Mention cursor-type support on MS-DOS terminals.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 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 ** There are two new resources for colormap handling under X.
12
13 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
14 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
15 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
16 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
17 visual class names are
18
19 TrueColor
20 PseudoColor
21 DirectColor
22 StaticColor
23 GrayScale
24 StaticGray
25
26 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
27 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
28 meaning.
29
30 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
31 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
32 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
33 visual.
34
35 Example:
36
37 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
38
39 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
40 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
41 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
42 resource values are `true' or `on'.
43
44 Example:
45
46 emacs.privateColormap: true
47
48 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
49 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
50
51 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
52 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option to list them.
53 \f
54 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
55
56 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
57 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
58 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
59
60 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
61 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
62 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
63 be customized.
64
65 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
66
67 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
68 all frames except the selected one.
69
70 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
71 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
72
73 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
74 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
75 area or with tooltips.
76
77 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
78 read mail from the menu etc.
79
80 ** Changes in Outline mode.
81
82 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
83 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
84 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
85
86 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
87 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
88
89 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
90 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
91 several other special buffers.
92
93 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
94 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
95 .emacs file.
96
97 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
98 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
99
100 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
101 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
102 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
103
104 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
105 is running in batch mode. For example,
106
107 (message "%s" (read t))
108
109 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
110 to standard output.
111
112 ** Faces and frame parameters.
113
114 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
115 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
116 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
117 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
118 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
119 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
120 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
121
122 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
123 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
124 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
125 `default' face and vice versa.
126
127 ** New face `menu'.
128
129 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
130 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
131 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
132
133 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
134
135 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
136 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
137 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
138 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
139
140 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
141 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
142 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
143
144 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
145 `ScreenGamma'.
146
147 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
148
149 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
150 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
151 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
152 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
153 the text.
154
155 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
156
157 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
158 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
159 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
160 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
161 specify a font.
162
163 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
164 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
165 under Lisp changes, below.
166
167 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
168
169 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
170 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
171 it is hollow.
172
173 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
174 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
175 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
176 customizing face `fringe'.
177
178 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
179 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
180
181 ** LessTif support.
182
183 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
184 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
185
186 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
187
188 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
189 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
190 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
191 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
192 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
193 Emacs.
194
195 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
196 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
197 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
198 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
199 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
200 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
201
202 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
203 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
204 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
205 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
206 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
207 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
208
209 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
210 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
211 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
212 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
213 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
214
215 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
216
217 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
218 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
219 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
220
221 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
222
223 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
224 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
225 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
226 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
227 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
228 whitespace.
229
230 ** Busy-cursor.
231
232 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
233 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
234
235 ** Blinking cursor
236
237 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
238 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
239 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
240 the group `cursor'.
241
242 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
243
244 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
245 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
246 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
247 details.
248
249 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
250 have to do anything to activate it.
251
252 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
253
254 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
255 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
256 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
257 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
258
259 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
260
261 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
262
263 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
264
265 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
266 one.
267
268 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
269 Motif.
270
271 ** Hscrolling in C code.
272
273 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
274
275 ** Tool bar support.
276
277 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
278 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
279
280 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
281
282 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
283 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
284 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
285 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
286 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
287
288 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
289
290 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
291 buffers.
292
293 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
294 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
295
296 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
297
298 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
299 toggles the read-only status.
300
301 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
302
303 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
304
305 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
306 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
307 non-nil.
308
309 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
310
311 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
312 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
313 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
314 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
315 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
316 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
317
318 ** Sound support
319
320 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
321 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
322 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
323 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
324 to enable sound support.
325
326 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
327 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
328 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
329 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
330 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
331 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
332
333 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
334
335 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
336
337 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
338 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
339 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
340
341 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
342 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
343
344 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
345 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
346 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
347
348 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
349
350 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
351 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
352 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
353 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
354
355 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
356 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
357 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
358 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
359
360 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
361 notably at the end of lines.
362
363 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
364 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
365
366 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
367 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
368 after each match to get the replacement text.
369
370 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
371
372 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
373 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
374 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
375 by setting the following variable:
376
377 - User option: max-mini-window-height
378
379 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
380 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
381 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
382
383 Default is 0.25.
384
385 ** Changes to hideshow.el
386
387 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
388 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
389
390 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
391
392 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
393 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
394 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
395 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
396 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
397 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
398
399 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
400 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
401 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
402 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
403
404 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
405
406 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
407 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
408 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
409 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
410 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
411
412 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
413 something like this in your .emacs.
414
415 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
416 (lambda ()
417 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
418
419 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
420
421 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
422 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
423 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
424
425 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
426 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
427
428 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
429 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
430
431 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
432 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
433 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
434 a file.
435
436 ** Changes in Font Lock
437
438 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
439 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
440 mode.
441
442 ** Comint (subshell) changes
443
444 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
445 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
446
447 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
448 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
449 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
450
451 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
452 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
453 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
454
455 ** Changes to Rmail mode
456
457 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
458 like `j'.
459
460 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
461 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
462 digest message.
463
464 ** Changes to TeX mode
465
466 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
467 `latex-mode'.
468
469 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
470
471 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
472 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
473 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
474 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
475 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
476 can be edited from that buffer.
477
478 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
479 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
480 `A' to use all marked entries).
481
482 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
483 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
484
485 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
486 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
487 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
488 been cited.
489
490 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
491 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
492 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
493 in column 1 are always made leaves.
494
495 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
496 has the following new features:
497
498 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
499 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
500 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
501 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
502
503 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
504 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
505 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
506 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
507 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
508 defaults to 1.
509
510 ** Tooltips.
511
512 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
513 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
514 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
515
516 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
517 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
518 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
519 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
520
521 ** Customize changes
522
523 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
524 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
525 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
526
527 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
528 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
529 default).
530
531 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
532 between custom options. Example:
533
534 (defcustom default-input-method nil
535 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
536 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
537 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
538 :group 'mule
539 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
540 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
541
542 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
543 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
544 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
545
546 ** New features in evaluation commands
547
548 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
549 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
550 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
551 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
552 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
553
554 ** Dired changes
555
556 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
557 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
558 is, delete only empty directories.
559
560 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
561 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
562 copy directories recursively.
563
564 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
565 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
566 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
567
568 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
569 use the -f option when sending mail.
570
571 ** CC mode changes.
572
573 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
574 current user setups (although it's believed that these
575 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
576 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
577 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
578 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
579 release.
580
581 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
582 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
583 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
584 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
585 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
586 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
587 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
588 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
589
590 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
591 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
592 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
593 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
594 above.
595
596 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
597 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
598 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
599 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
600 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
601 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
602 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
603 function documentation for more info.
604
605 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
606 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
607 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
608 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
609 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
610 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
611 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
612 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
613
614 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
615
616 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
617 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
618
619 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
620 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
621 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
622 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
623 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
624 style system.
625
626 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
627 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
628 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
629 as far as possible.
630
631 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
632 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
633 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
634 chapter about this in the manual.
635
636 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
637 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
638 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
639 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
640 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
641
642 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
643 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
644 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
645
646 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
647 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
648
649 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
650 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
651 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
652 inside CC Mode.
653
654 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
655 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
656 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
657 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
658 cc-mode/).
659
660 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
661 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
662 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
663 literals.
664
665 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
666 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
667 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
668 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
669 this function.
670
671 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
672 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
673 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
674 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
675 Thanks to Eric Eide.
676
677 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
678 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
679 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
680
681 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
682
683 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
684 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
685 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
686 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
687
688 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
689 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
690 the column specified by comment-column.
691
692 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
693 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
694 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
695 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
696 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
697 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
698
699 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
700 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
701 arguments.
702
703 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
704
705 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
706 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
707 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
708 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
709 Provan).
710
711 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
712
713 ** Isearch changes
714
715 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
716 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
717
718 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
719
720 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
721 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
722 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
723 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
724 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
725 `secondary-selection'.
726
727 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
728 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
729 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
730 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
731 usual snappy response.
732
733 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
734 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
735 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
736 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
737
738 ** Changes in sort.el
739
740 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
741 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
742 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
743 numeric base.
744
745 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
746 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
747 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
748
749 ** Shell script mode changes.
750
751 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
752 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
753 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
754
755 ** Etags changes.
756
757 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
758
759 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
760 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
761 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
762 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
763 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
764
765 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
766 declarations when given the --declarations option.
767
768 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
769 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
770
771 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
772 types.
773
774 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
775
776 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
777
778 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
779 are now tagged.
780
781 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
782 variables are tagged.
783
784 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
785
786 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
787 for PSWrap.
788
789 ** Changes in etags.el
790
791 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
792 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
793
794 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
795 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
796 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
797 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
798
799 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
800
801 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
802 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
803
804 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
805
806 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
807 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
808 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
809
810 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
811 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
812
813 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
814 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
815
816 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
817 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
818 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
819
820 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
821 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
822 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
823 currently no specific input method support for them.
824
825 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
826 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
827 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
828
829 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
830
831 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
832
833 ** New modes and packages
834
835 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
836 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
837 actually modifying content of a buffer.
838
839 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
840 PostScript.
841
842 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
843
844 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
845
846 ; comment (until end of line)
847 A non-terminal
848 "C" terminal
849 ?C? special
850 $A default non-terminal
851 $"C" default terminal
852 $?C? default special
853 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
854 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
855 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
856 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
857 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
858 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
859 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
860 C+ one or more occurrences of C
861 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
862 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
863 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
864 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
865 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
866 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
867 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
868
869 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
870
871 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
872 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
873 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
874 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
875 equal signs of assignments.
876
877 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
878 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
879
880 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
881 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
882 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
883 customize the package.
884
885 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
886 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
887 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
888 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
889 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
890 which answers different needs.
891
892 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
893 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
894 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
895 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
896 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
897 to be enabled.
898
899 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
900 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
901
902 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
903
904 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
905
906 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
907
908 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
909 Pascal) language.
910
911 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
912 the text at point.
913
914 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
915
916 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
917
918 *** whitespace.el ???
919
920 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
921 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
922 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
923 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
924 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
925 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
926 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
927
928 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
929
930 Here is an example of columns:
931
932 horse apple bus
933 dog pineapple car EXTRA
934 porcupine strawberry airplane
935
936 Doing the following settings:
937
938 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
939 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
940 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
941 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
942
943
944 Selecting the lines above and typing:
945
946 M-x delimit-columns-region
947
948 It results:
949
950 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
951 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
952 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
953
954 delim-col has the following options:
955
956 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
957 before all columns.
958
959 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
960 between each column.
961
962 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
963 after all columns.
964
965 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
966 each column.
967
968 delim-col has the following commands:
969
970 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
971 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
972
973 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
974 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
975 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
976
977 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
978
979 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
980
981 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
982 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
983
984 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
985 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
986
987 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
988 text.
989
990 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
991 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
992 specific to Message mode.
993
994 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
995 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
996 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
997
998 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
999 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1000 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1001
1002 *** glasses.el
1003
1004 *** windmove.el
1005
1006 ** Withdrawn packages
1007
1008 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1009 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1010
1011 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1012
1013 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1014 \f
1015 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1016
1017 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1018 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1019 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1020 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1021
1022 ** The function documentation-property now evaluates the value of
1023 the given property to obtain a a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1024 and isn't a string.
