1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
11 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
12 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
15 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
18 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
19 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
22 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
23 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
25 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
26 with a space, if they visit files.
28 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
29 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
30 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
32 ** In Texinfo mode, when Font-Lock is enabled, updating one of the
33 `foo's in `@foo ... @end foo' updates the other one on the fly.
35 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
36 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
37 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
39 ** New user option `sgml-xml'.
40 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
41 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
42 When not customized, it becomes buffer-local when it can be inferred
43 from the file name or buffer contents.
45 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
46 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
47 instead of using default-major-mode.
49 ** Byte compiler warning and error messages have been brought more
50 in line with the output of other GNU tools.
52 ** Lisp-mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
54 ** perl-mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
56 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
57 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
60 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
61 much pure storage it will approximately need.
63 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
64 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
65 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
68 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
69 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
70 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
71 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
72 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
73 candidate is a directory.
75 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
76 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
77 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
79 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
81 ** When using M-x revert-buffer in a compilation buffer to rerun a
82 compilation, it is now made sure that the compilation buffer is reused
83 in case it has been renamed.
85 ** New modes and packages
88 *** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
90 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
91 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
92 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
93 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
95 *** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
96 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
97 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
100 *** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
101 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
103 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
104 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
105 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
108 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
109 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
112 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
115 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
116 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
118 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
121 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.3
123 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
125 - Function: buffer-local-value variable buffer
127 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
128 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
129 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
131 ** The default value of paragraph-start and indent-line-function has
132 been changed to reflect the one used in text-mode rather than the one
133 used in indented-text-mode.
135 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
136 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
139 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
140 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
141 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP@ VAL2 ...) so you can set
142 other properties than `face'.
143 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
144 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
146 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
147 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
148 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
150 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
151 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
152 and run any code associated with the provided feature.
154 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
155 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
158 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
159 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
160 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
162 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
163 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
164 accepts a float as UID parameter.
166 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
168 ** `define-derived-mode' now accepts nil as the parent.
170 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
172 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
174 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
176 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
177 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
179 ** Variable aliases have been implemented
181 - Macro: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR
183 This defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for symbol
184 BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR returns
185 the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR changes the
188 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
190 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
191 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
192 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
194 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
195 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
197 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
198 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
200 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
201 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
203 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
204 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
208 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
209 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
212 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
214 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
215 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
216 charsets in this release.
218 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
220 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
222 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
223 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
226 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
227 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
228 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
229 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
230 necessary changes to unexec.
232 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
233 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
235 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
236 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
238 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
239 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
241 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
242 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
243 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
244 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
245 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
247 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
248 new display features described below.
251 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
253 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
255 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
256 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
257 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
258 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
261 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
263 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
264 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
265 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
266 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
269 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
270 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
271 under Lisp changes, below.
273 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
275 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
276 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
277 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
278 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
279 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
280 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
283 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
284 supported on character terminals.
286 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
287 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
288 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
289 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
291 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
295 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
296 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
297 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
298 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
301 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
303 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
304 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
305 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
306 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
308 - User option: max-mini-window-height
310 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
311 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
312 specifies a number of lines.
316 - User option: resize-mini-windows
318 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
319 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
320 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
323 Default is `grow-only'.
327 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
328 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
330 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
332 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
333 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
336 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
338 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
339 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
340 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
342 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
344 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
345 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
346 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
347 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
348 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
351 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
352 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
353 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
354 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
355 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
356 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
358 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
359 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
360 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
361 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
362 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
363 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
365 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
366 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
367 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
368 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
369 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
373 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
374 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
375 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
376 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
377 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
380 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
381 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
382 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
386 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
387 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
388 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
390 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
391 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
392 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
393 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
395 ** Automatic Hscrolling
397 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
398 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
401 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
402 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
403 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
404 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
405 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
407 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
408 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
409 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
410 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
411 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
412 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
414 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
415 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
416 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
417 customizing face `fringe'.
419 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
420 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
421 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
422 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
423 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
424 the window to be partially obscured.)
426 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
427 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
428 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
429 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
431 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
433 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
434 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
435 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
436 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
437 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
440 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
442 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
445 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
446 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
448 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
450 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
451 `*') toggles the status.
453 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
457 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
458 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
462 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
463 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
464 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
467 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
469 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
470 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
471 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
474 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
475 have to do anything to activate it.
477 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
479 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
480 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
482 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
483 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
484 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
485 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
486 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
487 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
488 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
489 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
491 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
492 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
493 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
494 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
495 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
496 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
498 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
499 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
501 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
502 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
505 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
506 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
507 beginning and end of the buffer.
509 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
510 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
513 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
514 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
516 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
517 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
520 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
521 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
524 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
526 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
527 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
528 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
530 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
531 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
532 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
534 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
537 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
539 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
540 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
541 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
542 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
543 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
546 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
547 all frames except the selected one.
549 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
550 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
552 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
553 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
554 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
555 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
556 `Info-use-header-line'.
558 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
559 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
560 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
562 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
564 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
565 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
568 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
569 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
570 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
571 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
573 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
575 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
576 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
577 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
578 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
580 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
581 point in a pop-up window.
583 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
584 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
585 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
587 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
588 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
590 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
591 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
592 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
593 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
595 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
597 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
598 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
600 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
601 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
602 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
604 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
605 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
608 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
609 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
610 file that is already visited under a different name.
612 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
613 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
615 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
616 and displays information about that.
618 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
619 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
621 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
622 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
623 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
624 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
625 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
626 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
628 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
629 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
631 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
632 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
633 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
634 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
635 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
636 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
637 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
639 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
640 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
642 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
643 system for keyboard input.
645 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
646 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
647 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
648 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
649 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
650 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
651 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
652 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
653 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
655 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
656 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
658 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
659 displays all characters in that character set.
661 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
662 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
664 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
665 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
666 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
668 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
669 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
670 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
671 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
672 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
673 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
676 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
677 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
680 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
681 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
682 Lisp Coding Convention".
684 new command old-binding
685 --- ------- -----------
686 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
687 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
688 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
690 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
691 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
692 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
694 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
695 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
696 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
697 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
698 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
699 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
701 ** There are new Leim input methods.
702 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
703 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
706 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
707 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
708 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
709 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
710 "`", you must type "=q".
712 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
713 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
714 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
715 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
716 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
719 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
720 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
721 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
722 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
724 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
725 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
726 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
727 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
729 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
730 on the display using several methods
732 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
733 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
734 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
736 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
737 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
739 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
741 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
742 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
744 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
745 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
746 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
747 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
749 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
750 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
751 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
753 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
754 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
756 ** New X resources recognized
758 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
759 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
760 is useful for debugging X problems.
764 emacs.synchronous: true
766 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
767 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
768 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
769 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
770 visual class names are
779 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
780 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
783 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
784 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
785 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
790 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
792 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
793 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
794 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
795 resource values are `true' or `on'.
799 emacs.privateColormap: true
801 ** Faces and frame parameters.
803 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
804 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
805 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
806 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
807 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
808 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
809 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
811 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
812 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
813 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
814 `default' face and vice versa.
818 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
820 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
822 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
823 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
824 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
825 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
827 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
828 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
829 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
831 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
834 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
836 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
837 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
838 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
839 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
841 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
843 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
845 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
847 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
850 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
853 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
855 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
856 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
857 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
859 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
860 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
862 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
863 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
864 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
866 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
868 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
869 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
870 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
871 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
873 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
874 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
875 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
876 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
878 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
879 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
880 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
883 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
885 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
886 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
887 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
889 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
890 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
891 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
892 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
893 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
894 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
896 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
898 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
899 notably at the end of lines.
901 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
902 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
904 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
906 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
907 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
909 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
910 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
911 after each match to get the replacement text.
913 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
914 you edit the replacement string.
916 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
917 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
918 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
920 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
922 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
923 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
925 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
926 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
927 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
928 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
931 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
932 read mail from the menu etc.
934 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
935 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
936 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
937 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
939 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
940 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
942 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
943 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
944 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
945 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
946 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
951 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
952 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
953 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
954 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
955 earlier versions of Emacs.
957 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
958 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
961 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
962 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
963 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
964 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
967 ** New features in evaluation commands
969 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
970 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
971 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
972 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
973 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
975 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
976 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
977 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
978 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
981 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
982 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
984 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
985 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
987 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
988 code when called with a prefix argument.
992 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
993 current user setups (although it's believed that these
994 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
995 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
996 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
997 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1000 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
1001 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
1002 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
1005 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
1006 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
1007 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
1008 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
1010 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
1011 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
1013 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
1014 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
1016 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
1017 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
1018 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
1019 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
1021 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
1022 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
1023 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
1024 earlier statement. An example:
1026 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1028 res += a[i]->offset;
1031 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1032 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1033 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1034 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1037 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1040 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1041 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1042 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1043 documentation or other natural language text.
1045 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1046 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1047 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1048 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1049 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1050 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1051 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1053 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1054 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1055 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1056 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1058 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1059 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1060 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1061 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1064 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1065 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1066 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1067 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1068 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1069 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1070 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1071 is reported afterwards.
1073 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1074 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1075 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1077 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1078 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1079 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1080 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1081 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1082 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1085 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1086 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1087 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1088 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1089 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1092 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1093 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1094 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1095 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1096 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1097 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1099 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1100 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1101 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1102 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1103 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1104 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1105 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1106 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1108 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1109 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1110 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1111 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1114 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1115 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1116 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1117 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1118 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1119 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1120 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1121 function documentation for more info.
1123 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1124 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1125 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1126 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1127 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1128 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1129 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1130 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1132 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1134 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1135 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1137 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1138 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1139 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1140 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1141 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1144 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1145 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1146 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1149 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1150 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1151 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1152 chapter about this in the manual.
1154 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1155 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1156 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1157 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1158 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1160 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1161 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1162 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1164 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1165 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1167 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1168 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1169 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1172 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1173 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1174 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1175 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1178 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
1179 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
1180 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
1181 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
1182 they were before the filling.
1184 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1185 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1186 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1189 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1190 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1191 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1192 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1195 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1196 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1197 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1198 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1199 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1201 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1202 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1203 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1205 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1207 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1208 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1209 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1210 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1212 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1213 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1214 the column specified by comment-column.
