local variables.
247 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL.
248 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
251 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
252 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
253 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
254 connection is established.
256 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
257 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
258 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
260 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
261 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
262 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement
263 text. In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should be set OFF under
264 SQL interactive mode.
266 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
267 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
268 listing object name completions when being sent text via
269 `sql-send-*' functions.
271 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
273 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
274 enabled by default in 23.1.
278 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
279 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
280 threads simultaneously.
283 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
285 ** smie.el is a package providing a simple generic indentation engine.
287 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
288 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
289 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
290 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
293 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
294 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
297 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
299 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
301 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
302 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
303 programmer-visible consequences.
305 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
308 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
309 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and
310 `initial-frame-alist'. With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame'
311 checks the value of the variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to
312 determine whether to create a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.
313 If the alist entries are added, they override the value of
314 `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
316 ** Mouse dragging is not any differently from active regions.
317 The internal variables `mouse-drag-overlay', and the internal function
318 `mouse-move-drag-overlay' and `mouse-show-mark', have been deleted.
321 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
323 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
324 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
325 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
327 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory now accept optional arg TRASH.
328 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
329 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
330 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
332 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
334 ** New completion style `substring'.
338 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
339 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
340 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
341 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
342 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
343 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
345 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
349 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
351 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
352 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
353 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
354 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
355 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
356 displayed with a "spinning bar".
359 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
362 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
363 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
365 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
366 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
367 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
368 (at your option) any later version.
370 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
371 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
372 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
373 GNU General Public License for more details.
375 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
376 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
381 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"