1025
1026 +++
1027 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1028
1029 ** The new function `replace-regexps-in-string' replaces all matches
1030 for a regexp in a string.
1031
1032 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1033 `mouse-position-function'.
1034
1035 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1036 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1037
1038 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1039 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1040
1041 +++
1042 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1043 returns it.
1044
1045 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1046 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1047
1048 +++
1049 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1050 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1051 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1052 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1053 mode.
1054
1055 +++
1056 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1057 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1058
1059 +++
1060 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1061 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1062 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1063 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1064 been performed."
1065
1066 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1067 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1068 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1069 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1070
1071 +++
1072 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1073 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1074 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1075
1076 +++
1077 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1078 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1079 specified table.
1080
1081 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1082
1083 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1084 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1085 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1086 what BODY returns.
1087
1088 +++
1089 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1090 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1091
1092 +++
1093 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1094 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1095
1096 +++
1097 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1098 instead of being optional.
1099
1100 +++
1101 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1102 modify read-only text.
1103
1104 +++
1105 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1106
1107 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1108 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1109 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1110 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1111 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1112
1113 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1114 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1115 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1116 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1117 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1118 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1119 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1120
1121 +++
1122 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1123 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1124 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1125 start sequences.
1126
1127 +++
1128 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1129 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1130
1131 +++
1132 ** New function `propertize'
1133
1134 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1135 strings with text properties.
1136
1137 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1138
1139 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1140 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1141 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1142 specified value of that property. Example:
1143
1144 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1145
1146 +++
1147 ** push and pop macros.
1148
1149 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1150 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1151 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1152
1153 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1154 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1155 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1156
1157 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1158
1159 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1160 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1161
1162 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1163 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1164 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1165 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1166
1167 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1168 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1169 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1170 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1171
1172 +++
1173 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1174 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1175
1176 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1177 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1178 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1179 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1180 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1181 space, and DEL.
1182 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1183 and DEL.
1184 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1185 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1186 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1187 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1188 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1189 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1190 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1191 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1192 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1193 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1194 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1195 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1196 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1197 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1198 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1199
1200 +++
1201 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1202
1203 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1204
1205 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1206
1207 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1208 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1209
1210 :test TEST
1211
1212 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1213 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1214 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1215
1216 :size SIZE
1217
1218 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1219 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1220
1221 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1222
1223 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1224 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1225 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1226 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1227 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1228
1229 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1230
1231 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1232 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1233 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1234
1235 :weakness WEAK
1236
1237 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1238 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1239 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1240 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1241
1242 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1243
1244 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1245
1246 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1247
1248 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1249
1250 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1251
1252 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1253 values are shared.
1254
1255 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1256
1257 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1258
1259 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1260
1261 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1262
1263 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1264
1265 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1266
1267 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1268
1269 Returns the size of TABLE.
1270
1271 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1272
1273 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1274
1275 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1276
1277 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1278
1279 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1280
1281 Clear TABLE.
1282
1283 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1284
1285 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1286 not found.
1287
1288 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1289
1290 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1291 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1292
1293 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1294
1295 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1296
1297 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1298
1299 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1300 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1301
1302 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1303
1304 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1305
1306 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1307
1308 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1309 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1310 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1311 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1312 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1313
1314 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1315
1316 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1317 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1318 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1319
1320 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1321 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1322
1323 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1324 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1325
1326 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1327 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1328
1329 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1330 'case-fold-string-hash))
1331
1332 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1333
1334 +++
1335 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1336
1337 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1338 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1339 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1340
1341 +++
1342 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1343
1344 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1345 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1346
1347 +++
1348 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1349 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1350 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1351 is too short to reach that column.
1352
1353 +++
1354 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1355 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1356 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1357 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1358
1359 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1360 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1361 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1362
1363 +++
1364 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1365 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1366
1367 +++
1368 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1369 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1370
1371 +++
1372 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1373 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1374 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1375 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1376 temporary-file-directory instead.
1377
1378 +++
1379 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1380 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1381 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1382 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1383
1384 +++
1385 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1386 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1387
1388 +++
1389 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1390
1391 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1392 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1393 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1394
1395 +++
1396 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1397
1398 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1399 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1400 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1401 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1402 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1403 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1404
1405 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1406 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1407 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1408 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1409
1410 +++
1411 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1412
1413 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1414 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1415 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1416 result string.
1417
1418 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
1419 string where arguments appear in the result string.
1420
1421 Example:
1422
1423 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
1424 (s2 "world"))
1425 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
1426 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
1427 (format s1 s2))
1428
1429 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
1430
1431 +++
1432 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
1433
1434 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
1435 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
1436 argument in it.
1437
1438 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
1439 (arg "world"))
1440 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
1441 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
1442 (message msg arg))
1443
1444 +++
1445 ** Sound support
1446
1447 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
1448 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
1449
1450 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
1451 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
1452 to enable sound support.
1453
1454 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
1455 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
1456 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
1457 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
1458 sound to play, before playing the sound.
1459
1460 The following sound properties are supported:
1461
1462 - `:file FILE'
1463
1464 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
1465 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1466
1467 - `:data DATA'
1468
1469 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
1470 may be present, but not both.
1471
1472 - `:volume VOLUME'
1473
1474 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1475 0..1. This property is optional.
1476
1477 Other properties are ignored.
1478
1479 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1480
1481 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
1482 a keyword symbol.
1483
1484 ** Changes to garbage collection
1485
1486 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
1487 of live and free strings.
1488
1489 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
1490 strings that have been consed so far.
1491
1492 \f
1493 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1494
1495 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1496 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1497 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1498 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1499
1500 ** New face implementation.
1501
1502 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
1503 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
1504
1505 +++
1506 *** New faces.
1507
1508 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
1509
1510 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
1511
1512 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
1513 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
1514
1515 3. Font height in 1/10pt
1516
1517 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
1518
1519 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
1520
1521 6. Foreground color.
1522
1523 7. Background color.
1524
1525 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
1526
1527 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1528
1529 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1530
1531 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1532
1533 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1534 color.
1535
1536 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1537 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1538
1539 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1540 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1541 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1542 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1543 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1544 attributes mentioned above.
1545
1546 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1547 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1548 created frames.
1549
1550 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1551 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1552 `fully-specified'.
1553
1554 +++
1555 *** Face merging.
1556
1557 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1558 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1559 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1560 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1561 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1562 results in a fully-specified face.
1563
1564 +++
1565 *** Face realization.
1566
1567 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1568 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1569 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1570 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1571 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1572 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1573
1574 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1575 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1576 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1577 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1578
1579 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1580 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1581 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1582 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1583 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1584
1585 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1586 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1587 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1588 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1589 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1590 Emacs.
1591
1592 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1593 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1594 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1595 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1596
1597 ++++
1598 **** Clearing face caches.
1599
1600 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1601 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1602 unused fonts.
1603
1604 +++
1605 *** Font selection.
1606
1607 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1608 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1609 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1610
1611 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1612 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1613 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1614 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1615 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1616
1617 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1618 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1619 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1620
1621 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1622
1623 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1624 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1625 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1626 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1627 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1628 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1629 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1630
1631 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1632 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1633 face doesn't exist.
1634
1635 +++
1636 **** Scalable fonts
1637
1638 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1639 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1640 servers.
1641
1642 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1643 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1644 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1645 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1646 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1647 that list. Example:
1648
1649 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1650
1651 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1652
1653 +++
1654 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1655
1656 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1657
1658 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1659 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1660 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1661
1662 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1663 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1664 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1665 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1666 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1667 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1668 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1669 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1670 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1671 of the face font sort order.
1672
1673 - Function: x-font-family-list
1674
1675 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1676 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1677 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1678 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1679
1680 - Variable: font-list-limit
1681
1682 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1683 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1684 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1685
1686 +++
1687 *** Setting face attributes.
1688
1689 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1690 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1691 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1692 `face-attribute'.
1693
1694 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1695 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1696
1697 The following attributes are recognized:
1698
1699 `:family'
1700
1701 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1702 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1703 and `?' are allowed.
1704
1705 `:width'
1706
1707 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1708 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1709 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1710 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1711
1712 `:height'
1713
1714 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1715 1/10 pt.
1716
1717 `:weight'
1718
1719 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1720 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1721 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1722
1723 `:slant'
1724
1725 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1726 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1727 `reverse-oblique'.
1728
1729 `:foreground', `:background'
1730
1731 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1732
1733 `:underline'
1734
1735 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1736 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1737 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1738 don't underline.
1739
1740 `:overline'
1741
1742 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1743 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1744 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1745 overline.
1746
1747 `:strike-through'
1748
1749 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1750 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1751 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1752 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1753
1754 `:box'
1755
1756 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1757 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1758 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1759 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1760 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1761 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1762 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1763 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1764 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1765 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1766 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1767 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1768 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1769 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1770 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1771 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1772 box.
1773
1774 `:inverse-video'
1775
1776 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1777 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1778
1779 `:stipple'
1780
1781 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1782 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1783 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1784 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1785 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1786 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1787
1788 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1789 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1790
1791 `:font'
1792
1793 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1794 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1795 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1796 versions of Emacs.
1797
1798 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1799 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1800 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1801
1802 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1803 `defface'.
1804
1805 *** Face attributes and X resources
1806
1807 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1808 from X resources:
1809
1810 Face attribute X resource class
1811 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1812 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1813 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1814 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1815 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1816 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1817 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1818 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1819 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1820 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1821 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1822 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1823 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1824 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1825 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1826 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1827 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1828 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1829 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1830 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1831
1832 +++
1833 *** Text property `face'.
1834
1835 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1836 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1837 specification can be
1838
1839 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1840
1841 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1842 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1843 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1844 for face attribute names.
1845
1846 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1847 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1848 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1849
1850 +++
1851 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1852
1853 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
1854 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
1855 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
1856 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1857 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
1858 used to clear the mapping table.
1859
1860 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
1861
1862 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
1863 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
1864 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
1865 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
1866 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
1867 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
1868 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
1869 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
1870 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
1871 modify their color-related behavior.
1872
1873 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
1874 any frame type.
1875
1876 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
1877
1878 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
1879 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
1880 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
1881 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
1882 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
1883 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
1884 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
1885 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
1886 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
1887
1888 +++
1889 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1890
1891 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1892
1893 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1894 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1895 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1896
1897 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1898
1899 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1900 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1901 text-property.
1902
1903 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1904 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1905 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1906 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1907 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
1908 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
1909 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
1910 functions.
1911
1912 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1913 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1914 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1915
1916 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1917
1918 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1919
1920 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1921 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1922 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1923 constrained position if that is is different.
1924
1925 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1926 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1927 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1928 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1929 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1930 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1931 fields.
1932
1933 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1934 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1935 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1936 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1937 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1938
1939 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1940
1941 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1942 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1943 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1944
1945 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1946
1947 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1948 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1949 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1950 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1951 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1952
1953 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1954
1955 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1956 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1957 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1958 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1959 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1960
1961 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1962
1963 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1964 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1965 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1966
1967 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1968
1969 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1970 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1971 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1972
1973 +++
1974 ** Image support.
1975
1976 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1977 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1978 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1979 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1980
1981 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1982 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1983 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1984 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1985 area.
1986
1987 IMAGE is an image specification.
1988
1989 *** Image specifications
1990
1991 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1992 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1993 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1994 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1995 described below are ignored.