1216 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1217 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1218 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1219 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1220 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1221 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1223 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1224 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1227 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1229 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1230 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1231 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1232 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1235 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1239 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1240 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1241 is, delete only empty directories.
1243 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1244 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1245 copy directories recursively.
1247 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1248 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1249 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1251 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1252 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1255 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
1256 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1257 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1258 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1259 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1261 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1264 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1265 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1266 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1267 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1271 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
1272 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
1273 internationalization and mail-fetching.
1275 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1276 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1278 If you used procmail like in
1280 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
1281 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
1282 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
1283 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
1285 this now has changed to
1288 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1291 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1292 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1294 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
1295 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
1296 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
1297 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
1299 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
1300 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
1301 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
1303 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
1304 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
1305 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
1306 now just a compatibility layer.
1308 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1311 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1312 called to position point.
1314 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1315 summary buffers and NOV files.
1317 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1318 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1320 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1321 subtly different manner.
1323 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
1324 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
1325 ever-changing layouts.
1327 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1329 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1331 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1333 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1337 -------------------------
1341 C-c C-c q @quotation
1343 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1346 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1348 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1350 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
1351 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
1352 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
1354 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1356 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
1357 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
1358 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
1359 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
1360 buffers to kill, as before.
1362 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
1363 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
1366 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1367 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1369 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1371 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
1372 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
1373 use. Default is 1000.
1375 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
1376 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
1378 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1380 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1382 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
1383 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
1384 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
1385 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
1387 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
1388 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
1389 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
1392 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
1393 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
1394 the normal block-hiding function.
1396 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
1398 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
1399 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
1400 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
1401 for `hs-minor-mode'.
1403 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
1404 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
1406 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
1408 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
1409 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
1410 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
1412 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
1415 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
1418 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
1419 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
1420 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
1421 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
1422 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
1423 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
1425 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
1427 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1429 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
1430 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
1432 ** Changes in Font Lock
1434 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
1435 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
1437 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
1438 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
1440 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
1441 the face used for each string/comment.
1443 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
1444 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
1446 ** Changes to Shell mode
1448 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
1449 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
1450 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
1451 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
1453 ** Comint (subshell) changes
1455 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
1456 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
1458 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
1459 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
1460 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
1461 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
1462 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
1463 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
1465 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
1466 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
1467 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
1468 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
1469 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
1470 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
1471 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
1472 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
1474 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
1475 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
1477 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
1478 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
1479 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
1481 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
1482 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
1483 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
1485 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
1486 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
1487 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
1489 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
1490 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
1491 argument, it appends to the file.
1493 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1494 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1497 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1500 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1501 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1502 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1504 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1506 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1507 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1508 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1509 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1510 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1513 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1514 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1515 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1517 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1518 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1519 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1520 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1521 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1523 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1526 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1527 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1530 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1531 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1533 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1534 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1535 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1537 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
1538 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
1540 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1541 use the -f option when sending mail.
1543 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
1544 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
1545 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
1546 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
1547 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
1548 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
1550 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
1551 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
1552 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
1554 ** Changes to TeX mode
1556 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1559 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1561 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1563 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1565 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1567 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1568 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1569 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1570 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1571 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1572 can be edited from that buffer.
1574 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1575 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1576 `A' to use all marked entries).
1578 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1579 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1581 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1582 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1583 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1586 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1587 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1588 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1589 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1591 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1592 has the following new features:
1594 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1595 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1596 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1597 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1599 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1600 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1601 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1602 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1603 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1606 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1611 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1612 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1613 spell-checks the current buffer.
1615 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1618 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1619 correction is made and re-checked.
1621 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1623 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1626 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1629 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1632 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1634 ** Makefile mode changes
1636 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1638 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1639 Fontlock mode is active.
1643 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1644 so that searches can be resumed.
1646 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1647 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1648 that started the search.
1650 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1651 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1653 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1655 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1656 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1657 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1658 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1659 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1660 `secondary-selection'.
1662 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1663 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1664 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1665 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1666 usual snappy response.
1668 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1669 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1670 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1671 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1675 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1676 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1677 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1678 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1679 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1680 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1681 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1682 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1683 file is registered in that backend.
1685 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1686 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1687 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1688 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1689 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1690 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1692 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1693 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1694 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1695 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1696 where it doesn't make sense.)
1698 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1699 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1700 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1704 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1705 checks are always done now.
1707 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1710 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1711 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1712 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1714 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1715 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1716 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1717 the working file (``merge news'').
1719 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1720 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1723 *** Multiple Backends
1725 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1726 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1727 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1728 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1731 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1732 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1733 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1734 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1736 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1737 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1738 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1739 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1740 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1742 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1743 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1744 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1745 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1747 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1748 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1749 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1750 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1754 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1755 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1756 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1757 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1758 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1759 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1760 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1762 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1763 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1764 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1765 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1766 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1767 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1768 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1769 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1770 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1771 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1772 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1775 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1776 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1777 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1778 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1779 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1780 entire directory tree.
1782 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1783 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1784 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1785 "watched" by other developers.)
1787 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1788 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1789 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1790 starting at the given directory.
1792 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1794 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1795 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1796 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1797 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1798 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1799 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1800 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1801 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1802 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1804 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1805 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1806 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1807 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1809 ** New modes and packages
1811 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1812 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1813 the default is not applicable.
1815 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1816 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1817 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1821 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1822 drawn, like this: | \ /
1826 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1827 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1828 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1829 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1830 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1833 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1834 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1836 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1839 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1840 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1841 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1842 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1844 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1845 also do without the mouse.
1847 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1848 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1849 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1850 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1851 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1853 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1855 lines straight-lines
1857 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1859 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1860 spray-can setting size for spraying
1861 vaporize line vaporize lines
1862 erase characters erase rectangles
1864 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1865 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1866 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1869 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1870 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1871 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1872 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1874 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1877 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1878 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1879 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1880 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1881 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1882 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1883 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1884 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1885 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1887 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1888 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1889 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1890 on certain projects.
1892 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1893 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1895 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1897 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1898 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1899 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1900 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1901 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1902 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1903 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1904 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1906 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1909 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1910 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1912 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1913 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1915 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1916 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1917 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1918 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1919 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1921 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1922 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1923 separate Texinfo file.
1925 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1926 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1927 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1928 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1929 enter check-in log messages.
1931 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1932 without invoking external programs.
1934 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1935 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1936 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1937 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1938 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1940 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1941 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1943 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1944 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1946 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1947 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1948 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1949 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1950 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1953 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1954 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1955 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1956 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1958 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1959 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1960 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1962 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1965 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1967 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1969 ; comment (until end of line)
1973 $A default non-terminal
1974 $"C" default terminal
1975 $?C? default special
1976 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1977 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1978 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1979 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1980 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1981 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1982 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1983 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1984 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1985 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1986 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1987 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1988 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1989 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1990 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1992 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1994 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1995 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1996 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1997 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1998 equal signs of assignments.
2000 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
2001 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
2003 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
2004 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
2005 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
2007 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
2009 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
2010 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
2011 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
2012 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
2013 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
2014 which answers different needs.
2016 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
2017 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
2018 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
2019 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
2020 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
2023 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
2024 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2026 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2028 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
2029 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
2030 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behaviour in all buffers.
2032 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2034 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2035 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2036 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2037 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2038 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2039 and background colors.
2041 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2044 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2047 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2049 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2051 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2052 whitespace in a file.
2054 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2055 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2056 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2057 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2058 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2059 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2060 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2062 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2064 Here is an example of columns:
2067 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2068 porcupine strawberry airplane
2070 Doing the following settings:
2072 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2073 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2074 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2075 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2078 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2080 M-x delimit-columns-region
2084 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2085 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2086 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2088 delim-col has the following options:
2090 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2093 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2094 between each column.
2096 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2099 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2102 delim-col has the following commands:
2104 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2105 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2107 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2108 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2109 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2110 recent file list can be displayed:
2112 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2113 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2114 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2116 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2117 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2119 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2122 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2123 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2124 specific to Message mode.
2126 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2127 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2128 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2130 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2131 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2132 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2134 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2135 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2137 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2139 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2140 minibuffer with completion.
2142 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2143 with the diary features.
2145 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2146 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2148 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2151 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2152 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2153 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2154 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2156 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
2157 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
2160 ** Changes in sort.el
2162 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
2163 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
2164 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
2167 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2169 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
2170 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
2171 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
2173 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
2174 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
2176 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2177 output ^M at the end of lines.
2179 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2180 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2182 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
2183 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
2186 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2189 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2190 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2193 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
2194 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
2195 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
2196 nil -- just delete one character.
2198 Default value is `untabify'.
2200 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2202 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2203 symbol, not double-quoted.
2205 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
2206 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
2207 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
2208 moved to lisp/obsolete.
2210 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
2211 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
2212 `auto-compression-mode' command.
2214 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
2215 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
2216 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
2218 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2219 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2221 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2222 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2224 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
2225 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
2227 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
2228 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
2229 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
2230 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
2231 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
2232 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
2234 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2235 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2237 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2239 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2240 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2242 ** Shell script mode changes.
2244 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
2245 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
2246 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
2250 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2252 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
2253 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
2254 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
2255 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
2256 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
2258 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2259 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2261 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2262 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2264 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
2265 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
2266 `template' keywords.
2268 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
2269 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
2271 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2274 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2276 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2278 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2281 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2283 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2284 variables are tagged.
2286 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2288 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2291 ** Changes in etags.el
2293 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
2294 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
2295 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
2297 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2298 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2300 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
2301 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
2302 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
2303 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
2305 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2307 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
2308 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
2310 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2312 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
2313 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
2314 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
2316 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2317 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2319 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2320 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2322 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
2323 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
2324 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
2325 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
2326 point will go to the beginning of the file.
2328 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
2329 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
2330 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
2332 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
2333 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
2334 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
2336 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
2337 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
2338 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
2340 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2342 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2344 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
2345 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
2346 expression from that list, are not checked.
2348 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
2349 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
2350 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
2351 the buffer, just like for the local files.
2353 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2355 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2356 displays local abbrevs, only.
2358 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2359 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2361 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
2362 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
2363 is measured in pixels.
2365 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2366 to be visited as images.
2368 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
2369 were added to compile.el.
2371 ** Withdrawn packages
2373 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2374 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2376 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2378 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2381 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2383 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2384 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2385 See the sections below for details.
