1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
16 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
17 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
18 area or with tooltips.
20 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
21 read mail from the menu etc.
23 ** Changes in Outline mode.
25 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
26 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
27 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
29 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
30 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
32 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
33 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
34 several other special buffers.
36 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
37 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
40 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
41 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
43 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
44 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
45 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
47 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
48 is running in batch mode. For example,
50 (message "%s" (read t))
52 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
55 ** Faces and frame parameters.
57 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
58 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
59 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
60 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
61 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
62 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
63 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
65 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
66 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
67 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
68 `default' face and vice versa.
72 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
73 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
74 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
76 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
78 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
79 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
80 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
81 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
83 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
84 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
85 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
87 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
90 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
92 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
93 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
94 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
95 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
98 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
100 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
101 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
102 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
103 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
106 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
107 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
108 under Lisp changes, below.
110 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
112 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
113 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
116 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
117 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
118 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
119 customizing face `fringe'.
121 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
122 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
126 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
127 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
129 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
131 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
132 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
133 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
134 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
135 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
138 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
139 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
140 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
141 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
142 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
143 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
145 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
146 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
147 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
148 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
149 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
150 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
152 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
153 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
154 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
155 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
156 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
158 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
160 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
161 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
162 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
164 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
166 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
167 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
168 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
169 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
170 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
175 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
176 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
180 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
181 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
182 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
185 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
187 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
188 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
189 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
192 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
193 have to do anything to activate it.
195 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
197 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
198 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
199 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
200 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
202 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
204 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
206 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
208 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
211 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
214 ** Hscrolling in C code.
216 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
220 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
221 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
223 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
225 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
226 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
227 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
228 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
229 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
231 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
233 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
236 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
237 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
239 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
241 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
242 toggles the read-only status.
244 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
246 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
248 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
249 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
252 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
254 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
255 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
256 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
257 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
258 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
259 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
263 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
264 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
265 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
266 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
267 to enable sound support.
269 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
270 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
271 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
272 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
273 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
274 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
276 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
278 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
280 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
281 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
282 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
284 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
285 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
287 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
288 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
289 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
291 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
293 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
294 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
295 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
296 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
298 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
299 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
300 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
301 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
303 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
304 notably at the end of lines.
306 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
307 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
309 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
310 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
311 after each match to get the replacement text.
313 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
315 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
316 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
317 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
318 by setting the following variable:
320 - User option: max-mini-window-height
322 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
323 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
324 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
328 ** Changes to hideshow.el
330 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
331 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
333 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
335 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
336 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
337 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
338 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
339 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
340 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
342 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
343 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
344 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
345 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
347 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
349 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
350 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
351 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
352 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
353 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
355 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
356 something like this in your .emacs.
358 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
360 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
362 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
364 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
365 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
366 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
368 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
369 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
371 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
372 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
374 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
375 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
376 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
379 ** Changes in Font Lock
381 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
382 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
385 ** Comint (subshell) changes
387 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
388 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
390 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
391 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
392 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
394 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
395 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
396 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
398 ** Changes to Rmail mode
400 RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg, like
403 ** Changes to TeX mode
405 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
408 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
410 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
411 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
412 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
413 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
414 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
415 can be edited from that buffer.
417 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
418 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
419 `A' to use all marked entries).
421 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
422 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
424 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
425 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
426 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
429 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
430 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
431 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
432 in column 1 are always made leaves.
434 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
435 has the following new features:
437 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
438 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
439 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
440 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
442 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
443 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
444 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
445 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
446 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
451 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
452 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
453 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
455 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
456 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
457 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
458 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
462 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
463 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
464 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
466 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
467 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
470 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
471 between custom options. Example:
473 (defcustom default-input-method nil
474 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
475 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
476 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
478 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
479 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
481 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
482 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
483 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
485 ** New features in evaluation commands
487 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
488 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
489 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
490 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
491 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
495 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
496 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
497 is, delete only empty directories.
499 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
500 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
501 copy directories recursively.
503 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
504 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
505 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
507 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
508 use the -f option when sending mail.
512 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
513 current user setups (although it's believed that these
514 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
515 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
516 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
517 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
520 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
521 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
522 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
523 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
524 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
525 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
526 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
527 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
529 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
530 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
531 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
532 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
535 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
536 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
537 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
538 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
539 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
540 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
541 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
542 function documentation for more info.
544 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
545 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
546 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
547 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
548 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
549 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
550 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
551 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
553 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
555 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
556 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
558 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
559 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
560 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
561 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
562 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
565 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
566 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
567 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
570 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
571 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
572 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
573 chapter about this in the manual.
575 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
576 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
577 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
578 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
579 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
581 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
582 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
583 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
585 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
586 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
588 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
589 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
590 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
593 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
594 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
595 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
596 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
599 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
600 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
601 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
604 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
605 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
606 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
607 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
610 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
611 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
612 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
613 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
616 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
617 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
618 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
620 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
622 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
623 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
624 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
625 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
627 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
628 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
629 the column specified by comment-column.
631 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
632 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
633 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
634 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
635 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
636 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
638 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
639 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
642 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
644 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
645 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
646 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
647 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
650 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
654 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
655 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
657 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
659 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
660 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
661 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
662 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
663 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
664 `secondary-selection'.
666 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
667 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
668 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
669 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
670 usual snappy response.
672 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
673 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
674 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
675 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
678 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
679 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
680 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
682 ** Shell script mode changes.
684 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
685 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
686 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
690 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
692 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
693 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
694 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
695 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
696 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
698 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
699 declarations when given the --declarations option.
701 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
702 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
704 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
707 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
709 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
711 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
714 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
715 variables are tagged.
717 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
719 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
722 ** Changes in etags.el
724 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
725 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
727 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
728 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
729 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
730 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
732 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
734 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
735 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
737 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
739 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
740 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
741 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
743 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
744 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
746 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
747 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
749 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
750 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
751 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
753 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
754 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
755 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
756 currently no specific input method support for them.
758 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
759 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
760 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
762 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
764 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
766 ** New modes and packages
768 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
769 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
770 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
771 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
772 equal signs of assignments.
774 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
775 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
777 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
778 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
779 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
780 customize the package.
782 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
783 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
784 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
785 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
786 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
789 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
790 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
792 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
794 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
796 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
798 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
801 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
804 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
806 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
808 *** whitespace.el ???
810 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
811 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
812 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
813 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
814 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
815 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
816 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
818 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
820 Here is an example of columns:
823 dog pineapple car EXTRA
824 porcupine strawberry airplane
826 Doing the following settings:
828 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
829 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
830 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
831 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
834 Selecting the lines above and typing:
836 M-x delimit-columns-region
840 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
841 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
842 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
844 delim-col has the following options:
846 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
849 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
852 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
855 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
858 delim-col has the following commands:
860 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
861 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
863 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
864 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
865 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
867 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
869 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
871 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
872 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
874 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
875 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
877 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
880 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
881 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
882 specific to Message mode.
884 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
885 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
886 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
888 ** Withdrawn packages
890 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
891 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
893 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
895 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
897 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
898 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
899 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
900 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
902 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
903 returned by function `recent-keys'.
905 ** New function `keyword-p' is an efficient type predicate for keyword
908 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun' and `end-of-defun', can be used to
909 define handlers for the functions of the same names. Major modes can
910 define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a etc. if the normal
911 definitions of the functions are not appropriate for the mode.
913 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
914 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
916 ** If an abbrev has only a hook, and that hook has a non-nil
917 `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook specifies
918 whether an expansion has been done or not. If it returns nil, no
919 expansion has been performed. The character leading to the call of
920 the hook will then be self-inserted.
922 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
923 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
924 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
926 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
927 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
930 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
932 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
933 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
934 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
937 ** Regular expressions now support Perl's non-greedy *? +? and ??
940 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
941 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
943 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
944 instead of being optional.
946 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
947 modify read-only text.