1996
1997 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1998
1999 `:ascent ASCENT'
2000
2001 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
2002 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
2003
2004 `:margin MARGIN'
2005
2006 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2007 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2008
2009 `:relief RELIEF'
2010
2011 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2012 around an image.
2013
2014 `:algorithm ALGO'
2015
2016 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2017 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2018 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2019 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2020
2021 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2022
2023 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2024 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2025 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2026 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2027 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2028 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2029 background of the image.
2030
2031 `:file FILE'
2032
2033 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2034 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2035 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2036 may be present in the image specification.
2037
2038 `:data DATA'
2039
2040 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2041 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2042 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2043 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2044
2045 *** Supported image types
2046
2047 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2048
2049 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2050 properties supported are
2051
2052 `:foreground FG'
2053
2054 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2055 is the frame's foreground.
2056
2057 `:background FG'
2058
2059 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2060 the frame's background color.
2061
2062 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2063 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2064 instead of a `:file' property.
2065
2066 `:width WIDTH'
2067
2068 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2069
2070 `:height HEIGHT'
2071
2072 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2073
2074 `:data DATA'
2075
2076 DATA must be either
2077
2078 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2079 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2080
2081 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2082
2083 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2084 bitmap.
2085
2086 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2087
2088 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2089 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2090 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2091 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2092
2093 Additional image properties supported are:
2094
2095 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2096
2097 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2098 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2099 name.
2100
2101 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2102 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2103
2104 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2105 to display compressed images.
2106
2107 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2108
2109 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2110 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2111 defined.
2112
2113 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2114
2115 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2116 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2117 are:
2118
2119 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2120
2121 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2122 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2123 properties defined.
2124
2125 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2126
2127 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2128 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2129
2130 Additional image properties supported are:
2131
2132 `:index INDEX'
2133
2134 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2135 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2136
2137 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2138 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2139 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2140 every 0.1 seconds.
2141
2142 (defun show-anim (file max)
2143 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2144 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2145
2146 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2147 (when (= idx max)
2148 (setq idx 0))
2149 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2150 (save-excursion
2151 (set-buffer buffer)
2152 (goto-char (point-min))
2153 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2154 (insert-image img "x"))
2155 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2156
2157 **** PNG, image type `png'
2158
2159 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2160 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2161 properties defined.
2162
2163 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2164
2165 Additional image properties supported are:
2166
2167 `:pt-width WIDTH'
2168
2169 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2170 integer. This is a required property.
2171
2172 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
2173
2174 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2175 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2176
2177 `:bounding-box BOX'
2178
2179 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2180 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2181 files. This is an required property.
2182
2183 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2184 lisp/gs.el.
2185
2186 *** Lisp interface.
2187
2188 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2189 which are supported in the current configuration.
2190
2191 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2192 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2193 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2194 manually.
2195
2196 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2197
2198 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2199 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2200 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2201 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2202 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2203 buffer.
2204
2205 +++
2206 ** Display margins.
2207
2208 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2209 and images.
2210
2211 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2212 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2213 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2214 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2215 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2216 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2217 of the display margins.
2218
2219 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2220 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2221 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2222 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2223 in this file).
2224
2225 +++
2226 ** Help display
2227
2228 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2229 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2230 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2231 that have a `help-echo' property.
2232
2233 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
2234 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
2235 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
2236 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
2237 tool-bar item is used.
2238
2239 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2240 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
2241 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2242
2243 +++
2244 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2245
2246 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2247 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2248
2249 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2250 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2251 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2252 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2253 used.
2254
2255 (global-set-key [A-down]
2256 #'(lambda ()
2257 (interactive)
2258 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2259 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2260 (global-set-key [A-up]
2261 #'(lambda ()
2262 (interactive)
2263 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2264 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2265
2266 +++
2267 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2268
2269 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2270 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2271 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2272 is called with one argument, POS.
2273
2274 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2275 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2276 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2277 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2278 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2279
2280 +++
2281 ** Tool bar support.
2282
2283 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2284 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2285 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2286 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2287 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2288 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2289
2290 *** Tool bar item definitions
2291
2292 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2293 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2294 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2295
2296 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2297 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2298 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2299 property (see below).
2300
2301 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2302 binding are currently ignored.
2303
2304 The following properties are recognized:
2305
2306 `:enable FORM'.
2307
2308 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2309 or disabled.
2310
2311 `:visible FORM'
2312
2313 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2314
2315 `:filter FUNCTION'
2316
2317 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2318 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2319 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2320
2321 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2322
2323 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2324 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2325
2326 `:image IMAGES'
2327
2328 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2329 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2330 meaning of each of the four elements:
2331
2332 Index Use when item is
2333 ----------------------------------------
2334 0 enabled and selected
2335 1 enabled and deselected
2336 2 disabled and selected
2337 3 disabled and deselected
2338
2339 `:help HELP-STRING'.
2340
2341 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
2342 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
2343
2344 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
2345
2346 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
2347 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
2348 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
2349
2350 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
2351 raised when the mouse moves over them.
2352
2353 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
2354 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
2355 pixels. Default is 1.
2356
2357 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
2358 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
2359
2360 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
2361
2362 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
2363 a tool bar item. If
2364
2365 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
2366 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
2367 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
2368
2369 is the original tool bar item definition, then
2370
2371 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
2372
2373 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
2374 item.
2375
2376 ** Mode line changes.
2377
2378 +++
2379 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
2380
2381 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
2382 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
2383 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
2384
2385 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
2386 a `local-map' text property.
2387
2388 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
2389 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
2390
2391 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
2392 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
2393 `local-map' property.
2394
2395 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
2396 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
2397 example.
2398
2399 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
2400 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
2401
2402 +++
2403 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
2404 variable mode-line-format to nil.
2405
2406 +++
2407 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
2408
2409 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
2410 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
2411 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
2412 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
2413 line.
2414
2415 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
2416 `header-line'.
2417
2418 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
2419 position in the header-line.
2420
2421 +++
2422 ** Text property `display'
2423
2424 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
2425 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
2426 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
2427 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
2428
2429 *** Variable width and height spaces
2430
2431 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
2432 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
2433 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
2434 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
2435 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
2436 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
2437 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
2438
2439 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
2440 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
2441 properties described below.
2442
2443 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
2444 characters having the `display' property.
2445
2446 - :width WIDTH
2447
2448 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
2449 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
2450
2451 - :relative-width FACTOR
2452
2453 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
2454 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
2455 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
2456 width of that character by FACTOR.
2457
2458 - :align-to HPOS
2459
2460 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
2461 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
2462
2463 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
2464
2465 - :height HEIGHT
2466
2467 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
2468 normal line height.
2469
2470 - :relative-height FACTOR
2471
2472 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
2473 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
2474
2475 - :ascent ASCENT
2476
2477 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
2478 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
2479 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
2480 equal to 100.
2481
2482 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
2483
2484 *** Images
2485
2486 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
2487 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
2488 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
2489 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
2490 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
2491 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
2492 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
2493 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
2494 as display specification.
2495
2496 *** Other display properties
2497
2498 - :space-width FACTOR
2499
2500 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
2501 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
2502 integer or float.
2503
2504 - :height HEIGHT
2505
2506 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
2507
2508 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
2509 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
2510 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
2511 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
2512 a font is available counts as a step.
2513
2514 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
2515 as tall as the frame's default font.
2516
2517 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
2518 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
2519
2520 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
2521 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
2522
2523 - :raise FACTOR
2524
2525 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
2526 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
2527 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
2528 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
2529 `:height' subproperty.
2530
2531 *** Conditional display properties
2532
2533 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
2534 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
2535 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
2536 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
2537 the text having the `display' property.
2538
2539 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
2540 `(:when t SPEC)'.
2541
2542 +++
2543 ** New menu separator types.
2544
2545 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
2546 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
2547 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
2548 to specify other menu separator types.
2549
2550 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
2551
2552 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
2553 separator occurs.
2554
2555 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
2556
2557 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
2558
2559 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2560
2561 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2562
2563 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2564
2565 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2566
2567 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2568
2569 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2570
2571 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2572
2573 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2574 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2575
2576 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2577
2578 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2579
2580 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2581
2582 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2583
2584 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2585
2586 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2587
2588 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2589
2590 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2591
2592 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2593
2594 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2595
2596 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2597
2598 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2599
2600 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2601
2602 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2603
2604 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2605 the corresponding single-line separators.
2606
2607 +++
2608 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2609
2610 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2611 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2612 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2613 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2614 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2615 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2616 default foreground is black.
2617
2618 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2619 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2620 `ScrollBarBackground').
2621
2622 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2623 settings for scroll bar colors.
2624
2625 +++
2626 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2627 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2628
2629 ---
2630 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2631 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2632 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2633 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2634 the original window start.
2635
2636 ---
2637 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2638 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2639 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2640
2641 +++
2642 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2643
2644 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2645 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2646 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2647 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2648
2649 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2650 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2651
2652 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2653
2654 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2655 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2656 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2657 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2658 temporarily to nil, for example
2659
2660 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2661 (enlarge-window 10))
2662
2663 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2664 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2665
2666 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
2667 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
2668 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
2669 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
2670 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
2671 support a vertical-bar cursor).
2672 ^L
2673 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2674
2675 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2676 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2677 \f
2678 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2679
2680 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2681
2682 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2683 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2684 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2685
2686 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2687 is the one that is used.
2688
2689 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2690 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2691 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2692 separate from the command's regular output.
2693 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2694 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2695 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2696 the buffer name.
2697
2698 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2699 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2700 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2701 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2702
2703 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2704 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2705 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2706 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2707
2708 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2709 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2710 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2711 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2712
2713 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2714 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2715 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2716 they never ignore case.
2717
2718 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2719 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2720 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2721 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2722 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2723 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2724 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2725
2726 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2727 the same format that was used in the file before.
2728
2729 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2730 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2731
2732 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2733 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2734 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2735
2736 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2737 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2738 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2739 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2740 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2741 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2742 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2743
2744 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2745 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2746 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2747 format. You can now customize these variables.
2748
2749 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2750 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2751 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2752 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2753
2754 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2755 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2756 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2757
2758 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2759 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2760 doesn't have any effect.
2761
2762 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2763 not one per buffer.
2764
2765 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2766 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2767 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2768
2769 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2770 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2771 `auto-show-mode' command.
2772
2773 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2774 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2775 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2776 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2777 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2778
2779 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2780 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2781
2782 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2783 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2784 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2785
2786 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2787 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2788 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2789 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2790
2791 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2792
2793 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2794 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2795 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2796 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2797 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2798
2799 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2800 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2801
2802 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2803 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2804 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2805 `?' on other systems.
2806
2807 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2808 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2809 Unix.
2810
2811 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2812 current codepage when it starts.
2813
2814 ** Mail changes
2815
2816 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
2817 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
2818 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
2819 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
2820 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
2821 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
2822 latin-1:
2823
2824 MIME-version: 1.0
2825 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
2826 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
2827
2828 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2829 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2830 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2831 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2832 buffer-file-coding-system.
2833
2834 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2835 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2836 mail.
2837
2838 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2839 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2840 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2841 list of possible coding systems.
2842
2843 ** CC Mode changes
2844
2845 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2846 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2847 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2848 docstring for details.
2849
2850 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2851 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2852 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2853 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2854 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2855
2856 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2857 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2858
2859 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2860 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2861
2862 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2863 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2864 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2865 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2866 anonymous classes.