2387 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2388 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2389 Use `copy-sequence' and `set-text-properties'.
2391 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2392 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2393 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2394 these properties are active.
2396 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2397 ranges may affect some code.
2399 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2400 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2401 make a difference to some code.
2403 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2404 operates on the minibuffer.
2406 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2407 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2408 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2409 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2410 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2411 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2412 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2413 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2414 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2415 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2416 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2417 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2419 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2420 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2421 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2423 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2424 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2425 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2427 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2430 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
2433 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2434 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2435 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2436 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2437 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2438 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2439 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2440 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2442 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2443 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2444 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2445 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2446 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2447 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2448 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2449 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2450 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2451 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2454 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2455 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2457 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
2459 ** The new function amimate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
2460 allows the animated display of strings.
2462 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2463 interactive form of a function.
2465 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2466 between custom options. Example:
2468 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2469 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2470 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2471 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2473 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2474 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2476 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2477 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2478 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2480 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2481 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2482 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2483 (signal or normal termination).
2485 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2486 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2488 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2489 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2491 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2492 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2494 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2496 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2497 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2500 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2502 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2503 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2504 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2505 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2506 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2509 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2510 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2513 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2514 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2516 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2517 with the more general `:mask' property.
2519 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2521 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2524 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2525 is running in batch mode. For example,
2527 (message "%s" (read t))
2529 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2532 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2533 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2535 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2536 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2539 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2542 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2544 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2545 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2547 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2549 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2550 comparison is done with `eq'.
2552 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2554 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2555 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
2556 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
2558 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2559 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2560 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2562 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2563 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2565 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2566 function was declared obsolete.
2568 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2569 retained as an alias).
2571 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2572 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2573 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2575 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2577 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2579 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2580 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2581 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2582 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2583 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2584 means never include the minibuffer window.
2586 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
2588 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2590 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2592 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2593 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2594 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2595 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2598 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2599 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2600 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2601 minibuffer even if it is active.
2603 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2604 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2605 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2606 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2607 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2608 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2610 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2611 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2612 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2613 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2614 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2615 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2616 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2618 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2619 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2620 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2622 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2623 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2624 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2625 Default value is nil.
2627 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2630 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
2631 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
2632 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
2634 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2635 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2636 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2638 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2639 list of a primitive.
2641 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2643 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2644 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2645 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2646 than replacing the local map.
2648 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2649 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2650 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2653 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2655 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2656 as promised long ago.
2658 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2660 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2661 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2662 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2665 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2667 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2668 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2669 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2670 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2672 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
2673 regular expressions.
2675 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
2677 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2681 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2683 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
2687 matches string STRING literally.
2690 matches character CHAR literally.
2693 matches any character except a newline.
2696 matches any character
2699 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
2700 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
2706 matches any character not in SET
2709 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
2710 in the text being matched
2713 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
2716 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2717 string being matched against.
2720 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2721 string being matched against.
2724 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2725 buffer being matched against.
2728 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2729 buffer being matched against.
2732 matches the empty string, but only at point.
2735 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2739 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
2742 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2745 `(not word-boundary)'
2746 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
2750 matches 0 through 9.
2753 matches ASCII control characters.
2756 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2759 matches space and tab only.
2762 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2766 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2770 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2771 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2774 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2775 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2778 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2781 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2784 matches anything lower-case.
2787 matches anything upper-case.
2790 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2791 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2794 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2797 matches anything that has word syntax.
2800 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
2801 of the following symbols.
2803 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
2804 `punctuation' (\\s.)
2807 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
2808 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
2809 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
2810 `string-quote' (\\s\")
2811 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
2813 `character-quote' (\\s/)
2814 `comment-start' (\\s<)
2815 `comment-end' (\\s>)
2817 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
2818 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
2820 `(category CATEGORY)'
2821 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
2822 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
2824 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
2826 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
2827 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
2831 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
2833 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
2834 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
2835 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
2836 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
2837 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
2838 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
2839 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
2840 `indian-tow-byte' (\\cI)
2841 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
2842 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
2843 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
2852 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
2856 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
2863 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
2864 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
2866 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2867 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
2869 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2870 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
2871 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
2873 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2874 another name for `submatch'.
2876 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2877 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
2878 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
2881 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
2882 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
2883 zero or more occurrances of something are \"greedy\" in that they
2884 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
2885 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
2887 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
2888 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
2890 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
2891 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2894 like `zero-or-more'.
2897 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2900 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2902 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
2903 matches one or more occurrences of A.
2909 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2912 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2914 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
2915 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
2921 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2924 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2927 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2930 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2933 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
2937 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
2939 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2941 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2942 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2943 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2944 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2946 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2947 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2948 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2949 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2951 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
2952 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
2953 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2955 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2956 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2957 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2958 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2959 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2960 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2961 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2964 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2966 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
2967 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2968 character set as previously.
2970 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2971 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2972 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2974 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2975 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2976 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2977 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2979 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2980 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
2982 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2983 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2986 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2987 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2989 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2990 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2991 buffers and strings.
2993 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2994 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2995 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2996 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2997 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2998 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2999 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
3002 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
3003 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
3004 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
3006 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
3007 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
3008 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
3009 may differ between buffer and string text.
3011 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
3012 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
3014 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
3015 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
3016 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
3017 `composition' from STRING.
3019 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
3020 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
3022 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
3025 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
3026 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
3028 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
3029 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
3030 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
3031 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
3033 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
3034 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
3035 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
3036 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
3037 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
3038 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
3040 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
3041 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
3042 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
3044 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
3045 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
3046 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
3048 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
3049 have been introduced.
3051 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3052 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
3053 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
3054 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
3055 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
3056 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
3057 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
3058 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
3059 their multibyte equivalent.
3061 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
3062 that offset in the file before writing.
3064 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
3065 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
3067 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
3068 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
3069 from which the command was issued.
3071 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
3072 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
3073 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
3074 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
3077 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
3078 to `window-buffer-height'.
3080 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
3082 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
3083 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
3084 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
3086 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
3089 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
3090 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
3092 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
3093 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
3094 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
3096 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
3097 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
3098 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
3099 is currently displayed in some window.
3101 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
3102 argument function's results.
3104 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
3105 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
3106 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
3107 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
3110 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
3111 header in the list of headers passed to it.
3113 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
3114 ignores differences in case and text representation.
3116 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
3117 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
3120 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
3121 nil don't display a cursor
3122 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
3123 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
3124 others display a box cursor.
3126 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
3127 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
3128 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
3129 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
3131 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
3132 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
3133 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
3134 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
3138 (string-to-syntax "()")
3141 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
3144 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
3145 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
3152 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
3157 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
3162 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
3169 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
3170 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
3173 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
3174 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
3175 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
3176 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
3178 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
3180 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
3181 for a regexp in a string.
3183 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
3184 `mouse-position-function'.
3186 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
3187 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
3189 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
3190 Keywords are now always considered constants.
3192 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
3195 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
3196 returned by function `recent-keys'.
3198 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
3199 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
3200 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
3201 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
3204 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
3205 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
3207 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
3208 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
3209 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
3210 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
3213 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
3214 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
3215 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
3216 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
3218 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
3219 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
3220 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
3222 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
3223 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
3226 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
3228 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
3229 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
3230 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
3233 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
3234 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
3235 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
3236 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
3237 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
3239 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
3240 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
3242 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
3243 instead of being optional.
3245 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
3246 modify read-only text.
3248 ** New functions and variables for locales.
3250 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
3251 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
3252 time functions like strftime. The new variables
3253 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
3254 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
3256 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
3257 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
3258 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
3259 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
3260 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
3261 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
3262 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
3264 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
3265 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
3266 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
3269 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
3270 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
3272 ** New function `propertize'
3274 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
3275 strings with text properties.
3277 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
3279 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
3280 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
3281 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
3282 specified value of that property. Example:
3284 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
3286 ** push and pop macros.
3288 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
3289 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
3290 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
3292 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
3293 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
3294 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
3296 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
3298 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
3299 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
3301 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
3302 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
3303 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
3304 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3306 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
3307 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
3308 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
3309 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3311 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
3312 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
3313 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
3316 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
3317 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
3318 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
3319 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
3320 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
3322 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3324 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
3325 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3326 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3327 [:alpha:] matches letters.
3328 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3329 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3330 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
3331 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
3332 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
3333 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
3334 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3335 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
3336 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
3337 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
3338 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
3340 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
3342 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
3344 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
3346 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
3347 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
3351 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
3352 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
3353 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
3357 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
3358 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
3360 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
3362 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
3363 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
3364 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
3365 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
3366 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
3368 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3370 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
3371 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
3372 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
3376 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
3377 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
3378 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
3379 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
3380 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
3382 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3384 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3386 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3388 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3390 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3392 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3395 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3397 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3399 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3401 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
3403 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
3405 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
3407 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3409 Returns the size of TABLE.
3411 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
3413 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
3415 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
3417 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
3419 - Function: clrhash TABLE
3423 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3425 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3428 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3430 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3431 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3433 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3435 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3437 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3439 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3440 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3442 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3444 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3446 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3448 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
3449 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
3450 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
3451 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
3452 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
3454 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3456 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
3457 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
3458 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3460 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3461 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3463 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3464 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3466 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3467 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3469 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3470 'case-fold-string-hash))
3472 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3474 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3476 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3477 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3478 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3480 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3482 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3483 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3485 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3486 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3487 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3488 is too short to reach that column.
3490 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3491 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3492 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3493 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3495 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3496 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3497 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3499 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3500 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3502 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3503 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3505 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3506 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3507 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3508 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3509 temporary-file-directory instead.
3511 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3512 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3513 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3514 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3516 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3517 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3519 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3521 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3522 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3523 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3525 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3527 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3528 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3529 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3530 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3531 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3532 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3534 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3535 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3536 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3537 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3539 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3541 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3542 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3543 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3546 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3547 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3551 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3553 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3554 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3557 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3559 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3561 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3562 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3565 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3567 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3568 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3573 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3574 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3576 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3577 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3578 to enable sound support.
3580 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3581 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3582 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3583 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3584 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3586 The following sound properties are supported:
3590 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3591 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3595 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3596 may be present, but not both.
3600 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3601 0..1. This property is optional.
3605 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3606 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3608 Other properties are ignored.