949 ** New functions and variables for locales.
951 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
952 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
953 time functions like strftime. The new variables
954 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
955 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
957 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
958 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
959 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
960 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
961 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
962 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
963 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
965 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
966 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
967 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
970 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
971 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
973 ** New function `propertize'
975 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
976 strings with text properties.
978 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
980 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
981 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
982 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
983 specified value of that property. Example:
985 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
988 ** push and pop macros.
990 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
991 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
992 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
994 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
995 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
996 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
999 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1000 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1002 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1003 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1004 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1005 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1006 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1008 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1010 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1011 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1012 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1013 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1014 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1015 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1016 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1017 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1018 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1019 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1020 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1021 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1022 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1023 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1024 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1027 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1029 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1031 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1033 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1034 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1038 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1039 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1040 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1044 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1045 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1047 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1049 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1050 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1051 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1052 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1053 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1055 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1057 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1058 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1059 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1063 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1064 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1065 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1066 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1068 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1070 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1072 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1074 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1076 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1078 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1081 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1083 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1085 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1087 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1089 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1091 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1093 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1095 Returns the size of TABLE.
1097 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1099 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1101 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1103 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1105 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1109 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1111 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1114 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1116 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1117 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1119 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1121 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1123 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1125 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1126 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1128 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1130 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1132 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1134 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1135 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1136 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1137 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1138 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1140 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1142 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1143 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1144 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1146 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1147 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1149 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1150 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1152 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1153 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1155 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1156 'case-fold-string-hash))
1158 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1161 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1163 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1164 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1165 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1168 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1170 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1171 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1174 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1175 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1176 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1177 is too short to reach that column.
1180 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1181 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1182 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1183 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1185 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1186 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1187 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1190 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1191 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1194 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1195 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1198 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1199 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1200 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1201 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1202 temporary-file-directory instead.
1205 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1206 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1207 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1208 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1211 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1212 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1215 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1217 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1218 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1219 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1222 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1224 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1225 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1226 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1227 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1228 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1229 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1231 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1232 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1233 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1234 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1237 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1239 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1240 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1241 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1244 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
1245 string where arguments appear in the result string.
1249 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
1251 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
1252 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
1255 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
1258 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
1260 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
1261 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
1264 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
1266 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
1267 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
1273 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
1274 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
1276 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
1277 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
1278 to enable sound support.
1280 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
1281 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
1282 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
1283 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
1284 sound to play, before playing the sound.
1286 The following sound properties are supported:
1290 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
1291 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1295 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
1296 may be present, but not both.
1300 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1301 0..1. This property is optional.
1303 Other properties are ignored.
1305 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1307 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
1310 ** Changes to garbage collection
1312 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
1313 of live and free strings.
1315 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
1316 strings that have been consed so far.
1319 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1321 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1322 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1323 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1324 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1326 ** New face implementation.
1328 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
1329 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
1334 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
1336 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
1338 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
1339 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
1341 3. Font height in 1/10pt
1343 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
1345 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
1347 6. Foreground color.
1349 7. Background color.
1351 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
1353 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1355 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1357 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1359 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1362 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1363 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1365 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1366 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1367 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1368 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1369 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1370 attributes mentioned above.
1372 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1373 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1376 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1377 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1383 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1384 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1385 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1386 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1387 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1388 results in a fully-specified face.
1391 *** Face realization.
1393 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1394 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1395 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1396 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1397 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1398 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1400 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1401 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1402 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1403 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1405 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1406 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1407 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1408 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1409 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1411 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1412 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1413 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1414 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1415 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1418 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1419 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1420 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1421 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1424 **** Clearing face caches.
1426 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1427 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1433 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1434 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1435 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1437 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1438 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1439 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1440 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1441 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1443 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1444 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1445 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1447 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1449 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1450 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1451 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1452 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1453 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1454 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1455 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1457 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1458 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1464 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1465 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1468 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1469 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1470 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1471 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1472 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1475 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1477 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1480 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1482 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1484 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1485 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1486 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1488 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1489 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1490 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1491 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1492 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1493 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1494 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1495 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1496 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1497 of the face font sort order.
1499 - Function: x-font-family-list
1501 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1502 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1503 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1504 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1506 - Variable: font-list-limit
1508 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1509 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1510 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1513 *** Setting face attributes.
1515 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1516 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1517 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1520 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1521 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1523 The following attributes are recognized:
1527 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1528 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1529 and `?' are allowed.
1533 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1534 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1535 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1536 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1540 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1545 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1546 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1547 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1551 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1552 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1555 `:foreground', `:background'
1557 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1561 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1562 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1563 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1568 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1569 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1570 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1575 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1576 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1577 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1578 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1582 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1583 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1584 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1585 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1586 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1587 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1588 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1589 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1590 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1591 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1592 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1593 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1594 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1595 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1596 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1597 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1602 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1603 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1607 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1608 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1609 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1610 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1611 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1612 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1614 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1615 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1619 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1620 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1621 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1624 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1625 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1626 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1628 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1631 *** Face attributes and X resources
1633 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1636 Face attribute X resource class
1637 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1638 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1639 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1640 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1641 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1642 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1643 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1644 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1645 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1646 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1647 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1648 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1649 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1650 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1651 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1652 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1653 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1654 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1655 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1656 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1659 *** Text property `face'.
1661 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1662 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1663 specification can be
1665 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1667 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1668 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1669 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1670 for face attribute names.
1672 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1673 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1674 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1677 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1679 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
1680 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
1681 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
1682 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1683 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
1684 used to clear the mapping table.
1686 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
1688 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
1689 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
1690 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
1691 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
1692 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
1693 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
1694 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
1695 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
1696 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
1697 modify their color-related behavior.
1699 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
1703 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1705 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1707 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1708 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1709 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1711 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1713 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1714 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1717 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1718 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1719 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1720 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1721 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
1722 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
1723 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
1726 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1727 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1728 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1730 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1732 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1734 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1735 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1736 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1737 constrained position if that is is different.
1739 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1740 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1741 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1742 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1743 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1744 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1747 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1748 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1749 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1750 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1751 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1753 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1755 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1756 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1757 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1759 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1761 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1762 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1763 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1764 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1765 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1767 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1769 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1770 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1771 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1772 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1773 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1775 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1777 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1778 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1779 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1781 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1783 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1784 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1785 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1790 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1791 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1792 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1793 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1795 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1796 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1797 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1798 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1801 IMAGE is an image specification.
1803 *** Image specifications
1805 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1806 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1807 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1808 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1809 described below are ignored.
1811 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1815 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1816 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1820 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1821 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1825 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1830 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1831 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1832 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1833 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1835 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1837 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1838 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1839 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1840 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1841 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1842 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1843 background of the image.
1847 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1848 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1849 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1850 may be present in the image specification.
1854 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
1855 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
1856 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
1857 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
1859 *** Supported image types
1861 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1863 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1864 properties supported are
1868 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1869 is the frame's foreground.
1873 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1874 the frame's background color.
1876 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1877 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1878 instead of a `:file' property.
1882 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1886 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1892 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1893 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1895 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1897 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1900 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1902 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1903 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1904 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1905 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1907 Additional image properties supported are:
1909 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1911 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1912 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1915 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1916 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1918 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1919 to display compressed images.
1921 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1923 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1924 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1927 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1929 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1930 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
1933 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1935 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1936 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1939 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1941 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1942 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1944 Additional image properties supported are:
1948 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1949 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1951 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1952 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1953 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1956 (defun show-anim (file max)
1957 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1958 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1960 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1963 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
1966 (goto-char (point-min))
1967 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1968 (insert-image img "x"))
1969 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1971 **** PNG, image type `png'
1973 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1974 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1977 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1979 Additional image properties supported are:
1983 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1984 integer. This is a required property.
1988 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1989 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1993 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1994 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1995 files. This is an required property.
1997 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2002 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2003 which are supported in the current configuration.