2867
2868 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2869 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2870
2871 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2872 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2873 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2874 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2875
2876 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2877 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2878 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2879 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2880 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2881
2882 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2883
2884 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2885
2886 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2887 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2888
2889 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2890
2891 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2892 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2893 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2894 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2895 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2896
2897 ** Gnus changes.
2898
2899 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2900 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2901 Gnus manual for the full story.
2902
2903 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2904 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2905 group, which is created automatically.
2906
2907 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2908 values.
2909
2910 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2911
2912 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2913 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2914
2915 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2916 `C-u C-c C-c'.
2917
2918 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2919
2920 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2921 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2922
2923 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2924
2925 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2926 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2927
2928 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2929 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2930
2931 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2932 control over simplification.
2933
2934 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2935
2936 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2937 limit.
2938
2939 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2940
2941 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2942
2943 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2944 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2945 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2946
2947 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2948 `a' forces normal posting method.
2949
2950 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2951 -- `W d'.
2952
2953 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2954 to a non-nil value.
2955
2956 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2957 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2958
2959 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2960 has been added.
2961
2962 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2963
2964 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2965
2966 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2967 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2968
2969 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2970 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2971
2972 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2973
2974 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2975 been added.
2976
2977 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2978 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2979
2980 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2981 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2982
2983 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2984
2985 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2986
2987 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2988
2989 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2990
2991 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2992 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2993 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2994
2995 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2996 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2997 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2998 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2999 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3000
3001 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3002 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3003 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3004 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3005
3006 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3007 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3008 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3009 mismatch.
3010
3011 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3012
3013 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3014 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3015
3016 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3017 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3018 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3019 removed from the label.
3020
3021 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3022 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3023
3024 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3025 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3026
3027 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3028 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3029 expressions.
3030
3031 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3032
3033 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3034
3035 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3036 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3037
3038 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3039 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3040 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3041
3042 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3043 changes with a special face.
3044
3045 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3046 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3047 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3048 \f
3049 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3050
3051 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3052 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3053 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3054 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3055 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3056
3057 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3058 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3059 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3060
3061 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3062 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3063 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3064 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3065 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3066 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3067 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3068 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3069 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3070
3071 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3072 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3073 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3074 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3075 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3076 program.
3077
3078 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3079 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3080 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3081 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3082 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3083 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3084
3085 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3086 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3087 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3088 was not documented clearly before.
3089
3090 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3091 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3092 \f
3093 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3094
3095 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3096 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3097 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3098 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3099
3100 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3101 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3102 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3103
3104 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3105
3106 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3107 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3108
3109 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3110 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3111 integers.
3112
3113 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3114 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3115 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3116 file names and attributes are returned.
3117
3118 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3119 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3120 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3121 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3122 returns the result.
3123
3124 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3125 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3126
3127 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3128
3129 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3130 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3131 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3132 optionally.
3133
3134 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3135 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3136
3137 **
3138 The new function process-running-child-p
3139 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3140 terminal to its own child process.
3141
3142 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3143 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3144 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3145 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3146
3147 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3148 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3149
3150 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3151 :included is an alias for :visible.
3152
3153 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3154 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3155 to move or copy menu entries.
3156
3157 ** Multibyte editing changes
3158
3159 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3160 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3161 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3162 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3163 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3164 (setq char (sref str idx)
3165 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3166 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3167
3168 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3169 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3170 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3171
3172 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3173 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3174 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3175
3176 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3177
3178 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3179 across the boundary.
3180
3181 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3182 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3183 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3184 contains 8-bit characters.
3185 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3186 contains invalid characters.
3187
3188 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3189 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3190 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3191 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3192 way.
3193
3194 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3195 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3196 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3197 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3198
3199 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3200 compose Thai characters in a string.
3201
3202 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3203 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3204 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3205 menus should always use the third argument.
3206
3207 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3208 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3209 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3210 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3211
3212 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3213 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3214 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3215 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3216
3217 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3218 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3219 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3220 echo area contents.
3221
3222 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3223
3224 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3225 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3226 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3227
3228 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3229 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3230 means to clear out that attribute.
3231
3232 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3233 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3234
3235 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3236 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3237 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3238 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3239
3240 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3241 the gap of the current buffer.
3242
3243 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3244 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3245 current buffer.
3246
3247 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3248 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3249 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3250 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3251 \f
3252 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3253
3254 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3255 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3256 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3257 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3258 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3259
3260 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3261 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3262 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3263 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3264 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3265
3266 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3267 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3268 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3269
3270 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3271 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3272 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3273 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3274 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3275 results.
3276
3277 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3278 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3279 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3280 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3281 \f
3282 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3283
3284 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3285 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3286 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3287 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3288
3289 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3290 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3291 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3292 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3293 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3294 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3295 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3296 region.
3297
3298 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3299 selective undo.
3300
3301 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3302 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3303 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3304 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3305 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3306
3307 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
3308 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
3309 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
3310 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
3311
3312 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
3313 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
3314 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
3315 something that most users not do.
3316
3317 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
3318 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
3319 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
3320 applications.
3321
3322 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
3323 pasting operations.
3324
3325 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
3326 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
3327 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
3328 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
3329 `ps-printer-name'.
3330
3331 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
3332 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
3333 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
3334 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
3335 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
3336 hits a new word.
3337
3338 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
3339 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
3340 to be confused by TeX commands.
3341
3342 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
3343 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
3344 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
3345 of various alternative replacements and actions.
3346
3347 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
3348 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
3349 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
3350 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
3351 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
3352
3353 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
3354 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
3355
3356 ** Changes in input method usage.
3357
3358 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
3359 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
3360 respectively.
3361
3362 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
3363
3364 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
3365 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
3366
3367 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
3368 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
3369
3370 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
3371
3372 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
3373
3374 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
3375 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
3376
3377 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
3378 given in the following case:
3379 o When you are using a complex input method.
3380 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
3381
3382 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
3383 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
3384 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
3385 setting it to t is helpful.
3386
3387 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
3388
3389 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
3390 keys:
3391 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
3392 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
3393 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
3394 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
3395 environment.
3396
3397 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
3398 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
3399 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
3400 get
3401
3402 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
3403
3404 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
3405
3406 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
3407 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
3408
3409 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
3410 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
3411 its owner and group.
3412
3413 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
3414 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
3415
3416 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
3417 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
3418
3419 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
3420 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
3421 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
3422 by the left edge of the rectangle.
3423
3424 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
3425 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
3426 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
3427 for writing keyboard macros.
3428
3429 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
3430 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
3431 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
3432 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
3433 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
3434 info.
3435
3436 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
3437
3438 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
3439 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
3440 contents only.
3441
3442 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
3443 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
3444 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
3445 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
3446
3447 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
3448 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
3449 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
3450
3451 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
3452 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
3453 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
3454 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
3455
3456 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
3457 failure if the command produces no output.
3458
3459 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
3460 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
3461 the mouse.
3462
3463 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
3464 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
3465 function and variable names.
3466
3467 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
3468 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
3469 file-coding-system-alist.
3470
3471 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
3472 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
3473 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
3474 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
3475 according to the current fontset.
3476
3477 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
3478
3479 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
3480 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
3481 nonascii-insert-offset.
3482
3483 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
3484 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
3485 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
3486 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
3487
3488 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
3489 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
3490
3491 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
3492 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
3493
3494 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
3495 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
3496 command keys.
3497
3498 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
3499 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
3500
3501 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
3502 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
3503 all variables that have documentation.
3504
3505 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
3506 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
3507 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
3508 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
3509 it should show; the default is 20.
3510
3511 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
3512 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
3513 of your input.
3514
3515 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
3516 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
3517 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
3518 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
3519 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
3520 Newly added options are included as well.
3521
3522 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
3523 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
3524 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
3525
3526 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
3527 Customize menu.
3528
3529 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
3530 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
3531
3532 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
3533 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
3534 invoked.
3535
3536 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
3537 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
3538 The default is 1.
3539
3540 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
3541 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
3542 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
3543 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
3544 sensibly.
3545
3546 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
3547
3548 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
3549 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
3550 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
3551
3552 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
3553 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
3554 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
3555 every night.
3556
3557 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
3558 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
3559
3560 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
3561 read and post multi-lingual articles.
3562
3563 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
3564 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
3565 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
3566 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
3567 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
3568 made invisible again.
3569
3570 ** Mail reading and sending changes
3571
3572 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
3573 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
3574 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
3575 toggle.
3576
3577 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
3578 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3579 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3580 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3581 rmail-default-body-file.
3582
3583 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3584 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3585 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3586
3587 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3588 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3589 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3590
3591 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3592 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3593 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3594 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3595 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3596 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3597
3598 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3599 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3600 provided by feedmail are:
3601
3602 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3603 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3604 there is also a queue for draft messages
3605
3606 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3607 be prompted for confirmation
3608
3609 **** does smart filling of address headers
3610
3611 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3612 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3613 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3614
3615 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3616 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3617 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3618 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3619
3620 ** Dired changes
3621
3622 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3623 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3624
3625 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3626 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3627
3628 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3629 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3630 for a specified regexp.
3631
3632 ** VC Changes
3633
3634 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3635 conveniently.
3636
3637 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3638 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3639 Dired.
3640
3641 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3642 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3643 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3644 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3645
3646 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3647 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3648 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3649 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3650 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3651
3652 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3653 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3654 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3655 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3656 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3657
3658 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3659 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3660 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3661 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3662
3663 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3664 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3665 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3666
3667 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3668 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3669 session to resolve them.
3670
3671 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3672 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3673 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3674 uses as well).
3675
3676 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3677 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3678 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3679 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3680 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3681 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3682 using ediff.
3683
3684 ** Changes in Font Lock
3685
3686 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3687 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3688 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3689 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3690 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3691
3692 ** Frame name display changes
3693
3694 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3695 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3696 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3697 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3698
3699 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3700 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3701 menu.
3702
3703 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3704
3705 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3706 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3707 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3708
3709 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3710
3711 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3712 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3713 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3714
3715 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3716 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3717 the following line.
3718
3719 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3720 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3721 previously sent input.
3722
3723 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3724 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3725 as the search string.
3726
3727 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3728 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3729
3730 ** C mode changes
3731
3732 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3733 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3734 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3735 definition.
3736
3737 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3738 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3739 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3740 style is still the default however.
3741
3742 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3743
3744 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3745 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3746 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3747
3748 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3749 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3750
3751 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3752 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3753
3754 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3755 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3756
3757 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3758 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3759
3760 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3761 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3762 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3763 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3764
3765 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3766
3767 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3768 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3769 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3770
3771 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3772 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3773 expanding dynamically.
3774
3775 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3776 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3777
3778 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3779 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3780 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3781 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3782
3783 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3784
3785 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3786
3787 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3788 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3789 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3790 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3791 against the first word in the title.
3792
3793 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3794 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3795 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3796 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3797 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3798 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3799
3800 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3801 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3802 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3803 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3804
3805 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3806
3807 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3808 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3809 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3810 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3811 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3812 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3813
3814 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3815 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3816
3817 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3818 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3819 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3820
3821 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3822 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3823
3824 ** Ispell changes.