3610 An alternative interface is called as
3611 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3613 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3615 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3618 ** Changes to garbage collection
3620 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3621 of live and free strings.
3623 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3624 strings that have been consed so far.
3627 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3630 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3633 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3634 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3635 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3637 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3639 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3641 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3644 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3646 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3648 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3649 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3650 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3651 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3652 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3654 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3657 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3659 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3660 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3661 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3663 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3664 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3666 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3669 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3673 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3675 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3676 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3677 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3678 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3680 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3681 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3683 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3684 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3685 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3686 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3687 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3688 just display it black instead.
3690 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3693 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3697 ** New face implementation.
3699 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3700 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3704 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3706 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3708 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3709 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3711 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3713 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3715 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3717 6. Foreground color.
3719 7. Background color.
3721 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3723 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3725 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3727 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3729 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3732 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3733 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3735 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3736 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3737 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3738 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3739 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3740 attributes mentioned above.
3742 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3743 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3746 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3747 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3752 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3753 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3754 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3755 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3756 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3757 results in a fully-specified face.
3759 *** Face realization.
3761 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3762 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3763 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3764 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3765 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3766 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3768 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3769 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3770 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3771 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3773 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3774 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3775 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3776 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3777 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3779 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3780 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3781 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3782 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3783 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3786 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3787 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3788 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3789 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3791 **** Clearing face caches.
3793 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3794 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3799 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3800 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3801 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3803 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3804 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3805 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3806 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3807 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3809 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3810 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3811 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3813 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3815 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3816 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3817 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3818 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3819 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3820 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3821 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3823 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3824 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3827 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3828 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3831 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3834 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3839 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3840 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3843 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3844 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3845 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3846 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3847 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3850 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3852 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3854 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3856 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3858 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3859 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3860 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3862 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3863 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3864 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3865 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3866 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3867 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3868 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3869 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3870 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3871 of the face font sort order.
3873 - Function: x-font-family-list
3875 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3876 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3877 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3878 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3880 - Variable: font-list-limit
3882 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3883 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3884 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3886 *** Setting face attributes.
3888 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3889 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3890 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3893 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3894 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3896 The following attributes are recognized:
3900 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3901 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3902 and `?' are allowed.
3906 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3907 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3908 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3909 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3913 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3914 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3915 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3916 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3920 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3921 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3922 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3926 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3927 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3930 `:foreground', `:background'
3932 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3936 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3937 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3938 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3943 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3944 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3945 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3950 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3951 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3952 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3953 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3957 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3958 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3959 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3960 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3961 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3962 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3963 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3964 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3965 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3966 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3967 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3968 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3969 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3970 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3971 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3972 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3977 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3978 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3982 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3983 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3984 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3985 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3986 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3987 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3989 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3990 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3994 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3995 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3996 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3999 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
4000 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
4001 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
4003 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
4008 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
4009 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
4010 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
4012 *** Face attributes and X resources
4014 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
4017 Face attribute X resource class
4018 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
4019 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
4020 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
4021 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
4022 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
4023 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
4024 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
4025 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
4026 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
4027 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
4028 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
4029 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
4030 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
4031 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
4032 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
4033 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
4034 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4035 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
4036 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
4037 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4039 *** Text property `face'.
4041 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
4042 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
4043 specification can be
4045 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
4047 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
4048 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
4049 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
4050 for face attribute names.
4052 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
4053 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
4054 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
4056 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
4058 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
4059 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
4060 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
4061 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
4062 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
4063 used to clear the mapping table.
4065 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
4067 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
4068 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
4069 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
4070 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
4071 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
4072 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
4073 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
4074 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
4075 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
4076 modify their color-related behavior.
4078 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
4081 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
4083 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
4084 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
4085 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
4086 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
4087 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
4088 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
4089 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
4090 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
4091 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
4093 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
4094 display can display image files.
4096 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
4098 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
4099 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
4100 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
4101 `Inviolable' option.
4103 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
4104 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
4105 Otherwise, it returns zero.
4107 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
4109 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
4110 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
4111 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
4113 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
4114 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
4115 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
4116 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
4117 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
4118 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
4119 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
4122 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
4123 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
4124 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
4126 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
4128 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
4130 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
4132 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4133 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
4134 constrained position if that is different.
4136 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
4137 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
4138 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
4139 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
4140 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4141 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
4142 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
4143 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
4144 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
4146 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
4147 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
4148 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
4149 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
4150 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
4152 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
4153 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
4155 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
4157 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
4159 Delete the field surrounding POS.
4160 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4161 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4163 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4165 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
4166 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4167 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4168 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
4169 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
4171 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4173 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
4174 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4175 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4176 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
4177 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
4179 - Function: field-string &optional POS
4181 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
4182 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4183 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4185 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
4187 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
4188 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4189 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4193 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
4194 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
4195 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
4196 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
4198 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
4199 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
4200 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
4201 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
4204 IMAGE is an image specification.
4206 *** Image specifications
4208 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
4209 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
4210 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
4211 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
4212 described below are ignored.
4214 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
4218 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
4219 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
4220 to use for its ascent.
4222 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
4223 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
4225 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
4226 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
4227 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
4228 overlays that apply to the image.
4232 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
4233 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
4234 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
4238 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
4243 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
4245 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
4246 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
4248 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
4249 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
4250 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
4251 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
4252 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
4253 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
4254 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
4255 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
4258 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
4260 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
4262 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
4263 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
4264 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
4265 of the factors' absolute values.
4267 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
4273 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
4279 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
4284 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
4285 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
4286 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
4287 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
4288 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
4289 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
4290 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
4293 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
4294 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
4299 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
4300 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
4301 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
4302 may be present in the image specification.
4306 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
4307 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
4308 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
4309 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
4311 *** Supported image types
4313 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
4315 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
4316 properties supported are
4320 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4321 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4325 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4326 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4328 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
4329 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
4330 instead of a `:file' property.
4334 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4338 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4344 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4345 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4347 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4349 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4352 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
4353 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
4356 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4358 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
4359 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
4360 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
4361 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
4363 Additional image properties supported are:
4365 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4367 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
4368 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
4371 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4372 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4374 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4375 to display compressed images.
4377 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4379 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4380 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4385 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4386 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4390 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4391 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4393 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4395 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4396 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4399 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4401 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4402 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4405 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4407 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4408 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4410 Additional image properties supported are:
4414 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
4415 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
4417 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
4418 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
4419 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
4422 (defun show-anim (file max)
4423 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
4424 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
4426 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4429 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4432 (goto-char (point-min))
4433 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4434 (insert-image img "x"))
4435 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4437 **** PNG, image type `png'
4439 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4440 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4443 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4445 Additional image properties supported are:
4449 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4450 integer. This is a required property.
4454 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4455 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4459 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4460 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4461 files. This is an required property.
4463 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4468 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4469 which are supported in the current configuration.
4471 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4472 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4473 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4474 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4475 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4477 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4479 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4480 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4481 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4482 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4483 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4488 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4491 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4492 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4493 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4494 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4495 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4496 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4497 of the display margins.
4499 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4500 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4501 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4502 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4507 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4508 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4509 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4510 that have a `help-echo' property.
4512 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4513 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4514 the window in which the help was found.
4516 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4517 `help-echo' text property was found.
4519 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4520 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4522 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4523 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4526 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4527 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4529 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4530 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4531 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4532 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4533 used as help string.
4535 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4536 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4537 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4539 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4541 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4542 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4544 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4545 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4546 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4547 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4550 (global-set-key [A-down]
4553 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4554 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4555 (global-set-key [A-up]
4558 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4559 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4561 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4563 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4564 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4565 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4566 is called with one argument, POS.
4568 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4569 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4570 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4571 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4572 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4574 ** Tool bar support.
4576 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4577 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4578 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4579 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4580 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4581 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4583 *** Tool bar item definitions
4585 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4586 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4587 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4589 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4590 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4591 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4592 property (see below).
4594 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4595 binding are currently ignored.
4597 The following properties are recognized:
4601 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4606 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4610 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4611 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4612 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4614 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4616 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4617 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4621 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4622 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4623 meaning of each of the four elements:
4625 Index Use when item is
4626 ----------------------------------------
4627 0 enabled and selected
4628 1 enabled and deselected
4629 2 disabled and selected
4630 3 disabled and deselected
4632 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4633 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4635 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4637 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4638 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4640 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4641 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4642 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4645 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4646 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4647 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4649 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4651 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4652 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4653 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4655 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4656 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4658 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4659 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4660 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4661 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4663 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4664 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4666 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4668 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4671 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4672 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4673 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4675 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4677 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4679 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4682 ** Mode line changes.
4684 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4686 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4687 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4688 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4690 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4691 a `local-map' text property.
4693 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4694 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4696 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4697 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4698 `local-map' property.
4700 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4701 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4704 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4705 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4707 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4708 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4710 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4712 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4713 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4714 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4715 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4718 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4721 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4722 position in the header-line.
4724 ** Text property `display'
4726 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4727 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4728 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4729 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4730 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4732 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4734 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4735 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4737 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4738 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4739 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4740 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4741 simpler form STRING as property value.
4743 *** Variable width and height spaces
4745 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4746 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4747 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4748 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4749 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4750 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4751 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4753 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4754 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4755 properties described below.
4757 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4758 characters having the `display' property.
4762 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4763 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4765 - :relative-width FACTOR
4767 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4768 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4769 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4770 width of that character by FACTOR.
4774 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4775 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4777 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4781 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4784 - :relative-height FACTOR
4786 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4787 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4791 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4792 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4793 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4796 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4800 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4801 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4802 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4803 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4804 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4805 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4806 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4807 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4808 as display specification.
4810 *** Other display properties
4812 - (space-width FACTOR)
4814 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4815 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4820 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4822 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4823 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4824 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4825 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4826 a font is available counts as a step.
4828 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4829 as tall as the frame's default font.
4831 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4832 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4834 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4835 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4839 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4840 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4841 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4842 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4843 `height' subproperty.
4845 *** Conditional display properties
4847 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4848 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
4849 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
4850 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
4851 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
4852 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
4853 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
4854 different when object is a string.
4856 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4859 ** New menu separator types.
4861 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4862 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4863 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4864 to specify other menu separator types.