2005 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2006 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2007 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2010 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2012 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2013 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2014 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2015 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2016 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2022 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2025 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2026 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2027 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2028 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2029 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2030 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2031 of the display margins.
2033 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2034 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2035 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2036 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2042 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2043 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2044 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2045 that have a `help-echo' property.
2047 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
2048 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
2049 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
2050 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
2051 tool-bar item is used.
2053 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2054 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
2055 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2058 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2060 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2061 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2063 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2064 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2065 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2066 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2069 (global-set-key [A-down]
2072 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2073 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2074 (global-set-key [A-up]
2077 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2078 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2081 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2083 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2084 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2085 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2086 is called with one argument, POS.
2088 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2089 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2090 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2091 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2092 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2095 ** Tool bar support.
2097 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2098 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2099 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2100 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2101 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2102 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2104 *** Tool bar item definitions
2106 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2107 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2108 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2110 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2111 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2112 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2113 property (see below).
2115 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2116 binding are currently ignored.
2118 The following properties are recognized:
2122 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2127 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2131 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2132 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2133 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2135 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2137 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2138 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2142 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2143 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2144 meaning of each of the four elements:
2146 Index Use when item is
2147 ----------------------------------------
2148 0 enabled and selected
2149 1 enabled and deselected
2150 2 disabled and selected
2151 3 disabled and deselected
2153 `:help HELP-STRING'.
2155 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
2156 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
2158 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
2160 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
2161 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
2162 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
2164 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
2165 raised when the mouse moves over them.
2167 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
2168 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
2169 pixels. Default is 1.
2171 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
2172 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
2174 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
2176 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
2179 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
2180 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
2181 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
2183 is the original tool bar item definition, then
2185 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
2187 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
2190 ** Mode line changes.
2193 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
2195 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
2196 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
2197 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
2199 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
2200 a `local-map' text property.
2202 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
2203 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
2205 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
2206 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
2207 `local-map' property.
2209 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
2210 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
2213 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
2214 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
2217 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
2218 variable mode-line-format to nil.
2221 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
2223 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
2224 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
2225 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
2226 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
2229 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
2232 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
2233 position in the header-line.
2236 ** Text property `display'
2238 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
2239 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
2240 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
2241 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
2243 *** Variable width and height spaces
2245 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
2246 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
2247 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
2248 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
2249 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
2250 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
2251 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
2253 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
2254 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
2255 properties described below.
2257 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
2258 characters having the `display' property.
2262 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
2263 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
2265 - :relative-width FACTOR
2267 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
2268 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
2269 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
2270 width of that character by FACTOR.
2274 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
2275 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
2277 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
2281 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
2284 - :relative-height FACTOR
2286 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
2287 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
2291 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
2292 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
2293 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
2296 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
2300 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
2301 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
2302 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
2303 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
2304 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
2305 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
2306 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
2307 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
2308 as display specification.
2310 *** Other display properties
2312 - :space-width FACTOR
2314 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
2315 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
2320 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
2322 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
2323 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
2324 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
2325 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
2326 a font is available counts as a step.
2328 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
2329 as tall as the frame's default font.
2331 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
2332 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
2334 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
2335 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
2339 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
2340 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
2341 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
2342 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
2343 `:height' subproperty.
2345 *** Conditional display properties
2347 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
2348 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
2349 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
2350 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
2351 the text having the `display' property.
2353 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
2357 ** New menu separator types.
2359 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
2360 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
2361 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
2362 to specify other menu separator types.
2364 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
2366 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
2369 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
2371 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
2373 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2375 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2377 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2379 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2381 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2383 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2385 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2387 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2388 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2390 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2392 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2394 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2396 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2398 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2400 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2402 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2404 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2406 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2408 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2410 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2412 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2414 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2416 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2418 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2419 the corresponding single-line separators.
2422 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2424 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2425 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2426 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2427 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2428 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2429 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2430 default foreground is black.
2432 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2433 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2434 `ScrollBarBackground').
2436 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2437 settings for scroll bar colors.
2440 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2441 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2444 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2445 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2446 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2447 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2448 the original window start.
2451 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2452 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2453 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2456 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2458 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2459 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2460 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2461 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2463 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2464 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2466 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2468 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2469 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2470 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2471 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2472 temporarily to nil, for example
2474 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2475 (enlarge-window 10))
2477 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2478 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2480 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2482 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2483 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2485 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2487 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2489 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2490 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2491 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2493 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2494 is the one that is used.
2496 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2497 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2498 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2499 separate from the command's regular output.
2500 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2501 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2502 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2505 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2506 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2507 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2508 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2510 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2511 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2512 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2513 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2515 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2516 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2517 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2518 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2520 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2521 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2522 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2523 they never ignore case.
2525 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2526 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2527 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2528 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2529 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2530 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2531 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2533 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2534 the same format that was used in the file before.
2536 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2537 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2539 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2540 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2541 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2543 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2544 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2545 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2546 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2547 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2548 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2549 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2551 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2552 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2553 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2554 format. You can now customize these variables.
2556 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2557 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2558 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2559 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2561 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2562 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2563 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2565 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2566 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2567 doesn't have any effect.
2569 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2572 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2573 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2574 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2576 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2577 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2578 `auto-show-mode' command.
2580 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2581 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2582 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2583 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2584 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2586 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2587 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2589 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2590 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2591 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2593 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2594 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2595 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2596 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2598 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2600 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2601 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2602 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2603 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2604 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2606 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2607 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2609 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2610 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2611 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2612 `?' on other systems.
2614 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2615 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2618 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2619 current codepage when it starts.
2623 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2624 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2625 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2626 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2627 buffer-file-coding-system.
2629 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2630 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2633 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2634 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2635 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2636 list of possible coding systems.
2640 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2641 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2642 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2643 docstring for details.
2645 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2646 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2647 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2648 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2649 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2651 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2652 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2654 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2655 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2657 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2658 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2659 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2660 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2663 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2664 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2666 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2667 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2668 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2669 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2671 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2672 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2673 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2674 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2675 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2677 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2679 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2681 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2682 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2684 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2686 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2687 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2688 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2689 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2690 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2694 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2695 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2696 Gnus manual for the full story.
2698 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2699 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2700 group, which is created automatically.
2702 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2705 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2707 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2708 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2710 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2713 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2715 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2716 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2718 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2720 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2721 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2723 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2724 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2726 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2727 control over simplification.
2729 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2731 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2734 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2736 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2738 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2739 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2740 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2742 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2743 `a' forces normal posting method.
2745 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2748 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2751 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2752 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2754 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2757 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2759 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2761 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2762 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2764 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2765 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2767 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2769 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2772 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2773 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2775 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2776 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2778 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2780 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2782 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2784 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2786 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2787 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2788 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2790 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2791 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2792 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2793 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2794 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2796 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2797 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2798 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2799 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2801 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2802 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2803 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2806 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2808 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2809 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2811 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2812 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2813 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2814 removed from the label.
2816 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2817 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2819 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2820 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2822 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2823 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2826 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2828 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2830 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2831 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2833 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2834 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2835 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2837 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2838 changes with a special face.
2840 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2841 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2842 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2844 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2846 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2847 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2848 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2849 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2850 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2852 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2853 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2854 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2856 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2857 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2858 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2859 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2860 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2861 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2862 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2863 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2864 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2866 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2867 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2868 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2869 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2870 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2873 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2874 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2875 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2876 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2877 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2878 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2880 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2881 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2882 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2883 was not documented clearly before.
2885 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2886 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2888 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2890 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2891 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2892 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2893 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2895 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2896 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2897 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2899 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2901 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2902 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2904 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2905 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2908 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2909 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2910 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2911 file names and attributes are returned.
2913 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2914 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2915 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2916 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2919 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2920 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2922 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2924 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2925 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2926 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2929 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2930 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2933 The new function process-running-child-p
2934 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2935 terminal to its own child process.