3825
3826 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3827 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3828 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3829
3830 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3831 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3832 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3833 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3834 include:
3835
3836 o URLs are automatically skipped
3837 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3838
3839 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3840
3841 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3842
3843 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3844 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3845 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3846 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3847
3848 *** New recursive parser.
3849
3850 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3851 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3852 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3853
3854 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3855
3856 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3857 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3858 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3859
3860 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3861
3862 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3863
3864 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3865
3866 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3867
3868 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3869
3870 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3871 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3872
3873 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3874
3875 *** References to external documents.
3876
3877 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3878 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3879 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3880 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3881 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3882 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3883 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3884
3885 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3886
3887 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3888 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3889
3890 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3891 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3892
3893 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3894
3895 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3896 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3897
3898 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3899
3900 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3901 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3902 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3903 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3904 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3905 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3906 more.
3907
3908 *** Support for the varioref package
3909
3910 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3911
3912 *** New hooks
3913
3914 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3915 and citations are created. These hooks are
3916 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3917 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3918
3919 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3920
3921 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3922 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3923
3924 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3925
3926 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3927 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3928 fontified, use
3929
3930 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3931
3932 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3933 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3934 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3935 directories that contain the same file name.
3936
3937 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3938 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3939 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3940 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3941 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3942 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3943 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3944 directory.
3945
3946 ** New modes and packages
3947
3948 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3949 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3950 it, but some do not.
3951
3952 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3953 code.
3954
3955 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3956 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3957 around in a buffer.
3958
3959 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3960
3961 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3962 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3963 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3964 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3965
3966 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3967 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3968 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3969
3970 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3971 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3972 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3973 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3974 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3975 the like.
3976
3977 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3978 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3979
3980 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3981 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3982 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3983 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3984
3985 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3986
3987 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3988 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3989 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3990 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3991 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3992 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3993 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3994 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3995 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3996 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3997 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3998
3999 Platform-specific modes:
4000
4001 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4002 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4003 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4004 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4005 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4006 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4007 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4008 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4009 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4010 \f
4011 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4012
4013 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4014 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4015 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4016 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4017
4018 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4019 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4020 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4021
4022 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4023 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4024 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4025 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4026
4027 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4028 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4029 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4030 environment.
4031
4032 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4033 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4034 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4035 current input method for reading this one event.
4036
4037 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4038 now control whether to output certain characters as
4039 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4040 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4041 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4042 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4043 \f
4044 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4045
4046 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4047 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4048
4049 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4050 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4051 always increases point by 1.
4052
4053 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4054 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4055
4056 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4057
4058 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4059 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4060 default value changed. For example,
4061
4062 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4063 :type 'integer
4064 :group 'foo
4065 :version "20.3")
4066
4067 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4068 :version "20.3")
4069
4070 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4071 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4072 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4073 `:version' in the top level group.
4074
4075 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4076
4077 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4078 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4079
4080 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4081 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4082 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4083 to themselves.
4084
4085 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4086 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4087 values whatever.
4088
4089 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4090 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4091 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4092
4093 ** Frame-local variables.
4094
4095 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4096 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4097 local bindings for that variable.
4098
4099 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4100 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4101 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4102 parameter name.
4103
4104 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4105 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4106 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4107 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4108
4109 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4110 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4111 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4112 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4113
4114 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4115 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4116 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4117 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4118 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4119
4120 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4121 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4122 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4123 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4124
4125 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4126 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4127
4128 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4129 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4130 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4131
4132 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4133 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4134 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4135 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4136
4137 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4138 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4139 empty input.
4140
4141 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4142 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4143 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4144 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4145 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4146
4147 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4148 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4149 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4150 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4151
4152 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4153 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4154 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4155 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4156 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4157
4158 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4159 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4160 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4161 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4162
4163 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4164 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4165 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4166
4167 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4168 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4169 was directed to display this buffer.
4170
4171 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4172 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4173 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4174 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4175 set-window-configuration.
4176
4177 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4178 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4179 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4180 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4181
4182 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4183 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4184 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4185
4186 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4187 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4188 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4189
4190 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4191 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4192
4193 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4194 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4195
4196 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4197 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4198 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4199
4200 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4201 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4202 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4203 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4204
4205 ** Menu changes
4206
4207 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4208 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4209 better supported.
4210
4211 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4212 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4213 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4214 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4215 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4216
4217 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4218
4219 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4220 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4221 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4222 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4223
4224 The format is:
4225 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4226 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4227 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4228 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4229 The supported properties include
4230
4231 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4232 item is enabled.
4233 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4234 item should appear in the menu.
4235 :filter FILTER-FN
4236 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4237 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4238 It should return a binding to use instead.
4239 :keys DESCRIPTION
4240 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4241 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4242 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4243 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4244 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4245 keyboard binding.
4246 :key-sequence nil
4247 This means that the command normally has no
4248 keyboard equivalent.
4249 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4250 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4251 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4252 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4253 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4254
4255 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4256 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4257
4258 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4259
4260 ** New event types
4261
4262 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4263 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4264 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4265 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4266
4267 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4268
4269 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4270 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4271 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4272 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4273 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4274 forward, away from the user.
4275
4276 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4277
4278 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4279 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4280 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4281 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4282 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4283
4284 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4285
4286 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4287 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4288 that were dragged and dropped.
4289
4290 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4291
4292 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4293
4294 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4295 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4296 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4297
4298 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4299 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4300 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4301
4302 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
4303 in Emacs 19 and before.
4304
4305 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
4306 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
4307
4308 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
4309 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
4310 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
4311 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
4312
4313 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
4314 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
4315 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
4316 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
4317 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
4318
4319 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
4320 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
4321 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
4322 consistent with the new representation.
4323
4324 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
4325 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
4326 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
4327 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4328
4329 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
4330 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
4331 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
4332
4333 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
4334 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
4335 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4336
4337 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
4338 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
4339 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
4340
4341 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4342 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
4343
4344 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4345 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
4346
4347 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
4348 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
4349 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
4350 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
4351
4352 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
4353 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
4354
4355 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
4356 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
4357 buffer or string being searched.
4358
4359 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
4360 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
4361 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
4362 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
4363 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
4364 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
4365 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
4366
4367 *** Structure of coding system changed.
4368
4369 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
4370 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
4371 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
4372 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
4373 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
4374 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
4375 define-coding-system-alias.
4376
4377 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
4378 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
4379 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
4380 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
4381 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
4382 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
4383 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
4384 `iso-8859-1'.
4385
4386 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
4387 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
4388 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
4389 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
4390
4391 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
4392 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
4393 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
4394 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
4395
4396 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
4397 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
4398 This function requires a user interaction.
4399
4400 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
4401 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
4402 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
4403 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
4404 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
4405 select-safe-coding-system.
4406
4407 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
4408 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
4409 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
4410 was done.
4411
4412 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
4413 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
4414 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
4415
4416 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
4417 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
4418 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
4419 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
4420
4421 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
4422 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
4423 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
4424 converted.
4425
4426 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
4427 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
4428
4429 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
4430 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
4431 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
4432 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
4433 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
4434 range of characters.
4435
4436 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
4437 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
4438
4439 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
4440 in the current buffer at position POS.
4441
4442 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
4443 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
4444 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
4445 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
4446 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
4447 binding input-method-function to nil.
4448
4449 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
4450 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
4451 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
4452 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
4453 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
4454
4455 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
4456 subsequent events of a key sequence.
4457
4458 *** You can customize any language environment by using
4459 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
4460
4461 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
4462 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
4463 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
4464 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
4465 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
4466 \f
4467 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
4468
4469 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
4470 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
4471 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
4472 tree structure.
4473
4474 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
4475 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
4476
4477 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
4478 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
4479 in your .emacs file.)
4480
4481 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
4482 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
4483
4484 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
4485 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
4486
4487 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
4488 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
4489 kills the region.
4490
4491 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
4492 delete the character before point, as usual.
4493
4494 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
4495 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
4496 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
4497
4498 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
4499 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
4500 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
4501 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
4502 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
4503 past.)
4504
4505 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
4506 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
4507 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
4508 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
4509 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
4510
4511 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
4512 and is an alias for it.
4513
4514 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
4515 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
4516
4517 ** Scrolling changes
4518
4519 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
4520 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
4521
4522 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
4523 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
4524 where it started.
4525
4526 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
4527 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
4528 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
4529 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
4530
4531 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
4532 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
4533 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
4534 recenters the window.
4535
4536 ** International character set support (MULE)
4537
4538 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
4539 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
4540 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
4541 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
4542 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
4543 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
4544
4545 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
4546 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
4547 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
4548 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
4549 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
4550
4551 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
4552 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
4553 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
4554 language, to make it possible to type them.
4555
4556 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
4557 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
4558
4559 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
4560 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
4561
4562 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
4563
4564 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
4565
4566 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
4567 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
4568 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
4569 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
4570 characters for their work until they want to change.
4571
4572 *** Input methods
4573
4574 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
4575 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
4576 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
4577 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
4578 support several input methods.
4579
4580 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4581 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4582 work.
4583
4584 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4585 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4586 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4587 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4588 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4589 letter.
4590
4591 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4592 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4593 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4594 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4595 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4596
4597 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4598 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4599 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4600 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4601
4602 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4603 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4604 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4605 the first guess is wrong.
4606
4607 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4608 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4609
4610 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4611 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4612 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4613 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4614
4615 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4616 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4617 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4618 translate automatically to and from either one.
4619
4620 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4621
4622 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4623 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4624 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4625 what you want.
4626
4627 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4628 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4629 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4630 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4631
4632 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4633 character conversion as well.
4634
4635 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4636
4637 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4638 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4639 requires using many fonts.
4640
4641 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4642 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4643
4644 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4645 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4646 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4647 you would use a font.
4648
4649 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4650 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4651 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4652
4653 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4654 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4655 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4656 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4657 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4658
4659 *** Defining fontsets.
4660
4661 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4662 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4663 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4664
4665 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4666 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4667 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4668 standard fontset are created automatically.
4669
4670 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4671 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4672 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4673 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4674 name is `fontset-startup'.
4675
4676 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4677 The resource value should have this form:
4678 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4679 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4680 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4681 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4682 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4683 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4684 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4685 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4686 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4687
4688 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4689 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4690 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4691
4692 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4693 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4694 following resource,
4695 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4696 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4697 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4698 Here is the substitution rule:
4699 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4700 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4701 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4702 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4703 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4704
4705 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4706 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4707 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4708
4709 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4710 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4711 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4712 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4713 fontsets.
4714
4715 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4716 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4717
4718 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4719 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4720 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4721 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4722 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4723 system for new files that you create.
4724
4725 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4726 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4727 whole Emacs session.
4728
4729 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4730 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4731 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4732
4733 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4734 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4735 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4736 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4737 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4738
4739 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4740 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4741 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4742 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4743 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4744
4745 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4746 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4747
4748 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4749 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4750
4751 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4752 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4753
4754 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4755 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4756 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4757 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4758 of the file.
4759
4760 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4761 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4762 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4763 translated into that character code.
4764
4765 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4766 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4767
4768 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4769
4770 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4771 the coding system for keyboard input.
4772
4773 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4774 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4775 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4776
4777 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4778
4779 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4780 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4781 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4782 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4783 designed to work with terminals.
4784
4785 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4786 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4787 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4788 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4789 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4790 in the corresponding buffer.
4791
4792 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4793
4794 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4795 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4796 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4797
4798 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4799 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4800 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4801 want to use.