4866 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4868 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4871 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4873 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4875 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4877 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4879 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4881 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4883 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4885 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4887 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4889 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4890 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4892 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4894 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4896 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4898 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4900 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4902 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4904 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4906 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4908 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4910 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4912 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4914 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4916 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4918 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4920 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4921 the corresponding single-line separators.
4923 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4925 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4926 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4927 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4928 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4929 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4930 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4931 default foreground is black.
4933 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4934 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4935 `ScrollBarBackground').
4937 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4938 settings for scroll bar colors.
4940 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4941 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4943 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4944 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4945 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4946 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4947 the original window start.
4949 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4950 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4951 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4953 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4955 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4956 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4957 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4958 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4960 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4961 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4963 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4965 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4966 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4967 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4968 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4969 temporarily to nil, for example
4971 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4972 (enlarge-window 10))
4974 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4975 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4977 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4978 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4979 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4980 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4981 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4982 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4986 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4988 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4991 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4993 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4995 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4996 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4997 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4998 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4999 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
5001 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
5005 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
5007 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
5011 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
5013 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
5014 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
5016 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
5018 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
5020 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
5021 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
5022 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
5024 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
5025 is the one that is used.
5027 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
5028 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
5029 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
5030 separate from the command's regular output.
5031 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
5032 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
5033 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
5036 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
5037 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
5038 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
5039 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
5041 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
5042 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
5043 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
5044 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
5046 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
5047 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
5048 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
5049 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
5051 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
5052 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
5053 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
5054 they never ignore case.
5056 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
5057 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
5058 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
5059 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
5060 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
5061 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
5062 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
5064 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
5065 the same format that was used in the file before.
5067 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
5068 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
5070 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
5071 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
5072 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
5074 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
5075 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
5076 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
5077 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
5078 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
5079 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
5080 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
5082 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
5083 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
5084 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
5085 format. You can now customize these variables.
5087 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
5088 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
5089 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
5090 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
5092 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
5093 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
5094 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
5096 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
5097 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
5098 doesn't have any effect.
5100 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
5103 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
5104 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
5105 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
5107 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
5108 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
5109 `auto-show-mode' command.
5111 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
5112 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
5113 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
5114 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
5115 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
5117 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
5118 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
5120 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
5121 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
5122 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
5124 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
5125 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
5126 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
5127 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
5129 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
5131 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
5132 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
5133 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
5134 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
5135 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
5137 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
5138 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
5140 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
5141 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
5142 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
5143 `?' on other systems.
5145 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
5146 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
5149 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
5150 current codepage when it starts.
5154 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
5155 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
5156 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
5157 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
5158 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
5159 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
5163 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
5164 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
5166 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
5167 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
5168 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
5169 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
5170 buffer-file-coding-system.
5172 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
5173 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
5176 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
5177 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
5178 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
5179 list of possible coding systems.
5183 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
5184 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
5185 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
5186 docstring for details.
5188 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
5189 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
5190 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
5191 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
5192 lineup functions use this feature currently.
5194 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
5195 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
5197 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
5198 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
5200 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
5201 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
5202 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
5203 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
5206 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
5207 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
5209 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
5210 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
5211 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
5212 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
5214 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
5215 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
5216 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
5217 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
5218 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
5220 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
5222 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
5224 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
5225 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
5227 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
5229 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
5230 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
5231 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
5232 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
5233 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
5237 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
5238 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
5239 Gnus manual for the full story.
5241 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
5242 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
5243 group, which is created automatically.
5245 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
5248 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
5250 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
5251 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
5253 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
5256 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
5258 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
5259 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
5261 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
5263 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
5264 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
5266 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
5267 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
5269 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
5270 control over simplification.
5272 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
5274 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
5277 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
5279 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
5281 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
5282 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
5283 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
5285 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
5286 `a' forces normal posting method.
5288 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
5291 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
5294 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
5295 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
5297 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
5300 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
5302 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
5304 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
5305 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
5307 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
5308 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
5310 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
5312 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
5315 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
5316 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5318 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5319 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5321 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5323 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5325 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5327 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5329 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
5330 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
5331 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
5333 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
5334 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
5335 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
5336 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
5337 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
5339 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
5340 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
5341 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
5342 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
5344 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
5345 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
5346 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
5349 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5351 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
5352 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
5354 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
5355 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
5356 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
5357 removed from the label.
5359 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
5360 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
5362 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5363 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5365 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5366 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5369 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5371 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5373 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5374 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5376 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5377 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5378 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5380 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5381 changes with a special face.
5383 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5384 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5385 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5387 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5389 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5390 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5391 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5392 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5393 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5395 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5396 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5397 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5399 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5400 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5401 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5402 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5403 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5404 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5405 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
5406 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
5407 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
5409 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
5410 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
5411 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
5412 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
5413 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5416 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5417 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5418 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5419 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5420 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5421 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5423 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5424 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5425 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5426 was not documented clearly before.
5428 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5429 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5431 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5433 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5434 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5435 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5436 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5438 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5439 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5440 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5442 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5444 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5445 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5447 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5448 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5451 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5452 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5453 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5454 file names and attributes are returned.
5456 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5457 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5458 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5459 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5462 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5463 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5465 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5467 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5468 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5469 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5472 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5473 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5476 The new function process-running-child-p
5477 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5478 terminal to its own child process.
5480 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5481 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5482 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5483 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5485 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5486 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5488 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5489 :included is an alias for :visible.
5491 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5492 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5493 to move or copy menu entries.
5495 ** Multibyte editing changes
5497 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5498 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5499 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5500 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5501 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5502 (setq char (sref str idx)
5503 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5504 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5506 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5507 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5508 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5510 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5511 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5512 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5514 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5516 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5517 across the boundary.
5519 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5520 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5521 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5522 contains 8-bit characters.
5523 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5524 contains invalid characters.
5526 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5527 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5528 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5529 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5532 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5533 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5534 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5535 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5537 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5538 compose Thai characters in a string.
5540 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5541 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5542 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5543 menus should always use the third argument.
5545 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5546 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5547 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5548 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5550 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5551 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5552 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5553 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5555 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5556 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5557 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5560 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5562 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5563 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5564 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5566 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5567 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5568 means to clear out that attribute.
5570 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5571 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5573 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5574 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5575 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5576 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5578 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5579 the gap of the current buffer.
5581 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5582 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5585 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5586 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5587 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5588 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5590 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5592 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5593 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5594 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5595 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5596 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5598 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5599 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5600 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5601 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5602 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5604 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5605 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5606 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5608 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5609 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5610 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5611 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5612 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5615 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5616 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5617 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5618 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5620 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5622 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5623 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5624 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5625 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5627 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5628 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5629 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5630 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5631 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5632 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5633 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5636 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5639 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5640 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5641 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5642 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5643 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5645 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5646 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5647 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5648 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5650 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5651 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5652 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5653 something that most users not do.
5655 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5656 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5657 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5660 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5663 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5664 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5665 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5666 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5669 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5670 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5671 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5672 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5673 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5676 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5677 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5678 to be confused by TeX commands.
5680 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5681 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5682 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5683 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5685 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5686 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5687 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5688 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5689 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5691 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5692 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5694 ** Changes in input method usage.
5696 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5697 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5700 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5702 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5703 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5705 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5706 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5708 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5710 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5712 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5713 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5715 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5716 given in the following case:
5717 o When you are using a complex input method.
5718 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5720 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5721 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5722 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5723 setting it to t is helpful.
5725 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5727 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5729 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5730 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5731 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5732 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5735 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5736 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5737 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5740 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5742 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5744 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5745 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5747 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5748 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5749 its owner and group.
5751 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5752 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5754 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5755 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5757 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5758 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5759 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5760 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5762 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5763 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5764 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5765 for writing keyboard macros.
5767 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5768 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5769 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5770 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5771 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5774 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5776 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5777 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5780 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5781 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5782 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5783 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5785 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5786 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5787 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5789 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5790 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5791 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5792 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5794 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5795 failure if the command produces no output.
5797 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5798 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5801 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5802 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5803 function and variable names.
5805 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5806 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5807 file-coding-system-alist.
5809 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5810 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5811 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5812 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5813 according to the current fontset.
5815 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5817 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5818 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5819 nonascii-insert-offset.
5821 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5822 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5823 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5824 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5826 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5827 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5829 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5830 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5832 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5833 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5836 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5837 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5839 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5840 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5841 all variables that have documentation.
5843 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5844 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5845 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5846 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5847 it should show; the default is 20.
5849 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5850 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5853 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5854 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5855 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5856 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5857 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5858 Newly added options are included as well.
5860 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5861 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5862 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5864 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5867 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5868 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5870 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5871 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5874 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5875 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5878 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5879 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5880 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5881 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5884 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5886 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5887 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5888 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5890 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5891 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5892 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5897 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5898 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5900 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5901 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5903 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5904 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5906 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5907 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5908 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5909 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5910 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5911 made invisible again.
5913 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5915 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5916 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5917 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5920 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5921 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5922 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5923 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5924 rmail-default-body-file.
5926 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5927 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5928 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5930 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5931 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5932 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5934 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5935 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5936 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5937 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5938 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5939 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5941 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5942 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5943 provided by feedmail are:
5945 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5946 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5947 there is also a queue for draft messages
5949 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5950 be prompted for confirmation
5952 **** does smart filling of address headers
5954 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5955 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5956 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5958 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5959 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5960 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5961 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5965 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5966 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5968 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5969 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5971 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5972 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5973 for a specified regexp.
5977 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5980 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5981 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5984 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5985 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5986 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5987 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5989 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5990 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5991 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5992 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5993 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5995 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5996 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5997 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5998 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5999 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
6001 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
6002 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
6003 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
6004 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
6006 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
6007 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
6008 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
6010 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
6011 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
6012 session to resolve them.
6014 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
6015 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
6016 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
6019 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
6020 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
6021 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
6022 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
6023 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
6024 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
6027 ** Changes in Font Lock
6029 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
6030 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
6031 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
6032 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
6033 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
6035 ** Frame name display changes
6037 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
6038 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
6039 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
6040 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
6042 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
6043 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
6046 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6048 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
6049 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
6050 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
6052 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
6054 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
6055 that is, the line after the last line you got.
6056 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
6058 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
6059 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
6062 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
6063 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
6064 previously sent input.
6066 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
6067 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
6068 as the search string.