2937 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2938 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2939 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2940 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2942 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2943 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2945 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2946 :included is an alias for :visible.
2948 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2949 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2950 to move or copy menu entries.
2952 ** Multibyte editing changes
2954 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2955 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2956 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2957 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2958 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2959 (setq char (sref str idx)
2960 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2961 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2963 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2964 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2965 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2967 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2968 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2969 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2971 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2973 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2974 across the boundary.
2976 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2977 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2978 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2979 contains 8-bit characters.
2980 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2981 contains invalid characters.
2983 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2984 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2985 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2986 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2989 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2990 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2991 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2992 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2994 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2995 compose Thai characters in a string.
2997 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2998 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2999 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3000 menus should always use the third argument.
3002 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3003 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3004 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3005 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3007 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3008 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3009 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3010 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3012 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3013 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3014 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3017 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3019 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3020 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3021 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3023 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3024 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3025 means to clear out that attribute.
3027 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3028 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3030 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3031 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3032 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3033 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3035 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3036 the gap of the current buffer.
3038 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3039 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3042 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3043 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3044 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3045 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3047 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3049 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3050 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3051 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3052 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3053 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3055 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3056 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3057 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3058 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3059 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3061 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3062 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3063 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3065 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3066 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3067 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3068 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3069 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3072 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3073 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3074 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3075 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3077 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3079 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3080 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3081 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3082 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3084 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3085 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3086 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3087 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3088 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3089 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3090 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3093 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3096 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3097 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3098 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3099 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3100 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3102 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
3103 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
3104 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
3105 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
3107 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
3108 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
3109 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
3110 something that most users not do.
3112 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
3113 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
3114 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
3117 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
3120 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
3121 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
3122 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
3123 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
3126 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
3127 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
3128 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
3129 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
3130 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
3133 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
3134 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
3135 to be confused by TeX commands.
3137 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
3138 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
3139 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
3140 of various alternative replacements and actions.
3142 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
3143 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
3144 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
3145 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
3146 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
3148 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
3149 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
3151 ** Changes in input method usage.
3153 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
3154 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
3157 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
3159 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
3160 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
3162 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
3163 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
3165 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
3167 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
3169 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
3170 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
3172 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
3173 given in the following case:
3174 o When you are using a complex input method.
3175 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
3177 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
3178 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
3179 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
3180 setting it to t is helpful.
3182 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
3184 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
3186 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
3187 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
3188 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
3189 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
3192 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
3193 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
3194 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
3197 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
3199 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
3201 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
3202 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
3204 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
3205 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
3206 its owner and group.
3208 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
3209 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
3211 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
3212 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
3214 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
3215 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
3216 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
3217 by the left edge of the rectangle.
3219 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
3220 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
3221 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
3222 for writing keyboard macros.
3224 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
3225 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
3226 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
3227 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
3228 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
3231 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
3233 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
3234 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
3237 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
3238 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
3239 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
3240 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
3242 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
3243 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
3244 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
3246 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
3247 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
3248 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
3249 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
3251 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
3252 failure if the command produces no output.
3254 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
3255 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
3258 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
3259 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
3260 function and variable names.
3262 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
3263 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
3264 file-coding-system-alist.
3266 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
3267 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
3268 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
3269 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
3270 according to the current fontset.
3272 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
3274 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
3275 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
3276 nonascii-insert-offset.
3278 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
3279 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
3280 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
3281 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
3283 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
3284 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
3286 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
3287 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
3289 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
3290 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
3293 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
3294 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
3296 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
3297 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
3298 all variables that have documentation.
3300 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
3301 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
3302 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
3303 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
3304 it should show; the default is 20.
3306 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
3307 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
3310 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
3311 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
3312 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
3313 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
3314 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
3315 Newly added options are included as well.
3317 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
3318 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
3319 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
3321 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
3324 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
3325 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
3327 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
3328 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
3331 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
3332 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
3335 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
3336 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
3337 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
3338 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
3341 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
3343 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
3344 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
3345 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
3347 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
3348 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
3349 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
3352 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
3353 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
3355 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
3356 read and post multi-lingual articles.
3358 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
3359 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
3360 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
3361 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
3362 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
3363 made invisible again.
3365 ** Mail reading and sending changes
3367 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
3368 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
3369 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
3372 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
3373 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3374 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3375 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3376 rmail-default-body-file.
3378 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3379 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3380 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3382 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3383 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3384 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3386 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3387 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3388 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3389 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3390 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3391 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3393 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3394 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3395 provided by feedmail are:
3397 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3398 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3399 there is also a queue for draft messages
3401 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3402 be prompted for confirmation
3404 **** does smart filling of address headers
3406 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3407 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3408 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3410 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3411 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3412 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3413 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3417 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3418 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3420 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3421 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3423 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3424 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3425 for a specified regexp.
3429 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3432 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3433 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3436 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3437 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3438 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3439 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3441 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3442 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3443 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3444 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3445 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3447 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3448 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3449 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3450 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3451 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3453 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3454 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3455 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3456 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3458 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3459 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3460 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3462 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3463 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3464 session to resolve them.
3466 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3467 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3468 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3471 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3472 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3473 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3474 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3475 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3476 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3479 ** Changes in Font Lock
3481 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3482 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3483 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3484 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3485 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3487 ** Frame name display changes
3489 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3490 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3491 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3492 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3494 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3495 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3498 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3500 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3501 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3502 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3504 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3506 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3507 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3508 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3510 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3511 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3514 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3515 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3516 previously sent input.
3518 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3519 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3520 as the search string.
3522 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3523 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3527 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3528 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3529 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3532 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3533 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3534 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3535 style is still the default however.
3537 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3539 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3540 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3541 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3543 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3544 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3546 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3547 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3549 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3550 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3552 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3553 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3555 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3556 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3557 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3558 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3560 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3562 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3563 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3564 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3566 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3567 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3568 expanding dynamically.
3570 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3571 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3573 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3574 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3575 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3576 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3578 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3580 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3582 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3583 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3584 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3585 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3586 against the first word in the title.
3588 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3589 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3590 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3591 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3592 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3593 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3595 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3596 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3597 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3598 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3600 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3602 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3603 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3604 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3605 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3606 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3607 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3609 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3610 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3612 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3613 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3614 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3616 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3617 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3621 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3622 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3623 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3625 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3626 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3627 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3628 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3631 o URLs are automatically skipped
3632 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3634 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3636 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3638 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3639 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3640 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3641 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3643 *** New recursive parser.
3645 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3646 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3647 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3649 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3651 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3652 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3653 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3655 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3657 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3659 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3661 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3663 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3665 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3666 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3668 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3670 *** References to external documents.
3672 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3673 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3674 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3675 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3676 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3677 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3678 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3680 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3682 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3683 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3685 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3686 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3688 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3690 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3691 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3693 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3695 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3696 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3697 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3698 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3699 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3700 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3703 *** Support for the varioref package
3705 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3709 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3710 and citations are created. These hooks are
3711 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3712 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3714 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3716 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3717 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3719 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3721 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3722 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3725 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3727 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3728 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3729 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3730 directories that contain the same file name.
3732 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3733 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3734 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3735 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3736 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3737 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3738 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3741 ** New modes and packages
3743 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3744 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3745 it, but some do not.
3747 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3750 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3751 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3754 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3756 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3757 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3758 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3759 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3761 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3762 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3763 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3765 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3766 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3767 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3768 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3769 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3772 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3773 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3775 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3776 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3777 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3778 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3780 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3782 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3783 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3784 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3785 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3786 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3787 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3788 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3789 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3790 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3791 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3792 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3794 Platform-specific modes:
3796 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3797 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3798 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3799 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3800 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3801 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3802 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3803 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3804 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3806 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3808 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3809 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3810 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3811 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3813 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3814 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3815 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3817 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3818 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3819 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3820 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3822 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3823 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3824 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3827 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3828 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3829 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3830 current input method for reading this one event.