4802
4803 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4804 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4805
4806 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4807 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4808 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4809 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4810
4811 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4812 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4813 related information.
4814
4815 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4816 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4817 scripts.
4818
4819 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4820 information about the support for a particular language.
4821 You specify the language as an argument.
4822
4823 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4824 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4825 first dash.
4826
4827 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4828 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4829 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4830 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4831
4832 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4833 B big5 (Chinese)
4834 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4835 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4836 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4837 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4838 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4839 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4840 K euc-korea (Korean)
4841 R koi8 (Russian)
4842 Q tibetan
4843 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4844 T lao
4845 T tis620 (Thai)
4846 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4847 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4848 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4849 v viqr (Vietnamese)
4850 z hz (Chinese)
4851
4852 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4853 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4854 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4855 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4856
4857 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4858 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4859
4860 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4861 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4862 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4863 Rmail files themselves.
4864
4865 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4866 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4867
4868 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4869 for sending mail:
4870
4871 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4872 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4873 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4874 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4875 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4876
4877 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4878 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4879 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4880 translations.
4881
4882 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4883 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4884 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4885 without any conversion.
4886
4887 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4888 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4889 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4890 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4891
4892 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4893 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4894
4895 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4896 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4897
4898 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4899 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4900
4901 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4902 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4903 in the buffer before point.
4904
4905 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4906 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4907 you are using.
4908
4909 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4910 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4911
4912 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4913
4914 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4915 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4916
4917 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4918 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4919 can become a bottleneck.
4920
4921 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4922 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4923 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4924 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4925 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4926 so useful that the change is worth while.
4927
4928 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4929 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4930 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4931 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4932
4933 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4934 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4935 show-paren-mode.
4936
4937 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4938 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4939 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4940
4941 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4942 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4943 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4944
4945 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4946 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4947 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4948
4949 ** Changes in View mode.
4950
4951 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4952 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4953
4954 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4955 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4956
4957 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4958 previous state.
4959
4960 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4961 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4962
4963 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4964 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4965 not just the selected window.
4966
4967 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4968 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4969 turns View mode on or off.
4970
4971 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4972 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4973 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4974
4975 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4976 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4977
4978 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4979 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4980 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4981 which version to compare with.
4982
4983 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4984 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4985
4986 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4987 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4988 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4989 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4990
4991 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4992 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4993 blocks, all of them or none.
4994
4995 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4996 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4997 confirmation first.
4998
4999 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5000 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5001 However, the mode will not be changed if
5002 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5003 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5004 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5005 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5006
5007 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5008
5009 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5010 these commands do not change the major mode.
5011
5012 ** M-x occur changes.
5013
5014 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5015 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5016
5017 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5018 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5019 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5020
5021 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5022 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5023 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5024 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5025 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5026
5027 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5028 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5029 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5030 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5031
5032 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5033 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5034 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5035
5036 ** Outline mode changes.
5037
5038 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5039
5040 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5041
5042 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5043 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5044 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5045 was already active.
5046
5047 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5048 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5049 get confused by it.
5050
5051 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5052 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5053
5054 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5055
5056 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5057 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5058 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5059 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5060
5061 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5062 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5063 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5064
5065 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5066 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5067 values.
5068
5069 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5070 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5071 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5072 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5073
5074 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5075 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5076 can be. The default value is 30.
5077
5078 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5079
5080 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5081 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5082 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5083 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5084 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5085 behavior.
5086
5087 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5088 compose-mail-other-frame.
5089
5090 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5091 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5092 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5093 buffer that shows the original message.
5094
5095 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5096 with separator lines around the contents.
5097
5098 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5099 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5100 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5101 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5102
5103 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5104
5105 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5106 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5107 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5108 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5109
5110 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5111 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5112 /etc/passwd.
5113
5114 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5115 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5116 /etc/passwd.
5117
5118 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5119 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5120 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5121 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5122
5123 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5124 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5125 be taken to be magic.
5126
5127 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5128 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5129 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5130
5131 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5132 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5133
5134 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5135 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5136
5137 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5138
5139 new key dired.el binding old key
5140 ------- ---------------- -------
5141 * c dired-change-marks c
5142 * m dired-mark m
5143 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5144 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5145 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5146 * u dired-unmark u
5147 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5148 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5149 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5150 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5151 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5152 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5153
5154 ** Rmail changes.
5155
5156 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5157 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5158 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5159 each time you run it.
5160
5161 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5162 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5163
5164 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5165 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5166 means to move in the opposite direction.
5167
5168 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5169 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5170
5171 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5172 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5173 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5174 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5175 for output.
5176
5177 ** Gnus changes.
5178
5179 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5180
5181 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5182 Gnus.
5183
5184 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5185 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5186
5187 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5188 article mode line.
5189
5190 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5191
5192 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5193
5194 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5195
5196 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5197 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5198 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5199
5200 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5201
5202 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5203
5204 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5205 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5206
5207 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5208 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5209 used to pick articles.
5210
5211 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5212 another have been added.
5213
5214 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5215
5216 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5217 generating lines in buffers.
5218
5219 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5220 `M-C-_'.
5221
5222 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5223
5224 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5225
5226 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5227
5228 *** Scores can be decayed.
5229
5230 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5231
5232 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5233 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5234
5235 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5236 the native server.
5237
5238 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5239
5240 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5241 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5242
5243 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5244
5245 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5246 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5247
5248 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5249 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5250
5251 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5252 a group.
5253
5254 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5255 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5256
5257 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5258
5259 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5260
5261 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5262
5263 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5264
5265 Use the `Y c' command.
5266
5267 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5268
5269 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5270
5271 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5272
5273 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5274 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5275
5276 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5277
5278 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5279
5280 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5281 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5282
5283 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5284
5285 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5286 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5287 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5288 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5289 this issue.)
5290
5291 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5292 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5293 particular news group. This can be done by:
5294
5295 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5296
5297 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5298 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5299 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5300 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5301 for reading and posting).
5302
5303 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
5304 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
5305 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
5306 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
5307 there.
5308
5309 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
5310 default. Here are some of these default settings:
5311
5312 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
5313 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
5314 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
5315 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
5316 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
5317
5318 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
5319 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
5320
5321 ** CC mode changes.
5322
5323 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
5324 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
5325 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
5326 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
5327 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
5328 loaded.
5329
5330 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
5331 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
5332 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
5333 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
5334 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
5335 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
5336
5337 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
5338 of the current buffer.
5339
5340 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
5341 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
5342 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
5343
5344 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
5345 style that the Python developers like.
5346
5347 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
5348 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
5349 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
5350
5351 ** VC Changes [new]
5352
5353 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
5354 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
5355 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
5356
5357 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
5358 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
5359 developers.
5360
5361 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
5362 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
5363
5364 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
5365 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
5366 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
5367 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
5368
5369 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
5370 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
5371
5372 ** Calendar changes.
5373
5374 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
5375 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
5376 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
5377
5378 ** ps-print changes
5379
5380 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
5381
5382 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
5383
5384 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
5385 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
5386 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
5387 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
5388 It defaults to `letter'.
5389 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
5390
5391 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
5392 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
5393 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
5394
5395 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
5396 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
5397 It defaults to 1.
5398
5399 *** Horizontal layout
5400
5401 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
5402 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
5403 All are measured in points.
5404
5405 *** Vertical layout
5406
5407 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
5408 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
5409 All are measured in points.
5410
5411 *** Headers
5412
5413 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
5414 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
5415 margin above the text.
5416
5417 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
5418 framing box is printed around the header.
5419
5420 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
5421 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
5422
5423 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
5424 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
5425 `ps-header-font-size'.
5426
5427 *** Font managing
5428
5429 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
5430 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
5431 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
5432 elements to this alist.
5433
5434 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
5435 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
5436
5437 ** hideshow changes.
5438
5439 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
5440 C++, ; for lisp).
5441
5442 *** Support for java-mode added.
5443
5444 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
5445 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
5446
5447 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
5448 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
5449 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
5450
5451 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
5452 robust and a lot faster.
5453
5454 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
5455
5456 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
5457 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
5458 documentation for more details.
5459
5460 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
5461
5462 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
5463 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
5464 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
5465 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
5466 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
5467
5468 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
5469 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
5470 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
5471 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
5472
5473 ** Font Lock mode
5474
5475 *** Custom support
5476
5477 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
5478 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
5479 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
5480 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
5481 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
5482 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
5483
5484 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
5485
5486 *** Maximum decoration
5487
5488 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
5489 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
5490 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
5491 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
5492 to get the old behavior.
5493
5494 *** New support
5495
5496 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
5497
5498 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
5499 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
5500
5501 *** Configurable support
5502
5503 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
5504 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
5505 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
5506 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
5507 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
5508 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
5509 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
5510
5511 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
5512 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
5513 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
5514
5515 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
5516
5517 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
5518 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
5519 for any mode.
5520
5521 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
5522
5523 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
5524
5525 in your ~/.emacs.
5526
5527 *** New faces
5528
5529 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
5530 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
5531 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
5532 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
5533
5534 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
5535
5536 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
5537 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
5538 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
5539
5540 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
5541
5542 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
5543 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
5544 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
5545 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
5546 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
5547 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
5548 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
5549
5550 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
5551 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
5552 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
5553 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
5554 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
5555 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
5556
5557 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
5558
5559 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
5560 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
5561 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
5562 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
5563
5564 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
5565 settings.
5566
5567 ** Ada mode changes.
5568
5569 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
5570 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
5571 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
5572 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
5573 stubs.
5574
5575 *** There are two new commands:
5576 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
5577 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
5578
5579 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5580 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5581 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5582
5583 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5584 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5585 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5586
5587 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5588 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5589 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5590 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5591
5592 ** Scheme mode changes.
5593
5594 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5595 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5596 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5597 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5598 have any effect.
5599
5600 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5601 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5602 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5603 variables as buffer-local variables.
5604
5605 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5606 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
5607
5608 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
5609
5610 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
5611 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
5612 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
5613 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
5614
5615 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5616 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5617 buffer in Emacs.
5618
5619 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
5620 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
5621 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
5622 option takes precedence.
5623
5624 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5625 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5626 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5627
5628 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5629 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5630 the current defun.
5631
5632 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5633 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5634
5635 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5636 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5637 necessary).
5638
5639 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5640 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5641 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5642 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5643 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5644 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5645
5646 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5647 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5648 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5649 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5650
5651 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5652 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5653 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5654 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5655 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5656
5657 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5658 since it applies only to the current frame.
5659
5660 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5661 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5662 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5663
5664 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5665 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5666 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5667 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5668 instead of just the file you are editing.
5669
5670 ** RefTeX mode
5671
5672 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5673 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5674 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5675 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5676 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5677
5678 C-c ( reftex-label
5679 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5680 knows which kind of label is needed.
5681
5682 C-c ) reftex-reference
5683 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5684 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5685
5686 C-c [ reftex-citation
5687 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5688 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5689
5690 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5691 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5692
5693 C-c = reftex-toc
5694 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5695 can quickly jump to every section.
5696
5697 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5698 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5699 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5700 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5701 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5702
5703 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5704
5705 *** Info documentation is now available.
5706
5707 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5708 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5709
5710 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5711 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5712
5713 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5714 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5715
5716 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5717 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5718 appropriate functions.