6070 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
6071 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
6075 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
6076 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
6077 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
6080 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
6081 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
6082 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
6083 style is still the default however.
6085 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
6087 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
6088 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
6089 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
6091 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
6092 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
6094 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
6095 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
6097 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
6098 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
6100 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
6101 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
6103 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
6104 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
6105 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
6106 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
6108 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
6110 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
6111 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
6112 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
6114 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
6115 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
6116 expanding dynamically.
6118 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
6119 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
6121 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
6122 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
6123 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
6124 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
6126 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
6128 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6130 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
6131 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
6132 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
6133 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
6134 against the first word in the title.
6136 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
6137 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
6138 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
6139 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
6140 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
6141 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
6143 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
6144 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
6145 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
6146 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
6148 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
6150 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
6151 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
6152 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
6153 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
6154 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
6155 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
6157 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
6158 Editing group once the package is loaded.
6160 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
6161 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
6162 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
6164 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
6165 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
6169 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
6170 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
6171 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
6173 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
6174 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
6175 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
6176 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
6179 o URLs are automatically skipped
6180 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
6182 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
6184 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6186 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
6187 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
6188 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
6189 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
6191 *** New recursive parser.
6193 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
6194 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
6195 recursive parser scans the individual files.
6197 *** Parsing only part of a document.
6199 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
6200 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
6201 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
6203 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
6205 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
6207 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
6209 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
6211 *** Using multiple selection buffers
6213 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
6214 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
6216 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
6218 *** References to external documents.
6220 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
6221 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
6222 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
6223 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
6224 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
6225 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
6226 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
6228 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
6230 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
6231 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
6233 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
6234 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
6236 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
6238 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
6239 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
6241 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
6243 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
6244 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
6245 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
6246 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
6247 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
6248 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
6251 *** Support for the varioref package
6253 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
6257 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
6258 and citations are created. These hooks are
6259 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
6260 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
6262 *** Citations outside LaTeX
6264 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
6265 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
6267 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
6269 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
6270 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
6273 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
6275 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
6276 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
6277 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
6278 directories that contain the same file name.
6280 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
6281 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
6282 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
6283 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
6284 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
6285 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
6286 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
6289 ** New modes and packages
6291 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
6292 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
6293 it, but some do not.
6295 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
6298 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
6299 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
6302 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
6304 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
6305 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
6306 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
6307 established system of notation similar to Chess.
6309 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
6310 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
6311 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
6313 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
6314 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
6315 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
6316 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
6317 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
6320 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6321 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6323 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
6324 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
6325 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
6326 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
6328 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6330 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
6331 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
6332 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
6333 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
6334 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
6335 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
6336 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
6337 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
6338 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
6339 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
6340 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
6342 Platform-specific modes:
6344 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
6345 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
6346 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
6347 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
6348 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
6349 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
6350 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
6351 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
6352 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
6354 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6356 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
6357 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
6358 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
6359 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
6361 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
6362 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
6363 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
6365 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
6366 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
6367 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
6368 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
6370 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
6371 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
6372 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
6375 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
6376 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6377 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6378 current input method for reading this one event.
6380 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6381 now control whether to output certain characters as
6382 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6383 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6384 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6385 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6387 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6389 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6390 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6392 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6393 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6394 always increases point by 1.
6396 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6397 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6399 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6401 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6402 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6403 default value changed. For example,
6405 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6410 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6413 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
6414 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6415 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6416 `:version' in the top level group.
6418 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6420 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6421 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6423 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6424 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6425 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6428 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6429 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6432 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6433 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6434 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6436 ** Frame-local variables.
6438 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6439 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6440 local bindings for that variable.
6442 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6443 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6444 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6447 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6448 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6449 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6450 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6452 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6453 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6454 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6455 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6457 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6458 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6459 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6460 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6461 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6463 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6464 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6465 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6466 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6468 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6469 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6471 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6472 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6473 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6475 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6476 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6477 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6478 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6480 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6481 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6484 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6485 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6486 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6487 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6488 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6490 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6491 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6492 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6493 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6495 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6496 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6497 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6498 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6499 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6501 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6502 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6503 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6504 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6506 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6507 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6508 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6510 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6511 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6512 was directed to display this buffer.
6514 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6515 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6516 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6517 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6518 set-window-configuration.
6520 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6521 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6522 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6523 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6525 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6526 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6527 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6529 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6530 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6531 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6533 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6534 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6536 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6537 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6539 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6540 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6541 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6543 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6544 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6545 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6546 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6550 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6551 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6554 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6555 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6556 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6557 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6558 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6560 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6562 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6563 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6564 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6565 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6568 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6569 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6570 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6571 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6572 The supported properties include
6574 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6576 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6577 item should appear in the menu.
6579 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6580 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6581 It should return a binding to use instead.
6583 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6584 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6585 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6586 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6587 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6590 This means that the command normally has no
6591 keyboard equivalent.
6592 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6593 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6594 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6595 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6596 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6598 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6599 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6601 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6605 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6606 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6607 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6608 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6610 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6612 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6613 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6614 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6615 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6616 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6617 forward, away from the user.
6619 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6621 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6622 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6623 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6624 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6625 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6627 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6629 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6630 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6631 that were dragged and dropped.
6633 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6635 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6637 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6638 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6639 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6641 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6642 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6643 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6645 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6646 in Emacs 19 and before.
6648 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6649 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6651 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6652 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6653 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6654 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6656 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6657 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6658 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6659 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6660 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6662 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6663 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6664 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6665 consistent with the new representation.
6667 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6668 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6669 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6670 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6672 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6673 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6674 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6676 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6677 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6678 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6680 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6681 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6682 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6684 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6685 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6687 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6688 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6690 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6691 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6692 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6693 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6695 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6696 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6698 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6699 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6700 buffer or string being searched.
6702 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6703 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6704 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6705 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6706 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6707 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6708 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6710 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6712 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6713 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6714 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6715 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6716 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6717 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6718 define-coding-system-alias.
6720 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6721 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6722 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6723 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6724 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6725 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6726 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6729 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6730 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6731 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6732 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6734 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6735 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6736 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6737 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6739 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6740 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6741 This function requires a user interaction.
6743 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6744 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6745 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6746 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6747 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6748 select-safe-coding-system.
6750 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6751 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6752 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6755 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6756 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6757 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6759 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6760 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6761 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6762 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6764 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6765 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6766 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6769 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6770 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6772 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6773 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6774 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6775 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6776 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6777 range of characters.
6779 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6780 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6782 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6783 in the current buffer at position POS.
6785 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6786 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6787 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6788 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6789 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6790 binding input-method-function to nil.
6792 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6793 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6794 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6795 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6796 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6798 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6799 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6801 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6802 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6804 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6805 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6806 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6807 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6808 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6810 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6812 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6813 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6814 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6817 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6818 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6820 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6821 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6822 in your .emacs file.)
6824 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6825 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6827 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6828 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6830 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6831 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6834 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6835 delete the character before point, as usual.
6837 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6838 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6839 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6841 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6842 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6843 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6844 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6845 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6848 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6849 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6850 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6851 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6852 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6854 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6855 and is an alias for it.
6857 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6858 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6860 ** Scrolling changes
6862 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6863 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6865 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6866 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6869 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6870 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6871 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6872 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6874 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6875 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6876 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6877 recenters the window.
6879 ** International character set support (MULE)
6881 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6882 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6883 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6884 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6885 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6886 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6888 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6889 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6890 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6891 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6892 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6894 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6895 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6896 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6897 language, to make it possible to type them.
6899 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6900 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6902 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6903 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6905 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6907 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6909 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6910 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6911 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6912 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6913 characters for their work until they want to change.
6917 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6918 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6919 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6920 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6921 support several input methods.
6923 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6924 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6927 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6928 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6929 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6930 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6931 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6934 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6935 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6936 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6937 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6938 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6940 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6941 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6942 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6943 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6945 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6946 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6947 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6948 the first guess is wrong.
6950 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6951 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6953 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6954 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6955 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6956 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6958 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6959 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6960 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6961 translate automatically to and from either one.
6963 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6965 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6966 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6967 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6970 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6971 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6972 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6973 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6975 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6976 character conversion as well.
6978 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6980 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6981 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6982 requires using many fonts.
6984 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6985 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6987 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6988 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6989 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6990 you would use a font.
6992 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6993 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6994 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6996 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6997 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6998 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6999 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
7000 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
7002 *** Defining fontsets.
7004 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
7005 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
7006 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
7008 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
7009 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
7010 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
7011 standard fontset are created automatically.
7013 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
7014 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
7015 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
7016 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
7017 name is `fontset-startup'.
7019 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
7020 The resource value should have this form:
7021 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
7022 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
7023 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
7024 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
7025 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
7026 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
7027 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
7028 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
7029 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
7031 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
7032 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
7033 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
7035 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
7036 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
7038 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
7039 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
7040 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
7041 Here is the substitution rule:
7042 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
7043 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
7044 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
7045 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
7046 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
7048 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
7049 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
7050 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
7052 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
7053 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
7054 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
7055 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
7058 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
7059 defaults for a particular choice of language.
7061 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
7062 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
7063 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
7064 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
7065 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
7066 system for new files that you create.
7068 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
7069 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
7070 whole Emacs session.
7072 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
7073 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
7074 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
7076 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
7077 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
7078 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
7079 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
7080 coding systems that Emacs supports.
7082 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
7083 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
7084 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
7085 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
7086 is used for *the immediately following command*.
7088 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
7089 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
7091 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
7092 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
7094 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
7095 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
7097 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
7098 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
7099 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
7100 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
7103 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
7104 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
7105 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
7106 translated into that character code.
7108 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
7109 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
7111 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
7113 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
7114 the coding system for keyboard input.
7116 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
7117 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
7118 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
7120 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
7122 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
7123 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
7124 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
7125 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
7126 designed to work with terminals.
7128 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
7129 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
7130 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
7131 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
7132 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
7133 in the corresponding buffer.
7135 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
7137 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
7138 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
7139 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
7141 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
7142 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
7143 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
7146 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
7147 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
7149 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
7150 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
7151 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
7152 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
7154 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
7155 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
7156 related information.
7158 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
7159 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
7162 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
7163 information about the support for a particular language.
7164 You specify the language as an argument.
7166 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
7167 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
7170 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
7171 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
7172 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
7173 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
7175 A alternativnyj (Russian)
7177 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
7178 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
7179 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
7180 E euc-japan (Japanese)
7181 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7182 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
7183 K euc-korea (Korean)
7186 S shift_jis (Japanese)
7189 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
7190 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7191 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
7195 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
7196 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
7197 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
7198 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
7200 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
7201 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
7203 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
7204 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
7205 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
7206 Rmail files themselves.
7208 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
7209 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
7211 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
7214 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
7215 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
7216 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
7217 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
7218 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
7220 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
7221 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
7222 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
7225 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
7226 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
7227 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
7228 without any conversion.
7230 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
7231 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
7232 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
7233 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
7235 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
7236 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
7238 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
7239 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
7241 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
7242 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
7244 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
7245 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
7246 in the buffer before point.
7248 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
7249 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
7252 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
7253 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
7255 ** File locking works with NFS now.
7257 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
7258 in the same directory as FILENAME.
7260 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
7261 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
7262 can become a bottleneck.
7264 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
7265 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
7266 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
7267 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
7268 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
7269 so useful that the change is worth while.
7271 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
7272 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
7273 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
7274 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
7276 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
7277 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
7280 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
7281 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
7282 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
7284 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
7285 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
7286 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
7288 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
7289 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
7290 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
7292 ** Changes in View mode.
7294 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
7295 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
7297 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
7298 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
7300 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
7303 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
7304 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
7306 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
7307 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
7308 not just the selected window.
7310 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
7311 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
7312 turns View mode on or off.
7314 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
7315 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
7316 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
7318 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
7319 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
7321 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
7322 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
7323 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
7324 which version to compare with.
7326 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7327 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7329 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
7330 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
7331 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
7332 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
7334 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
7335 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
7336 blocks, all of them or none.
7338 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
7339 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
7342 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
7343 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
7344 However, the mode will not be changed if
7345 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
7346 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
7347 not suitable for ordinary files, or
7348 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
7350 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7352 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7353 these commands do not change the major mode.
7355 ** M-x occur changes.
7357 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7358 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7360 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
7361 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
7362 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
7364 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
7365 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
7366 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
7367 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
7368 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
7370 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
7371 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
7372 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
7373 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
7375 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7376 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7377 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7379 ** Outline mode changes.
7381 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7383 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7385 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7386 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7387 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7390 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7391 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7394 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7395 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7397 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7399 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7400 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7401 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7402 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7404 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7405 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7406 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
7408 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7409 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7412 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
7413 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
7414 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7415 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7417 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7418 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7419 can be. The default value is 30.
7421 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7423 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7424 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7425 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7426 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7427 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7430 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7431 compose-mail-other-frame.
7433 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7434 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7435 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7436 buffer that shows the original message.
7438 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7439 with separator lines around the contents.
7441 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7442 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7443 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7444 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7446 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7448 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7449 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7450 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7451 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7453 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7454 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7457 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7458 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7461 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7462 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7463 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7464 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7466 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7467 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7468 be taken to be magic.
7470 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7471 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7472 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7474 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7475 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7477 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7478 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7480 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7482 new key dired.el binding old key
7483 ------- ---------------- -------
7484 * c dired-change-marks c
7486 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7487 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7488 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7490 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7491 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
7492 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7493 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7494 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7495 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7499 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7500 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7501 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7502 each time you run it.
7504 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7505 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7507 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7508 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7509 means to move in the opposite direction.
7511 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7512 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7514 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7515 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7516 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7517 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7522 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7524 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7527 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7528 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7530 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7533 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7535 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7537 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7539 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7540 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7541 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7543 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7545 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7547 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7548 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7550 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7551 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7552 used to pick articles.
7554 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7555 another have been added.
7557 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7559 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7560 generating lines in buffers.
7562 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7565 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7567 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7569 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7571 *** Scores can be decayed.
7573 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7575 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7576 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7578 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7581 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7583 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7584 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
7586 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7588 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7589 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7591 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7592 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7594 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7597 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7598 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7600 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7602 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7604 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7606 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7608 Use the `Y c' command.
7610 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7612 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7614 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7616 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7617 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7619 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7621 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7623 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7624 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7626 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7628 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7629 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7630 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7631 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7634 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7635 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7636 particular news group. This can be done by:
7638 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7640 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7641 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7642 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7643 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7644 for reading and posting).
7646 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7647 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7648 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7649 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7652 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7653 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7655 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7656 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7657 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7658 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7659 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7661 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7662 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7666 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7667 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7668 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7669 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7670 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7673 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7674 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7675 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7676 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7677 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7678 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7680 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7681 of the current buffer.
7683 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7684 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7685 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7687 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7688 style that the Python developers like.
7690 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7691 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7692 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7696 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7697 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7698 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7700 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7701 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7704 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7705 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7707 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7708 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7709 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7710 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7712 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7713 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7715 ** Calendar changes.
7717 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7718 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7719 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7720 following/previous years.
7722 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7723 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7724 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7725 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7726 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7727 supposed attribute of God.
7731 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7734 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7736 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7737 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7738 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7739 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7741 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7742 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7743 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7745 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7746 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7748 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7749 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7750 printing for your printer.
7752 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7753 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7755 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7756 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7758 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7759 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7760 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7761 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7762 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7763 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7764 The default value is nil.
7766 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7767 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7769 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7770 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7771 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7772 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7773 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7774 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7775 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7777 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7778 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7780 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7781 The default is 0 ("black").
7783 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7784 The default is 0 ("black").
7786 border-width Specify the border width.
7789 Any other property is ignored.
7791 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7792 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7795 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7796 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7797 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7798 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7799 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7800 controlling headers.
7802 *** Color management (subgroup)
7804 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7807 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7809 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7810 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7811 background should be used. Valid values are:
7813 t always use face background color.
7814 nil never use face background color.
7815 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7817 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7819 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7822 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7823 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7825 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7828 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7829 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7830 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7832 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7836 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7840 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7844 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7848 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7850 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7852 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7855 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7856 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7857 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7859 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7860 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7861 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7862 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7863 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7867 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7868 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7869 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7872 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7873 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7874 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7875 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7876 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7877 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7878 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7879 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7880 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7881 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7882 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7885 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7887 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7890 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7892 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7893 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7894 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7895 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7898 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7899 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7900 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7902 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7903 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7906 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7908 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7909 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7910 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7911 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7912 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7913 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7916 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7917 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7918 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7920 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7921 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7922 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7923 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7924 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7925 its TO, are ignored.
7927 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7928 pages. Valid values are:
7930 nil print all pages.
7932 `even-page' print only even pages.
7934 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7936 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7937 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7938 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7939 print only the even sheet of paper.
7941 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7942 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7943 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7944 only the odd sheet of paper.
7946 Any other value is treated as nil.
7948 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7949 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7950 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7952 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7954 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7955 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7957 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7958 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7959 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7960 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7961 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7962 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7963 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7965 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7966 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7967 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
7968 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
7969 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
7970 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
7971 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
7973 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7975 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7976 messages should be sent.
7978 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
7979 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
7980 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
7982 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7984 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7985 points for line numbers.
7987 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7988 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7990 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
7991 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
7992 to 2, the printing will look like:
8004 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
8005 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
8008 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
8009 zebra stripe is to be printed.
8011 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
8013 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
8014 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
8015 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
8016 3, the output will look like:
8030 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
8031 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
8033 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
8034 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8037 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
8038 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8041 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
8043 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
8044 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
8046 ** hideshow changes.
8048 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
8051 *** Support for java-mode added.
8053 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
8054 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
8056 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
8057 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
8058 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
8060 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
8061 robust and a lot faster.
8063 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
8065 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
8066 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
8067 documentation for more details.
8069 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
8071 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
8072 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
8073 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
8074 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
8075 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
8077 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
8078 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
8079 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
8080 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
8086 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
8087 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
8088 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
8089 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
8090 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
8091 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
8093 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
8095 *** Maximum decoration
8097 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
8098 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
8099 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
8100 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
8101 to get the old behavior.
8105 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
8107 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
8108 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
8110 *** Configurable support
8112 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
8113 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
8114 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
8115 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
8116 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
8117 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
8118 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
8120 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
8121 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
8122 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
8124 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
8126 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
8127 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
8130 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
8132 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
8138 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
8139 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
8140 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
8141 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
8143 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
8145 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
8146 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
8147 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
8149 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
8151 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
8152 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
8153 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
8154 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
8155 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
8156 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
8157 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
8159 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
8160 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
8161 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
8162 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
8163 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
8164 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
8166 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
8168 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
8169 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
8170 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
8171 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
8173 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
8176 ** Ada mode changes.
8178 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
8179 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
8180 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
8181 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
8184 *** There are two new commands:
8185 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
8186 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
8188 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
8189 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
8190 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
8192 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
8193 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
8194 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
8196 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
8197 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
8198 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
8199 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
8201 ** Scheme mode changes.
8203 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
8204 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
8205 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
8206 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
8209 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
8210 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
8211 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
8212 variables as buffer-local variables.
8214 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
8217 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
8219 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
8220 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
8221 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
8222 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
8224 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
8225 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
8228 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
8229 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
8230 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
8231 option takes precedence.
8233 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
8234 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
8235 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
8237 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
8238 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
8241 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
8242 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
8244 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
8245 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
8248 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
8249 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
8250 these register values no longer become completely useless.
8251 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
8252 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
8253 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
8255 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
8256 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
8257 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
8258 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
8260 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
8261 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
8262 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
8263 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
8264 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
8266 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
8267 since it applies only to the current frame.
8269 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
8270 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
8271 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
8273 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
8274 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
8275 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
8276 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
8277 instead of just the file you are editing.
8281 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
8282 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
8283 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
8284 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
8285 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
8288 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
8289 knows which kind of label is needed.
8291 C-c ) reftex-reference
8292 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
8293 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
8295 C-c [ reftex-citation
8296 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
8297 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
8299 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
8300 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
8303 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
8304 can quickly jump to every section.
8306 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
8307 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
8308 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
8309 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
8310 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
8312 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8314 *** Info documentation is now available.
8316 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
8317 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8319 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8320 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8322 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8323 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8325 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
8326 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
8327 appropriate functions.
8329 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8330 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
8332 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8335 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8336 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8338 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8341 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8342 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8343 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8345 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
8346 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
8347 prefixed with `ALT'.