3832 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3833 now control whether to output certain characters as
3834 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3835 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3836 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3837 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3839 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3841 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3842 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3844 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3845 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3846 always increases point by 1.
3848 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3849 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3851 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3853 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3854 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3855 default value changed. For example,
3857 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3862 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3865 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3866 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3867 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3868 `:version' in the top level group.
3870 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3872 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3873 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3875 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3876 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3877 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3880 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3881 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3884 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3885 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3886 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3888 ** Frame-local variables.
3890 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3891 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3892 local bindings for that variable.
3894 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3895 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3896 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3899 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3900 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3901 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3902 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3904 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3905 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3906 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3907 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3909 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3910 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3911 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3912 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3913 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3915 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3916 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3917 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3918 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3920 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3921 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3923 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3924 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3925 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3927 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3928 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3929 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3930 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3932 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3933 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3936 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3937 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3938 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3939 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3940 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3942 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3943 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3944 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3945 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3947 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3948 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3949 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3950 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3951 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3953 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3954 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3955 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3956 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3958 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3959 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3960 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3962 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3963 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3964 was directed to display this buffer.
3966 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3967 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3968 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3969 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3970 set-window-configuration.
3972 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3973 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3974 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3975 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3977 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3978 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3979 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3981 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3982 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3983 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3985 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3986 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3988 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3989 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3991 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3992 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3993 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3995 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3996 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3997 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3998 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4002 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4003 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4006 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4007 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4008 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4009 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4010 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4012 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4014 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4015 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4016 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4017 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4020 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4021 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4022 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4023 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4024 The supported properties include
4026 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4028 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4029 item should appear in the menu.
4031 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4032 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4033 It should return a binding to use instead.
4035 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4036 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4037 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4038 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4039 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4042 This means that the command normally has no
4043 keyboard equivalent.
4044 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4045 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4046 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4047 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4048 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4050 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4051 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4053 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4057 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4058 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4059 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4060 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4062 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4064 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4065 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4066 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4067 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4068 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4069 forward, away from the user.
4071 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4073 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4074 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4075 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4076 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4077 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4079 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4081 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4082 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4083 that were dragged and dropped.
4085 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4087 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4089 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4090 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4091 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4093 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4094 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4095 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4097 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
4098 in Emacs 19 and before.
4100 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
4101 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
4103 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
4104 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
4105 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
4106 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
4108 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
4109 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
4110 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
4111 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
4112 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
4114 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
4115 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
4116 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
4117 consistent with the new representation.
4119 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
4120 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
4121 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
4122 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4124 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
4125 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
4126 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
4128 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
4129 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
4130 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4132 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
4133 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
4134 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
4136 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4137 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
4139 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4140 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
4142 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
4143 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
4144 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
4145 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
4147 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
4148 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
4150 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
4151 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
4152 buffer or string being searched.
4154 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
4155 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
4156 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
4157 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
4158 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
4159 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
4160 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
4162 *** Structure of coding system changed.
4164 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
4165 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
4166 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
4167 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
4168 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
4169 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
4170 define-coding-system-alias.
4172 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
4173 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
4174 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
4175 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
4176 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
4177 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
4178 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
4181 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
4182 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
4183 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
4184 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
4186 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
4187 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
4188 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
4189 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
4191 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
4192 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
4193 This function requires a user interaction.
4195 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
4196 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
4197 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
4198 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
4199 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
4200 select-safe-coding-system.
4202 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
4203 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
4204 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
4207 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
4208 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
4209 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
4211 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
4212 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
4213 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
4214 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
4216 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
4217 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
4218 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
4221 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
4222 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
4224 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
4225 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
4226 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
4227 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
4228 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
4229 range of characters.
4231 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
4232 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
4234 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
4235 in the current buffer at position POS.
4237 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
4238 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
4239 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
4240 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
4241 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
4242 binding input-method-function to nil.
4244 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
4245 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
4246 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
4247 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
4248 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
4250 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
4251 subsequent events of a key sequence.
4253 *** You can customize any language environment by using
4254 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
4256 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
4257 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
4258 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
4259 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
4260 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
4262 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
4264 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
4265 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
4266 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
4269 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
4270 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
4272 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
4273 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
4274 in your .emacs file.)
4276 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
4277 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
4279 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
4280 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
4282 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
4283 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
4286 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
4287 delete the character before point, as usual.
4289 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
4290 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
4291 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
4293 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
4294 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
4295 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
4296 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
4297 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
4300 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
4301 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
4302 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
4303 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
4304 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
4306 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
4307 and is an alias for it.
4309 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
4310 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
4312 ** Scrolling changes
4314 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
4315 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
4317 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
4318 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
4321 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
4322 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
4323 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
4324 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
4326 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
4327 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
4328 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
4329 recenters the window.
4331 ** International character set support (MULE)
4333 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
4334 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
4335 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
4336 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
4337 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
4338 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
4340 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
4341 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
4342 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
4343 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
4344 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
4346 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
4347 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
4348 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
4349 language, to make it possible to type them.
4351 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
4352 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
4354 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
4355 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
4357 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
4359 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
4361 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
4362 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
4363 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
4364 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
4365 characters for their work until they want to change.
4369 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
4370 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
4371 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
4372 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
4373 support several input methods.
4375 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4376 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4379 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4380 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4381 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4382 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4383 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4386 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4387 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4388 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4389 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4390 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4392 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4393 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4394 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4395 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4397 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4398 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4399 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4400 the first guess is wrong.
4402 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4403 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4405 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4406 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4407 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4408 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4410 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4411 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4412 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4413 translate automatically to and from either one.
4415 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4417 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4418 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4419 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4422 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4423 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4424 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4425 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4427 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4428 character conversion as well.
4430 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4432 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4433 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4434 requires using many fonts.
4436 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4437 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4439 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4440 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4441 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4442 you would use a font.
4444 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4445 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4446 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4448 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4449 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4450 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4451 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4452 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4454 *** Defining fontsets.
4456 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4457 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4458 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4460 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4461 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4462 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4463 standard fontset are created automatically.
4465 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4466 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4467 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4468 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4469 name is `fontset-startup'.
4471 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4472 The resource value should have this form:
4473 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4474 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4475 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4476 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4477 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4478 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4479 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4480 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4481 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4483 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4484 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4485 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4487 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4488 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4490 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4491 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4492 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4493 Here is the substitution rule:
4494 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4495 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4496 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4497 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4498 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4500 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4501 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4502 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4504 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4505 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4506 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4507 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4510 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4511 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4513 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4514 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4515 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4516 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4517 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4518 system for new files that you create.
4520 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4521 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4522 whole Emacs session.
4524 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4525 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4526 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4528 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4529 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4530 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4531 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4532 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4534 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4535 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4536 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4537 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4538 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4540 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4541 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4543 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4544 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4546 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4547 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4549 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4550 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4551 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4552 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4555 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4556 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4557 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4558 translated into that character code.
4560 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4561 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4563 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4565 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4566 the coding system for keyboard input.
4568 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4569 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4570 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4572 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4574 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4575 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4576 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4577 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4578 designed to work with terminals.
4580 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4581 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4582 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4583 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4584 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4585 in the corresponding buffer.
4587 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4589 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4590 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4591 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4593 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4594 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4595 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4598 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4599 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4601 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4602 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4603 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4604 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4606 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4607 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4608 related information.
4610 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4611 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4614 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4615 information about the support for a particular language.
4616 You specify the language as an argument.
4618 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4619 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4622 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4623 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4624 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4625 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4627 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4629 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4630 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4631 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4632 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4633 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4634 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4635 K euc-korea (Korean)
4638 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4641 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4642 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4643 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4647 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4648 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4649 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4650 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4652 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4653 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4655 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4656 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4657 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4658 Rmail files themselves.