5719
5720 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5721 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5722
5723 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5724 been cleaned.
5725
5726 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5727 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5728
5729 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5730 shall be delimited.
5731
5732 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5733 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5734 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5735
5736 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5737 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5738 prefixed with `ALT'.
5739
5740 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5741 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5742 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5743 documentation).
5744
5745 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5746 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5747 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5748
5749 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5750 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5751
5752 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5753 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5754 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5755
5756 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5757
5758 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5759
5760 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5761 from alien sources.
5762
5763 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5764 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5765 crossref entries.
5766
5767 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5768 region.
5769
5770 *** Added support for imenu.
5771
5772 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5773 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5774 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5775 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5776
5777 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5778 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5779
5780 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5781
5782 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
5783
5784 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5785 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5786 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5787 as an argument.
5788
5789 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5790 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5791
5792 ** browse-url changes
5793
5794 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5795 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5796 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5797 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5798 customization variables.
5799
5800 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5801
5802 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5803 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5804 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5805
5806 ** Changes in Ediff
5807
5808 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5809 pops up the Info file for this command.
5810
5811 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5812 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5813 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5814 directories).
5815
5816 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5817 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5818 files in the same directory.
5819
5820 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5821 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5822 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5823
5824 ** Changes in Viper
5825
5826 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5827 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5828 instead of vip-.
5829 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5830 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5831 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5832 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5833 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5834 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5835 color when Viper is in insert state.
5836 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5837 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5838 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5839
5840 ** Etags changes.
5841
5842 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5843 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5844 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5845 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5846 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5847
5848 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5849
5850 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5851 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5852
5853 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5854 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5855 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5856
5857 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5858 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5859 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5860 methods and protocols.
5861
5862 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5863 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5864 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5865 paragraph name.
5866
5867 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5868 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5869 at least M times and as many as N times.
5870
5871 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5872 in files has changed slightly.
5873
5874 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5875 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5876 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5877 with old time-stamp-format values.
5878
5879 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5880 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5881 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5882 reasons.
5883
5884 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5885 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5886 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5887 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5888 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5889 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5890
5891 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5892 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5893 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5894
5895 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5896 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5897 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5898 recommended now will continue to work then.
5899
5900 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5901 details.
5902
5903 ** There are some additional major modes:
5904
5905 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5906 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5907 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5908
5909 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5910 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5911 into Emacs.
5912
5913 ** New Lisp packages include:
5914
5915 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5916
5917 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5918 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5919
5920 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5921
5922 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5923 in shell buffers.
5924
5925 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5926 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5927 and `elint-defun'.
5928
5929 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5930 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5931 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5932 strings or comments.
5933
5934 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5935 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5936 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5937 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5938 at these points.
5939
5940 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5941 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5942
5943 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5944 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5945
5946 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5947
5948 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5949 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5950
5951 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5952
5953 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5954
5955 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5956
5957 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5958 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5959
5960 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5961 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5962 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5963 original place after inserting the copy.
5964
5965 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5966 on the buffer.
5967
5968 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5969 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5970 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5971
5972 Enable mouse-drag with:
5973 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5974 -or-
5975 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5976
5977 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5978 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5979
5980 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5981 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5982
5983 *** ogonek
5984
5985 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5986 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5987 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5988 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5989 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5990 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5991 instance) and vice versa.
5992
5993 To use this package load it using
5994 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5995 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5996 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5997 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5998 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5999 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6000
6001 *** Interface to ph.
6002
6003 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6004
6005 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6006 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6007 these servers.
6008
6009 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6010
6011 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6012 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6013 while the real cursor does not move.
6014
6015 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6016 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6017
6018 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6019 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6020
6021 ** movemail change
6022
6023 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6024 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6025 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6026 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6027
6028 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6029 \f
6030 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6031
6032 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6033
6034 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6035 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6036 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6037 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6038 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6039
6040 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6041 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6042 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6043 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6044 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6045 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6046 \f
6047 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6048
6049 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6050 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6051 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6052 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6053
6054 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6055 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6056
6057 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6058 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6059 "win".
6060
6061 ** Basic Lisp changes
6062
6063 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6064 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6065
6066 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6067 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6068 or by the user.
6069
6070 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6071
6072 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6073
6074 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6075 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6076
6077 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6078 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6079 its argument.
6080
6081 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6082
6083 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6084
6085 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6086
6087 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6088 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6089 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6090 `format' function.
6091
6092 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6093 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6094 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6095
6096 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6097 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6098 adding one of these suffixes.
6099
6100 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6101 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6102 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6103
6104 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6105 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6106
6107 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6108
6109 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6110 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6111
6112 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6113 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6114
6115 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6116
6117 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6118 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6119
6120 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6121 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6122 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6123 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6124
6125 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6126 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6127 of the last form.
6128
6129 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6130 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6131 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6132 as the last form.
6133
6134 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6135 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6136 matches.
6137
6138 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6139
6140 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6141 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6142 Then it returns that string.
6143
6144 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6145
6146 (with-output-to-string
6147 (princ "The buffer is ")
6148 (princ (buffer-name)))
6149
6150 returns "The buffer is foo".
6151
6152 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6153 is non-nil.
6154
6155 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6156 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6157 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6158
6159 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6160 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6161
6162 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6163 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6164 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6165 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6166 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6167 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6168
6169 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6170 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6171 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6172 characters".
6173
6174 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6175 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6176 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6177 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6178 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6179
6180 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6181 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6182 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6183 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6184
6185 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6186 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6187
6188 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6189
6190 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6191 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6192 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6193 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6194 guaranteed.
6195
6196 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6197 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6198 character).
6199
6200 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6201
6202 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6203 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6204 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6205 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6206 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6207
6208 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6209
6210 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6211 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6212 more than the number of characters.
6213
6214 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6215 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6216 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6217 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6218 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6219 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6220
6221 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6222 and returns a string containing those characters.
6223
6224 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6225 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6226 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6227 character, sref signals an error.
6228
6229 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6230 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6231 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6232
6233 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6234 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6235 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6236
6237 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6238 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6239 to a vector of the characters in it.
6240
6241 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6242 of a string. You call it as follows:
6243
6244 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6245
6246 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6247 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6248 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6249 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6250 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6251
6252 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6253 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6254
6255 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6256 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6257
6258 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6259 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6260 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6261 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6262
6263 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6264
6265 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6266
6267 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6268 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6269 are not included in the resulting value.
6270
6271 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6272 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6273 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6274 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6275
6276 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6277 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6278 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6279 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6280 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6281 column START-COLUMN.
6282
6283 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6284 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6285 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6286 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6287 changed text, before the change.
6288
6289 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6290 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6291 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6292
6293 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6294
6295 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6296
6297 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6298 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6299
6300 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6301 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6302 which identify the character within that character set.
6303
6304 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
6305 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
6306 opposite of split-char.
6307
6308 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
6309 of all the characters between BEG and END.
6310
6311 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
6312 of all the characters in a string.
6313
6314 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
6315 and specifying coding systems.
6316
6317 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
6318 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
6319 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
6320 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
6321 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
6322 as what to do about code conversion.)
6323
6324 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
6325 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
6326
6327 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6328 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6329 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
6330
6331 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6332 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
6333 to match against a file name.
6334
6335 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6336 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6337 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6338 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6339 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6340 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6341
6342 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6343 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6344
6345 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
6346 the coding system to use for network sockets.
6347
6348 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6349 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
6350 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
6351 service names.
6352
6353 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6354 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6355 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6356 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6357 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6358 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6359
6360 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6361 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6362
6363 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6364 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6365 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
6366 start the subprocess.
6367
6368 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
6369 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
6370 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
6371 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
6372 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
6373
6374 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
6375 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
6376 subprocess.
6377
6378 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
6379 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
6380 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
6381 connection permanently or until overridden.
6382
6383 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
6384 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
6385 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
6386 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
6387 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
6388 system for one operation at a time.
6389
6390 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
6391 files, subprocesses or network connections.
6392
6393 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
6394 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
6395 The value is a cons cell,
6396 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
6397 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
6398 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
6399 input to the subprocess.
6400
6401 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
6402 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
6403
6404 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
6405 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
6406 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
6407
6408 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
6409 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
6410 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
6411 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
6412 customization.
6413
6414 Thus, instead of writing
6415
6416 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
6417 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
6418
6419 you would now write this:
6420
6421 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
6422 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
6423 :type 'boolean
6424 :group foo)
6425
6426 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
6427 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
6428 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
6429 for a description of them.
6430
6431 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
6432 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
6433
6434 (defgroup ispell nil
6435 "Spell checking using Ispell."
6436 :group 'processes)
6437
6438 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
6439 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
6440 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
6441 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
6442 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
6443
6444 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
6445 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
6446 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
6447 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
6448 first-level subgroups.
6449
6450 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
6451
6452 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
6453 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
6454
6455 ** easy-mmode
6456
6457 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
6458 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
6459 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
6460 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
6461 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
6462 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
6463
6464 ** Text property changes
6465
6466 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
6467 text property.
6468
6469 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
6470 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
6471 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
6472 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
6473 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
6474
6475 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
6476 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
6477 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
6478 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
6479
6480 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
6481 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
6482 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
6483
6484 ** Changes in invisibility features
6485
6486 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
6487 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
6488 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
6489 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
6490 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
6491 make the overlay visible.
6492
6493 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
6494 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
6495 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
6496 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
6497 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
6498 t when it should hide it.
6499
6500 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
6501
6502 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
6503 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
6504 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
6505 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
6506 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
6507 Here is an example of how to do this:
6508
6509 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
6510 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6511 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
6512 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6513
6514 ...
6515 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
6516
6517 ...
6518 ;; When done with the overlays:
6519 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6520 ;; Or respectively:
6521 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6522
6523 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
6524
6525 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
6526 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
6527 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
6528 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
6529
6530 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
6531 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
6532 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
6533
6534 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
6535 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
6536
6537 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
6538 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
6539
6540 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
6541 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
6542 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
6543
6544 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
6545 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
6546 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
6547 determine the syntax type of the character.
6548
6549 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
6550 of the current buffer.
6551
6552 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
6553 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
6554 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
6555
6556 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
6557 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
6558 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
6559 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
6560 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
6561
6562 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
6563 text property.
6564
6565 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
6566 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
6567 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
6568
6569 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
6570 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
6571 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
6572 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
6573 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
6574
6575 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
6576 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
6577 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
6578
6579 ** Changes in face features
6580
6581 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
6582 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
6583
6584 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
6585 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
6586
6587 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
6588 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
6589
6590 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
6591 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
6592
6593 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6594 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6595 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6596 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6597 overlay property).
6598
6599 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6600 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6601
6602 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6603
6604 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6605 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6606 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6607 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6608
6609 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6610 begins with ~.
6611
6612 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6613 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6614
6615 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6616 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6617
6618 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6619 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6620
6621 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6622 character code conversion as well as other things.
6623
6624 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6625 (formerly it did not).
6626
6627 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6628 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6629
6630 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6631 instead of constant strings.
6632
6633 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6634 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6635 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6636
6637 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6638 in the same way as before.
6639
6640 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6641 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6642 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6643
6644 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6645 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6646 else, and returns nil.
6647
6648 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6649 directory cannot be listed.
6650
6651 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6652
6653 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6654 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6655 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6656 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6657 ways:
6658
6659 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6660 It is available through the history command M-n.