8349 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
8350 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
8351 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
8354 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
8355 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
8356 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
8358 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8359 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8361 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
8362 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
8363 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
8365 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8367 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8369 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8372 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8373 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8376 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8379 *** Added support for imenu.
8381 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8382 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8383 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8384 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8386 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8387 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8389 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8391 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8393 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8394 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8395 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8398 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8399 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8401 ** browse-url changes
8403 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8404 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8405 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8406 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8407 customization variables.
8409 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8411 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
8412 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
8413 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8417 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8418 pops up the Info file for this command.
8420 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8421 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8422 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8425 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8426 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8427 files in the same directory.
8429 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8430 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8431 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8435 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8436 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8438 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8439 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8440 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8441 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8442 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8443 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8444 color when Viper is in insert state.
8445 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8446 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8447 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8451 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8452 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8453 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8454 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8455 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8457 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8459 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8460 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8462 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8463 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8464 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8466 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8467 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8468 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8469 methods and protocols.
8471 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8472 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8473 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8476 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8477 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8478 at least M times and as many as N times.
8480 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8481 in files has changed slightly.
8483 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8484 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8485 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8486 with old time-stamp-format values.
8488 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8489 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8490 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8493 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8494 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8495 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8496 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8497 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8498 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8500 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8501 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8502 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8504 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8505 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8506 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8507 recommended now will continue to work then.
8509 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8512 ** There are some additional major modes:
8514 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8515 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8516 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8518 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8519 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8522 ** New Lisp packages include:
8524 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8526 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8527 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8529 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8531 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8534 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8535 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8538 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8539 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8540 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8541 strings or comments.
8543 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8544 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8545 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8546 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8549 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8550 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8552 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8553 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8555 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8557 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8558 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8560 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8562 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8564 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8566 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8567 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8569 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8570 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8571 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8572 original place after inserting the copy.
8574 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8577 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8578 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8579 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8581 Enable mouse-drag with:
8582 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8584 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8586 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8587 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8589 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8590 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8594 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8595 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8596 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8597 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8598 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8599 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8600 instance) and vice versa.
8602 To use this package load it using
8603 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8604 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8605 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8606 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8607 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8608 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8610 *** Interface to ph.
8612 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8614 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8615 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8618 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8620 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8621 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8622 while the real cursor does not move.
8624 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8625 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8627 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8628 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8632 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8633 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8634 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8635 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8637 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8639 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8641 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8643 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8644 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8645 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8646 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8647 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8649 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8650 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8651 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8652 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8653 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8654 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8656 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8658 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8659 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8660 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8661 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8663 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8664 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8666 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8667 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8670 ** Basic Lisp changes
8672 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8673 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8675 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8676 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8679 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8681 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8683 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8684 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8686 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8687 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8690 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8692 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8694 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8696 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8697 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8698 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8701 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8702 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8703 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8705 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8706 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8707 adding one of these suffixes.
8709 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8710 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8711 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8713 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8714 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8716 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8718 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8719 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8721 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8722 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8724 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8726 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8727 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8729 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8730 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8731 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8732 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8734 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8735 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8738 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8739 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8740 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8743 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8744 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8747 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8749 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8750 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8751 Then it returns that string.
8753 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8755 (with-output-to-string
8756 (princ "The buffer is ")
8757 (princ (buffer-name)))
8759 returns "The buffer is foo".
8761 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8764 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8765 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8766 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8768 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8769 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8771 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8772 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8773 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8774 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8775 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8776 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8778 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8779 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8780 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8783 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8784 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8785 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8786 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8787 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8789 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8790 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8791 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8792 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8794 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8795 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8797 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8799 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8800 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8801 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8802 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8805 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8806 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8809 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8811 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8812 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8813 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8814 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8815 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8817 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8819 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8820 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8821 more than the number of characters.
8823 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8824 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8825 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8826 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8827 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8828 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8830 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8831 and returns a string containing those characters.
8833 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8834 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8835 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8836 character, sref signals an error.
8838 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8839 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8840 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8842 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8843 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8844 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8846 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8847 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8848 to a vector of the characters in it.
8850 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8851 of a string. You call it as follows:
8853 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8855 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8856 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8857 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8858 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8859 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8861 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8862 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8864 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8865 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8867 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8868 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8869 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8870 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8872 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8874 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8876 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8877 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8878 are not included in the resulting value.
8880 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8881 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8882 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8883 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8885 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8886 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8887 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8888 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8889 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8890 column START-COLUMN.
8892 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8893 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8894 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8895 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8896 changed text, before the change.
8898 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8899 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8900 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8902 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8904 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8906 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8907 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8909 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8910 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8911 which identify the character within that character set.
8913 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8914 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8915 opposite of split-char.
8917 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8918 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8920 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8921 of all the characters in a string.
8923 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8924 and specifying coding systems.
8926 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8927 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8928 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8929 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8930 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8931 as what to do about code conversion.)
8933 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8934 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8936 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8937 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8938 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8940 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8941 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8942 to match against a file name.
8944 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8945 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8946 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8947 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8948 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8949 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8951 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8952 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8954 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8955 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8957 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8958 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8959 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8962 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8963 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8964 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8965 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8966 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8967 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8969 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8970 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8972 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8973 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8974 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
8975 start the subprocess.
8977 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
8978 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
8979 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
8980 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
8981 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
8983 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
8984 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
8987 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
8988 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
8989 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
8990 connection permanently or until overridden.
8992 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
8993 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
8994 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
8995 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
8996 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
8997 system for one operation at a time.
8999 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
9000 files, subprocesses or network connections.
9002 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
9003 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
9004 The value is a cons cell,
9005 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
9006 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
9007 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
9008 input to the subprocess.
9010 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
9011 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
9013 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
9014 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
9015 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
9017 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
9018 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
9019 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
9020 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
9023 Thus, instead of writing
9025 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
9026 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
9028 you would now write this:
9030 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
9031 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
9035 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
9036 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
9037 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
9038 for a description of them.
9040 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
9041 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
9043 (defgroup ispell nil
9044 "Spell checking using Ispell."
9047 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
9048 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
9049 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
9050 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
9051 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
9053 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
9054 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
9055 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
9056 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
9057 first-level subgroups.
9059 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
9061 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
9062 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
9066 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
9067 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
9068 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
9069 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
9070 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
9071 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
9073 ** Text property changes
9075 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
9078 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
9079 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
9080 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
9081 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
9082 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
9084 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
9085 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
9086 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
9087 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
9089 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
9090 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
9091 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
9093 ** Changes in invisibility features
9095 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
9096 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
9097 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
9098 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
9099 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
9100 make the overlay visible.
9102 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
9103 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
9104 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
9105 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
9106 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
9107 t when it should hide it.
9109 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
9111 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
9112 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
9113 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
9114 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
9115 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
9116 Here is an example of how to do this:
9118 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
9119 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9120 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
9121 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9124 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
9127 ;; When done with the overlays:
9128 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9130 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9132 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
9134 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
9135 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
9136 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
9137 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
9139 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
9140 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
9141 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
9143 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
9144 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
9146 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
9147 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
9149 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
9150 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
9151 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
9153 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
9154 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
9155 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
9156 determine the syntax type of the character.
9158 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
9159 of the current buffer.
9161 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
9162 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
9163 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
9165 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
9166 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
9167 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
9168 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
9169 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
9171 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
9174 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
9175 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
9176 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
9178 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
9179 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
9180 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
9181 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
9182 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
9184 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
9185 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
9186 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
9188 ** Changes in face features
9190 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
9191 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
9193 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
9194 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
9196 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
9197 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
9199 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
9200 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
9202 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
9203 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
9204 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
9205 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
9208 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
9209 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
9211 ** Changes in file-handling functions
9213 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
9214 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
9215 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
9216 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
9218 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
9221 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
9222 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
9224 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9225 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
9227 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
9228 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
9230 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
9231 character code conversion as well as other things.
9233 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
9234 (formerly it did not).
9236 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
9237 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
9239 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
9240 instead of constant strings.
9242 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
9243 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
9244 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
9246 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
9247 in the same way as before.
9249 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
9250 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
9251 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
9253 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
9254 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
9255 else, and returns nil.
9257 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
9258 directory cannot be listed.
9260 ** Changes in minibuffer input
9262 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
9263 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
9264 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
9265 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
9268 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
9269 It is available through the history command M-n.
9271 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
9272 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
9273 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
9274 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
9275 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
9277 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
9278 argument in this way.
9280 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
9281 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
9282 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
9284 ** Echo area features
9286 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
9287 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
9288 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
9289 after the echo area is cleared.
9291 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
9292 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
9294 ** Keyboard input features
9296 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
9297 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
9299 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
9300 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
9303 ** Frame-related changes
9305 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
9306 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
9307 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
9309 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
9310 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
9311 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
9313 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
9314 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
9315 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
9316 in the selected frame.
9318 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
9319 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
9320 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
9322 ** X Windows features
9324 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
9325 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
9326 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
9328 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9329 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9331 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
9332 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
9333 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
9335 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9336 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9338 ** Subprocess features
9340 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9341 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9344 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9345 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9347 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9348 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9350 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9351 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9353 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
9354 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
9355 goes after the other menu items.
9357 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
9358 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
9359 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
9362 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9363 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9365 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9366 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9369 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
9370 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
9371 but its hook is still run.
9373 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9374 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9376 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9377 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9378 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9380 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9381 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9382 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9385 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9386 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9388 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9389 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9390 functions like display-time.
9392 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9393 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9395 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9396 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9397 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9399 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9400 if there is an error in compilation.
9402 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9403 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9404 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9405 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9407 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
9408 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
9409 the *scratch* buffer.
9411 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
9412 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
9413 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
9414 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9416 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9417 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9418 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9420 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9421 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9422 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9423 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9425 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9426 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9427 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9429 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9430 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9431 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9432 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9433 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9436 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9437 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9438 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9439 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9441 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9442 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9443 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9444 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9446 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9448 ** imenu.el changes.
9450 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9451 item from menu created by imenu.
9453 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9454 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9455 select one of those items.
9457 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9459 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9460 Copyright information:
9462 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9464 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9465 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9466 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9467 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9469 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9470 of this document, or of portions of it,
9471 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9472 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9476 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"