4660 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4661 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4663 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4666 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4667 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4668 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4669 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4670 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4672 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4673 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4674 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4677 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4678 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4679 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4680 without any conversion.
4682 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4683 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4684 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4685 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4687 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4688 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4690 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4691 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4693 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4694 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4696 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4697 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4698 in the buffer before point.
4700 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4701 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4704 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4705 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4707 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4709 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4710 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4712 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4713 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4714 can become a bottleneck.
4716 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4717 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4718 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4719 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4720 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4721 so useful that the change is worth while.
4723 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4724 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4725 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4726 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4728 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4729 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4732 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4733 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4734 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4736 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4737 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4738 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4740 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4741 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4742 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4744 ** Changes in View mode.
4746 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4747 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4749 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4750 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4752 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4755 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4756 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4758 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4759 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4760 not just the selected window.
4762 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4763 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4764 turns View mode on or off.
4766 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4767 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4768 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4770 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4771 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4773 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4774 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4775 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4776 which version to compare with.
4778 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4779 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4781 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4782 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4783 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4784 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4786 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4787 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4788 blocks, all of them or none.
4790 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4791 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4794 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4795 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4796 However, the mode will not be changed if
4797 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4798 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4799 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4800 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4802 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4804 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4805 these commands do not change the major mode.
4807 ** M-x occur changes.
4809 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4810 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4812 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4813 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4814 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4816 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4817 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4818 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4819 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4820 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4822 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4823 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4824 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4825 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4827 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4828 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4829 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4831 ** Outline mode changes.
4833 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4835 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4837 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4838 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4839 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4842 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4843 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4846 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4847 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4849 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4851 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4852 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4853 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4854 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4856 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4857 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4858 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4860 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4861 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4864 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4865 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4866 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4867 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4869 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4870 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4871 can be. The default value is 30.
4873 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4875 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4876 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4877 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4878 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4879 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4882 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4883 compose-mail-other-frame.
4885 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4886 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4887 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4888 buffer that shows the original message.
4890 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4891 with separator lines around the contents.
4893 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4894 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4895 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4896 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4898 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4900 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4901 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4902 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4903 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4905 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4906 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4909 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4910 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4913 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4914 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4915 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4916 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4918 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4919 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4920 be taken to be magic.
4922 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4923 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4924 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4926 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4927 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4929 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4930 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4932 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4934 new key dired.el binding old key
4935 ------- ---------------- -------
4936 * c dired-change-marks c
4938 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4939 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4940 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4942 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4943 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4944 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4945 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4946 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4947 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4951 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4952 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4953 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4954 each time you run it.
4956 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4957 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4959 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4960 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4961 means to move in the opposite direction.
4963 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4964 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4966 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4967 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4968 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4969 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4974 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4976 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4979 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4980 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4982 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4985 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4987 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4989 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4991 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4992 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4993 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4995 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4997 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4999 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5000 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5002 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5003 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5004 used to pick articles.
5006 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5007 another have been added.
5009 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5011 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5012 generating lines in buffers.
5014 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5017 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5019 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5021 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5023 *** Scores can be decayed.
5025 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5027 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5028 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5030 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5033 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5035 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5036 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5038 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5040 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5041 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5043 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5044 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5046 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5049 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5050 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5052 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5054 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5056 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5058 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5060 Use the `Y c' command.
5062 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5064 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5066 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5068 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5069 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5071 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5073 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5075 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5076 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5078 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5080 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5081 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5082 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5083 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5086 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5087 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5088 particular news group. This can be done by:
5090 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5092 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5093 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5094 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5095 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5096 for reading and posting).
5098 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
5099 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
5100 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
5101 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
5104 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
5105 default. Here are some of these default settings:
5107 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
5108 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
5109 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
5110 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
5111 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
5113 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
5114 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
5118 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
5119 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
5120 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
5121 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
5122 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
5125 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
5126 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
5127 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
5128 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
5129 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
5130 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
5132 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
5133 of the current buffer.
5135 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
5136 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
5137 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
5139 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
5140 style that the Python developers like.
5142 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
5143 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
5144 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
5148 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
5149 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
5150 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
5152 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
5153 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
5156 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
5157 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
5159 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
5160 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
5161 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
5162 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
5164 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
5165 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
5167 ** Calendar changes.
5169 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
5170 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
5171 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
5175 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
5177 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
5179 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
5180 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
5181 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
5182 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
5183 It defaults to `letter'.
5184 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
5186 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
5187 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
5188 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
5190 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
5191 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
5194 *** Horizontal layout
5196 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
5197 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
5198 All are measured in points.
5202 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
5203 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
5204 All are measured in points.
5208 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
5209 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
5210 margin above the text.
5212 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
5213 framing box is printed around the header.
5215 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
5216 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
5218 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
5219 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
5220 `ps-header-font-size'.
5224 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
5225 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
5226 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
5227 elements to this alist.
5229 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
5230 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
5232 ** hideshow changes.
5234 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
5237 *** Support for java-mode added.
5239 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
5240 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
5242 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
5243 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
5244 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
5246 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
5247 robust and a lot faster.
5249 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
5251 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
5252 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
5253 documentation for more details.
5255 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
5257 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
5258 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
5259 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
5260 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
5261 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
5263 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
5264 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
5265 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
5266 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
5272 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
5273 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
5274 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
5275 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
5276 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
5277 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
5279 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
5281 *** Maximum decoration
5283 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
5284 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
5285 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
5286 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
5287 to get the old behavior.
5291 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
5293 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
5294 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
5296 *** Configurable support
5298 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
5299 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
5300 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
5301 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
5302 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
5303 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
5304 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
5306 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
5307 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
5308 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
5310 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
5312 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
5313 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
5316 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
5318 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
5324 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
5325 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
5326 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
5327 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
5329 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
5331 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
5332 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
5333 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
5335 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
5337 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
5338 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
5339 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
5340 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
5341 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
5342 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
5343 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
5345 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
5346 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
5347 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
5348 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
5349 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
5350 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
5352 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
5354 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
5355 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
5356 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
5357 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
5359 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
5362 ** Ada mode changes.
5364 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
5365 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
5366 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
5367 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
5370 *** There are two new commands:
5371 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
5372 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
5374 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5375 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5376 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5378 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5379 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5380 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5382 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5383 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5384 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5385 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5387 ** Scheme mode changes.
5389 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5390 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5391 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5392 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5395 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5396 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5397 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5398 variables as buffer-local variables.
5400 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5403 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
5405 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5406 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5409 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
5410 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
5411 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
5412 option takes precedence.
5414 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5415 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5416 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5418 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5419 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5422 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5423 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5425 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5426 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5429 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5430 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5431 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5432 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5433 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5434 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5436 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5437 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5438 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5439 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5441 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5442 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5443 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5444 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5445 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5447 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5448 since it applies only to the current frame.
5450 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5451 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5452 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5454 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5455 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5456 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5457 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5458 instead of just the file you are editing.
5462 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5463 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5464 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5465 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5466 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5469 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5470 knows which kind of label is needed.
5472 C-c ) reftex-reference
5473 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5474 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5476 C-c [ reftex-citation
5477 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5478 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5480 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5481 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5484 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5485 can quickly jump to every section.
5487 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5488 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5489 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5490 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5491 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5493 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5495 *** Info documentation is now available.
5497 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5498 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5500 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5501 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5503 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5504 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5506 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5507 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5508 appropriate functions.
5510 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5511 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5513 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5516 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5517 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5519 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5522 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5523 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5524 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5526 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5527 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5528 prefixed with `ALT'.
5530 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5531 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5532 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5535 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5536 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5537 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5539 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5540 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5542 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5543 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5544 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5546 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5548 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5550 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5553 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5554 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5557 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5560 *** Added support for imenu.
5562 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5563 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5564 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5565 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5567 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5568 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5570 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5572 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
5574 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5575 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5576 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5579 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5580 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5582 ** browse-url changes
5584 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5585 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5586 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5587 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5588 customization variables.
5590 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5592 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5593 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5594 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5598 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5599 pops up the Info file for this command.
5601 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5602 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5603 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5606 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5607 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5608 files in the same directory.
5610 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5611 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5612 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5616 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5617 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5619 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5620 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5621 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5622 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5623 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5624 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5625 color when Viper is in insert state.
5626 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5627 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5628 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5632 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5633 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5634 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5635 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5636 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5638 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5640 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5641 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5643 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5644 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5645 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5647 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5648 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5649 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5650 methods and protocols.
5652 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5653 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5654 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5657 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5658 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5659 at least M times and as many as N times.
5661 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5662 in files has changed slightly.
5664 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5665 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5666 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5667 with old time-stamp-format values.
5669 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5670 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5671 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5674 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5675 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5676 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5677 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5678 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5679 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5681 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5682 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5683 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5685 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5686 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5687 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5688 recommended now will continue to work then.
5690 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5693 ** There are some additional major modes:
5695 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5696 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5697 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5699 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5700 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5703 ** New Lisp packages include:
5705 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5707 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5708 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5710 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5712 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5715 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5716 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5719 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5720 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5721 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5722 strings or comments.
5724 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5725 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5726 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5727 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5730 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5731 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5733 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5734 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5736 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5738 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5739 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5741 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5743 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5745 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5747 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5748 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5750 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5751 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5752 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5753 original place after inserting the copy.
5755 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5758 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5759 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5760 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5762 Enable mouse-drag with:
5763 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5765 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5767 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5768 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5770 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5771 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5775 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5776 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5777 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5778 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5779 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5780 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5781 instance) and vice versa.
5783 To use this package load it using
5784 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5785 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5786 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5787 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5788 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5789 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5791 *** Interface to ph.
5793 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5795 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5796 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5799 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5801 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5802 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5803 while the real cursor does not move.
5805 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5806 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5808 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5809 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5813 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5814 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5815 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5816 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5818 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5820 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5822 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5824 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5825 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5826 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5827 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5828 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5830 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5831 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5832 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5833 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5834 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5835 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5837 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5839 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5840 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5841 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5842 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5844 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5845 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5847 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5848 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5851 ** Basic Lisp changes
5853 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5854 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5856 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5857 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5860 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5862 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5864 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5865 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5867 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5868 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5871 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5873 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5875 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5877 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5878 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5879 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5882 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5883 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5884 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5886 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5887 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5888 adding one of these suffixes.
5890 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5891 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5892 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5894 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5895 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5897 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5899 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5900 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5902 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5903 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5905 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5907 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5908 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5910 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5911 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5912 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5913 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5915 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5916 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5919 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5920 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5921 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5924 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5925 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5928 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5930 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5931 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5932 Then it returns that string.
5934 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5936 (with-output-to-string
5937 (princ "The buffer is ")
5938 (princ (buffer-name)))
5940 returns "The buffer is foo".
5942 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5945 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5946 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5947 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5949 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5950 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5952 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5953 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5954 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5955 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5956 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5957 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5959 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5960 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5961 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5964 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5965 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5966 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5967 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5968 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5970 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5971 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5972 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5973 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5975 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5976 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5978 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5980 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5981 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5982 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5983 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5986 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5987 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5990 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5992 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5993 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5994 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5995 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5996 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5998 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6000 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6001 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6002 more than the number of characters.
6004 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6005 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6006 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6007 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6008 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6009 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6011 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6012 and returns a string containing those characters.
6014 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6015 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6016 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6017 character, sref signals an error.
6019 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6020 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6021 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6023 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6024 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6025 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6027 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6028 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6029 to a vector of the characters in it.
6031 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6032 of a string. You call it as follows:
6034 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6036 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6037 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6038 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6039 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6040 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6042 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6043 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6045 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6046 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6048 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6049 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6050 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6051 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6053 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6055 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6057 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6058 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6059 are not included in the resulting value.
6061 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6062 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6063 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6064 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6066 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6067 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6068 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6069 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6070 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6071 column START-COLUMN.
6073 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6074 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6075 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6076 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6077 changed text, before the change.
6079 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6080 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6081 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6083 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6085 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6087 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6088 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6090 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6091 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6092 which identify the character within that character set.
6094 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
6095 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
6096 opposite of split-char.
6098 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
6099 of all the characters between BEG and END.
6101 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
6102 of all the characters in a string.
6104 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
6105 and specifying coding systems.
6107 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
6108 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
6109 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
6110 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
6111 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
6112 as what to do about code conversion.)
6114 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
6115 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
6117 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6118 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6119 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
6121 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6122 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
6123 to match against a file name.
6125 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6126 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6127 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6128 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6129 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6130 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6132 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6133 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6135 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
6136 the coding system to use for network sockets.
6138 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6139 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
6140 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
6143 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6144 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6145 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6146 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6147 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6148 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6150 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6151 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6153 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6154 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6155 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
6156 start the subprocess.
6158 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
6159 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
6160 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
6161 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
6162 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
6164 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
6165 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
6168 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
6169 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
6170 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
6171 connection permanently or until overridden.
6173 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
6174 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
6175 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
6176 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
6177 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
6178 system for one operation at a time.
6180 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
6181 files, subprocesses or network connections.
6183 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
6184 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
6185 The value is a cons cell,
6186 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
6187 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
6188 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
6189 input to the subprocess.
6191 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
6192 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
6194 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
6195 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
6196 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
6198 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
6199 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
6200 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
6201 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
6204 Thus, instead of writing
6206 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
6207 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
6209 you would now write this:
6211 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
6212 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
6216 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
6217 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
6218 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
6219 for a description of them.
6221 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
6222 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
6224 (defgroup ispell nil
6225 "Spell checking using Ispell."
6228 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
6229 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
6230 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
6231 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
6232 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
6234 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
6235 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
6236 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
6237 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
6238 first-level subgroups.
6240 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
6242 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
6243 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
6247 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
6248 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
6249 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
6250 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
6251 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
6252 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
6254 ** Text property changes
6256 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
6259 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
6260 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
6261 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
6262 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
6263 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
6265 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
6266 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
6267 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
6268 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
6270 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
6271 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
6272 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
6274 ** Changes in invisibility features
6276 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
6277 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
6278 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
6279 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
6280 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
6281 make the overlay visible.
6283 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
6284 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
6285 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
6286 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
6287 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
6288 t when it should hide it.
6290 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
6292 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
6293 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
6294 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
6295 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
6296 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
6297 Here is an example of how to do this:
6299 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
6300 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6301 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
6302 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6305 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
6308 ;; When done with the overlays:
6309 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6311 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6313 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
6315 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
6316 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
6317 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
6318 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
6320 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
6321 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
6322 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
6324 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
6325 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
6327 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
6328 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
6330 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
6331 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
6332 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
6334 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
6335 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
6336 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
6337 determine the syntax type of the character.
6339 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
6340 of the current buffer.
6342 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
6343 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
6344 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
6346 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
6347 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
6348 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
6349 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
6350 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
6352 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
6355 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
6356 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
6357 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
6359 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
6360 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
6361 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
6362 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
6363 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
6365 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
6366 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
6367 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
6369 ** Changes in face features
6371 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
6372 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
6374 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
6375 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
6377 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
6378 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
6380 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
6381 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
6383 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6384 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6385 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6386 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6389 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6390 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6392 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6394 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6395 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6396 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6397 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6399 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6402 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6403 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6405 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6406 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6408 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6409 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6411 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6412 character code conversion as well as other things.
6414 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6415 (formerly it did not).
6417 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6418 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6420 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6421 instead of constant strings.
6423 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6424 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6425 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6427 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6428 in the same way as before.
6430 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6431 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6432 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6434 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6435 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6436 else, and returns nil.
6438 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6439 directory cannot be listed.
6441 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6443 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6444 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6445 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6446 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6449 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6450 It is available through the history command M-n.
6452 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6453 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6454 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6455 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6456 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6458 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6459 argument in this way.
6461 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6462 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6463 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6465 ** Echo area features
6467 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6468 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6469 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6470 after the echo area is cleared.
6472 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6473 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6475 ** Keyboard input features
6477 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6478 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6480 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6481 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6484 ** Frame-related changes
6486 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6487 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6488 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6490 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6491 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6492 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6494 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6495 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6496 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6497 in the selected frame.
6499 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6500 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6501 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6503 ** X Windows features
6505 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6506 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6507 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6509 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6510 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6512 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6513 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6514 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6516 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6517 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6519 ** Subprocess features
6521 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6522 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6525 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6526 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6528 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6529 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6531 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6532 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6534 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6535 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6536 goes after the other menu items.
6538 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6539 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6540 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6543 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6544 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6546 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6547 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6550 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6551 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6552 but its hook is still run.
6554 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6555 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6557 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6558 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6559 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6561 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6562 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6563 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6566 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6567 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6569 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6570 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6571 functions like display-time.
6573 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6574 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6576 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6577 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6578 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6580 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6581 if there is an error in compilation.
6583 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6584 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6585 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6586 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6588 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6589 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6590 the *scratch* buffer.
6592 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6593 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6594 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6595 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6597 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6598 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6599 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6601 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6602 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6603 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6604 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6606 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6607 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6608 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6610 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6611 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6612 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6613 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6614 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6617 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6618 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6619 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6620 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6622 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6623 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6624 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6625 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6627 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6629 ** imenu.el changes.
6631 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6632 item from menu created by imenu.
6634 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6635 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6636 select one of those items.
6638 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6640 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6642 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6643 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6645 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6646 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6647 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6649 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6651 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6652 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6654 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6655 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6656 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6657 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6658 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6661 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6662 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6664 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6665 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6666 as in previous Emacs versions.
6668 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6669 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6670 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6673 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6674 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6675 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6676 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6679 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6680 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6681 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6682 line and then executing the macro.
6684 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6686 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6687 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6688 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6693 *** Font Lock support modes
6695 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6696 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6697 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6698 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6699 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6701 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6703 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6709 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6710 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6711 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6712 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6713 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6714 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6715 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6717 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6719 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6721 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6723 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6725 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6728 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6733 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6734 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6735 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6736 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6738 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6739 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6741 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6742 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6745 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6746 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6748 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6750 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6752 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6754 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6757 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6759 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6761 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6763 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6765 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6768 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6770 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6772 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6774 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6776 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6778 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6780 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6782 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6785 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6787 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6790 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6792 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6793 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6795 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6797 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6799 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6801 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6803 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6806 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6808 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6809 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6811 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6812 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6813 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6815 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6816 articles with the `*' command.
6818 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6820 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6822 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6824 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6826 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6827 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6829 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6832 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6834 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6836 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6838 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6840 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6842 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6844 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6846 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6848 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6850 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6851 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6853 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6856 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6858 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6859 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6861 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6863 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6865 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6867 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6870 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6872 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6874 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6875 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6877 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6879 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6881 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6883 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6885 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6887 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6890 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6892 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6893 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6894 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6897 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6900 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6903 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6904 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6907 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6908 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6909 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6910 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6911 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6914 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6916 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6918 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6919 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6920 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6921 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6922 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6924 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6925 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6926 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6928 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6930 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6931 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6932 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6933 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6934 chapter of the manual for details.
6936 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6937 customization variables take effect.
6939 ** Marking with the mouse.
6941 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6942 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6943 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6945 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6947 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6949 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6950 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6952 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6953 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6954 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6955 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6956 applications, these problems are significant.
6958 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6959 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6960 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6961 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6962 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6964 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6965 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6967 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6968 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6969 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6970 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6971 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6972 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6974 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6976 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6977 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6978 minibuffer contains.
6980 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6982 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6983 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6984 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6985 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6987 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6988 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6989 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6990 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6992 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6993 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6995 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6996 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6997 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6999 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7000 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7001 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7002 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7004 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7006 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7007 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7009 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7011 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7012 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7013 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7014 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7015 immediately after the selected one.
7017 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7018 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7020 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7022 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7023 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7024 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7025 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7028 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7029 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7032 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7033 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7034 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7035 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7036 now that the bug is fixed.
7038 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7040 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7041 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7042 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7043 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7045 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7046 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7047 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7048 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7050 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7051 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7052 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7054 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7055 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7056 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7057 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7060 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7061 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7063 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7064 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7065 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7066 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7068 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7069 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7070 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7071 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7072 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7073 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7075 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7076 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7077 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7078 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7080 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7081 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7082 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7084 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7085 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7086 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7087 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7088 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7089 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7090 to a limitation in font-lock).
7092 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
7094 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
7095 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
7096 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
7099 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
7100 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
7102 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7104 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
7106 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
7108 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
7110 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
7111 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
7112 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
7113 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
7114 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
7115 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
7117 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
7120 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
7121 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
7123 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
7128 *** Global Font Lock mode
7130 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
7131 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
7132 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
7133 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
7134 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
7136 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
7138 (global-font-lock-mode t)
7142 *** Local Refontification
7144 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
7145 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
7146 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
7147 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
7149 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
7150 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
7151 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
7152 above and below point.
7154 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
7158 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
7159 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
7160 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
7161 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
7162 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
7165 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
7167 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
7168 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
7170 ** hide-show changes.
7172 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
7173 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
7176 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
7177 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
7179 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
7180 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
7181 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
7185 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
7186 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
7188 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
7189 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
7191 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
7193 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
7194 pressing both mouse buttons.
7196 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
7197 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
7200 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
7203 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
7205 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
7206 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
7208 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
7210 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
7212 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
7214 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
7216 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
7218 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
7220 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
7221 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
7222 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
7223 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
7224 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
7226 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
7228 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
7229 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
7230 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
7233 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
7236 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
7238 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
7239 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
7241 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
7242 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
7244 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
7245 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
7246 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
7248 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
7249 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
7252 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7254 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
7255 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
7256 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
7258 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
7259 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
7260 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
7262 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
7263 up if too much time passes.
7265 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
7267 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
7268 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
7269 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
7272 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
7273 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
7274 call looks like this:
7276 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7278 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
7279 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
7280 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
7283 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
7284 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
7287 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
7288 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
7289 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
7290 each time Emacs becomes idle.
7292 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
7293 idle for SECS seconds.
7295 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
7296 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
7297 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
7300 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
7301 there is no answer within a certain time.
7303 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
7305 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
7306 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
7307 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
7309 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
7310 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
7311 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
7312 arguments in between are ignored.
7314 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
7315 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
7317 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
7318 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
7319 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
7320 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
7323 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
7324 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
7325 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
7326 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
7327 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
7328 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
7330 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
7331 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
7332 systems with limited file name syntax.
7334 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
7335 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
7336 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
7339 (defvar save-completions-file-name
7340 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
7341 "*The filename to save completions to.")
7343 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
7344 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
7345 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
7346 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
7347 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
7349 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
7350 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
7351 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
7353 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
7354 marker from its buffer position.
7356 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
7357 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
7358 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
7360 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
7361 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
7362 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
7363 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
7364 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
7365 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
7367 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
7368 errors that happen often during editing.
7370 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
7371 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
7372 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
7374 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
7375 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
7377 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
7378 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
7379 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
7380 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
7381 and not get-buffer-window.
7383 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7384 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7385 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7387 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7388 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7389 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7390 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7391 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7392 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7393 over and over for the same text.
7395 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7397 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7398 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7400 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7403 in addition to the normal
7407 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7408 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7409 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7411 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7413 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7414 Copyright information:
7416 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7418 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7419 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7420 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7421 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7423 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7424 of this document, or of portions of it,
7425 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7426 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7430 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"