6661
6662 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6663 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6664 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6665 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6666 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6667
6668 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6669 argument in this way.
6670
6671 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6672 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6673 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6674
6675 ** Echo area features
6676
6677 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6678 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6679 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6680 after the echo area is cleared.
6681
6682 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6683 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6684
6685 ** Keyboard input features
6686
6687 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6688 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6689
6690 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6691 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6692 by keyboard macros.
6693
6694 ** Frame-related changes
6695
6696 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6697 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6698 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6699
6700 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6701 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6702 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6703
6704 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6705 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6706 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6707 in the selected frame.
6708
6709 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6710 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6711 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6712
6713 ** X Windows features
6714
6715 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6716 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6717 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6718
6719 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6720 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6721
6722 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6723 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6724 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6725
6726 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6727 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6728
6729 ** Subprocess features
6730
6731 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6732 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6733 automatically.
6734
6735 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6736 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6737
6738 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6739 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6740
6741 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6742 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6743
6744 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6745 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6746 goes after the other menu items.
6747
6748 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6749 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6750 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6751 are in use.
6752
6753 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6754 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6755
6756 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6757 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6758 form.
6759
6760 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6761 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6762 but its hook is still run.
6763
6764 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6765 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6766
6767 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6768 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6769 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6770
6771 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6772 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6773 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6774 warned.
6775
6776 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6777 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6778
6779 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6780 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6781 functions like display-time.
6782
6783 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6784 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6785
6786 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6787 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6788 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6789
6790 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6791 if there is an error in compilation.
6792
6793 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6794 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6795 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6796 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6797
6798 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6799 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6800 the *scratch* buffer.
6801
6802 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6803 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6804 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6805 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6806
6807 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6808 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6809 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6810
6811 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6812 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6813 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6814 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6815
6816 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6817 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6818 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6819
6820 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6821 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6822 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6823 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6824 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6825 files at all.
6826
6827 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6828 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6829 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6830 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6831
6832 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6833 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6834 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6835 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6836
6837 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6838
6839 ** imenu.el changes.
6840
6841 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6842 item from menu created by imenu.
6843
6844 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6845 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6846 select one of those items.
6847 \f
6848 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6849 \f
6850 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6851
6852 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6853 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6854
6855 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6856 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6857 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6858 \f
6859 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6860
6861 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6862 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6863
6864 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6865 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6866 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6867 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6868 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6869 all caps.
6870
6871 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6872 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6873
6874 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6875 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6876 as in previous Emacs versions.
6877
6878 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6879 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6880 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6881 frames.
6882
6883 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6884 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6885 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6886 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6887 accident.
6888
6889 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6890 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6891 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6892 line and then executing the macro.
6893
6894 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6895
6896 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6897 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6898 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6899 characters.
6900
6901 ** Font Lock mode
6902
6903 *** Font Lock support modes
6904
6905 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6906 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6907 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6908 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6909 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6910
6911 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6912
6913 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6914
6915 in your ~/.emacs.
6916
6917 *** lazy-lock
6918
6919 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6920 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6921 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6922 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6923 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6924 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6925 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6926
6927 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6928
6929 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6930
6931 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6932
6933 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6934
6935 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6936 paren and key.
6937
6938 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6939 supported.
6940
6941 ** Gnus changes.
6942
6943 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6944 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6945 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6946 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6947
6948 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6949 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6950
6951 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6952 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6953 obsolete.
6954
6955 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6956 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6957
6958 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6959
6960 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6961
6962 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6963
6964 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6965 referred.
6966
6967 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6968
6969 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6970
6971 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6972
6973 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6974
6975 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6976 buffers.
6977
6978 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6979
6980 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6981
6982 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6983
6984 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6985
6986 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6987
6988 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6989
6990 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6991
6992 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6993 is possible.
6994
6995 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6996
6997 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6998 groups of groups.
6999
7000 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7001
7002 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7003 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7004
7005 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7006
7007 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7008
7009 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7010
7011 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7012
7013 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7014 expiration times.
7015
7016 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7017
7018 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7019 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7020
7021 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7022 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7023 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7024
7025 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7026 articles with the `*' command.
7027
7028 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7029
7030 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7031
7032 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7033
7034 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7035
7036 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7037 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7038
7039 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7040 buffer.
7041
7042 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7043
7044 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7045
7046 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7047
7048 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7049
7050 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7051
7052 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7053
7054 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7055
7056 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7057
7058 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7059
7060 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7061 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7062
7063 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7064 refetching.
7065
7066 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7067
7068 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7069 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7070
7071 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7072
7073 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7074
7075 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7076
7077 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7078 articles.
7079
7080 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7081
7082 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7083
7084 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7085 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7086
7087 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7088
7089 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7090
7091 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7092
7093 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7094
7095 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7096
7097 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7098 in greater detail.
7099 \f
7100 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7101
7102 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7103 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7104 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7105 exists.
7106
7107 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7108 as well as lists.
7109
7110 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7111 of a given keymap.
7112
7113 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7114 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7115 keymap or nil.
7116
7117 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7118 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7119 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7120 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7121 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7122 alias.
7123 \f
7124 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7125
7126 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7127
7128 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7129 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7130 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7131 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7132 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7133
7134 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7135 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7136 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7137
7138 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7139
7140 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7141 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7142 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7143 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7144 chapter of the manual for details.
7145
7146 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7147 customization variables take effect.
7148
7149 ** Marking with the mouse.
7150
7151 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7152 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7153 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7154
7155 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7156
7157 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7158
7159 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7160 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7161
7162 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7163 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7164 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7165 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7166 applications, these problems are significant.
7167
7168 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7169 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7170 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7171 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7172 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7173
7174 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7175 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7176
7177 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7178 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7179 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7180 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7181 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7182 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7183
7184 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7185
7186 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7187 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7188 minibuffer contains.
7189
7190 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7191
7192 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7193 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7194 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7195 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7196
7197 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7198 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7199 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7200 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7201
7202 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7203 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7204
7205 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7206 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7207 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7208
7209 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7210 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7211 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7212 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7213
7214 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7215
7216 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7217 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7218
7219 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7220
7221 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7222 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7223 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7224 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7225 immediately after the selected one.
7226
7227 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7228 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7229
7230 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7231
7232 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7233 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7234 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7235 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7236 recover-session.
7237
7238 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7239 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7240 will not work.
7241
7242 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7243 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7244 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7245 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7246 now that the bug is fixed.
7247
7248 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7249
7250 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7251 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7252 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7253 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7254
7255 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7256 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7257 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7258 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7259
7260 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7261 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7262 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7263
7264 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7265 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7266 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7267 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7268 remain normal.
7269
7270 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7271 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7272
7273 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7274 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7275 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7276 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7277
7278 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7279 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7280 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7281 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7282 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7283 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7284
7285 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7286 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7287 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7288 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7289
7290 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7291 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7292 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7293
7294 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7295 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7296 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7297 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7298 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7299 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7300 to a limitation in font-lock).
7301
7302 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
7303
7304 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
7305 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
7306 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
7307 this example:
7308
7309 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
7310 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
7311
7312 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7313
7314 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
7315
7316 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
7317
7318 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
7319
7320 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
7321 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
7322 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
7323 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
7324 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
7325 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
7326
7327 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
7328 does the same job.
7329
7330 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
7331 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
7332
7333 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
7334 text.
7335
7336 ** Font Lock mode
7337
7338 *** Global Font Lock mode
7339
7340 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
7341 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
7342 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
7343 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
7344 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
7345
7346 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
7347
7348 (global-font-lock-mode t)
7349
7350 in your ~/.emacs.
7351
7352 *** Local Refontification
7353
7354 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
7355 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
7356 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
7357 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
7358
7359 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
7360 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
7361 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
7362 above and below point.
7363
7364 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
7365
7366 ** Follow mode
7367
7368 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
7369 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
7370 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
7371 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
7372 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
7373 follow-mode.
7374
7375 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
7376
7377 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
7378 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
7379
7380 ** hide-show changes.
7381
7382 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
7383 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
7384 normal hooks.
7385
7386 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
7387 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
7388
7389 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
7390 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
7391 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
7392
7393 ** MSDOS Changes
7394
7395 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
7396 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
7397
7398 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
7399 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
7400
7401 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
7402
7403 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
7404 pressing both mouse buttons.
7405
7406 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
7407 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
7408 are:
7409
7410 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
7411 now works.
7412
7413 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
7414
7415 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
7416 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
7417
7418 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
7419
7420 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
7421
7422 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
7423
7424 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
7425
7426 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
7427 \f
7428 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
7429
7430 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
7431 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
7432 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
7433 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
7434 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
7435
7436 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
7437
7438 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
7439 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
7440 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
7441 be different.
7442
7443 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
7444 than `system-type'.
7445
7446 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
7447
7448 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
7449 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
7450
7451 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
7452 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
7453
7454 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
7455 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
7456 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
7457
7458 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
7459 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
7460 like this:
7461
7462 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7463
7464 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
7465 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
7466 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
7467
7468 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
7469 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
7470 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
7471
7472 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
7473 up if too much time passes.
7474
7475 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
7476
7477 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
7478 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
7479 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
7480 form in BODY.
7481
7482 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
7483 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
7484 call looks like this:
7485
7486 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7487
7488 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
7489 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
7490 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
7491 ARGS.
7492
7493 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
7494 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
7495 command.
7496
7497 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
7498 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
7499 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
7500 each time Emacs becomes idle.
7501
7502 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
7503 idle for SECS seconds.
7504
7505 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
7506 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
7507 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
7508 instead.
7509
7510 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
7511 there is no answer within a certain time.
7512
7513 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
7514
7515 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
7516 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
7517 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
7518
7519 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
7520 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
7521 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
7522 arguments in between are ignored.
7523
7524 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
7525 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
7526
7527 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
7528 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
7529 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
7530 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
7531 version.
7532
7533 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
7534 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
7535 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
7536 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
7537 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
7538 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
7539
7540 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
7541 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
7542 systems with limited file name syntax.
7543
7544 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
7545 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
7546 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
7547 completions.el:
7548
7549 (defvar save-completions-file-name
7550 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
7551 "*The filename to save completions to.")
7552
7553 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
7554 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
7555 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
7556 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
7557 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
7558
7559 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
7560 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
7561 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
7562
7563 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
7564 marker from its buffer position.
7565
7566 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
7567 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
7568 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
7569
7570 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
7571 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
7572 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
7573 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
7574 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
7575 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
7576
7577 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
7578 errors that happen often during editing.
7579
7580 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
7581 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
7582 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
7583
7584 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
7585 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
7586
7587 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
7588 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
7589 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
7590 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
7591 and not get-buffer-window.
7592
7593 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7594 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7595 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7596
7597 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7598 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7599 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7600 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7601 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7602 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7603 over and over for the same text.
7604
7605 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7606
7607 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7608 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7609
7610 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7611 ;; $HEADER: text $
7612
7613 in addition to the normal
7614
7615 ;; HEADER: text
7616
7617 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7618 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7619 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7620 \f
7621 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7622
7623 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7624 Copyright information:
7625
7626 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7627
7628 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7629 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7630 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7631 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7632
7633 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7634 of this document, or of portions of it,
7635 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7636 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7637 \f
7638 Local variables:
7639 mode: outline
7640 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
7641 end: