1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.4 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
118 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
119 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
122 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
125 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
128 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
129 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
130 the fancy startup screen.
133 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
134 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
138 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
139 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
142 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
143 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
144 can start with this line:
146 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
149 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
150 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
151 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
153 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
155 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
156 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
159 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
160 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
163 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
164 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
165 an interactively callable function.
168 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
169 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
170 affects the initial frame.
173 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
174 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
175 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
176 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
177 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
180 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
181 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
182 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
183 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
184 `inhibit-splash-screen').
187 ** The default is now to use a bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
188 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
192 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
193 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
194 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
198 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
199 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
200 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
203 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
204 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
205 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
206 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
207 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
209 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
212 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
213 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
214 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
215 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
218 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
219 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
221 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
222 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
225 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
226 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
227 the operating system or your X server.
230 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
233 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
234 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
238 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
239 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
242 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
243 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
244 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
245 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
248 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
249 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
252 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
254 See below under "incremental search changes".
257 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
259 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
260 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
261 directory with Dired.
263 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
264 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
267 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
268 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
269 it remains unchanged.
272 ** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
273 This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
274 need to quote the space with a C-q. The underlying changes in the
275 keymaps that are active in the minibuffer are described below under
276 "New keymaps for typing file names".
279 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
280 M-o M-o requests refontification.
283 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
285 See below for more details.
288 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
289 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
290 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
291 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
292 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
293 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
295 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
298 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
299 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
300 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
301 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
302 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
306 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
307 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
310 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left
311 (previous-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and
312 C-x right can be used as well. The functions keep a different buffer
313 cycle for each frame, using the frame-local buffer list.
316 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
319 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
320 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
323 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
324 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
327 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
328 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
331 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
332 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
333 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
334 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
337 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
338 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
339 in Indented-Text mode.
342 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
344 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
345 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
346 in the value, use `$$'.
349 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
350 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
354 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
357 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
358 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
359 only faces matching this regexp.
361 ** Mark command changes:
364 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
365 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
366 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
369 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
371 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
372 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
373 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
374 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
375 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
376 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
377 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
378 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
379 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
382 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
384 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
385 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
389 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
390 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
391 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
392 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
393 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
396 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
397 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
398 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
401 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
402 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
403 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
407 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
408 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
409 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
411 ** Help command changes:
414 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
416 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
418 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
420 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
423 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
424 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
426 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
427 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
429 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
430 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
431 run by the key sequence.
432 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
433 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
436 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
437 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
438 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
439 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
440 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
441 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
442 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
443 new-kill-line is on C-k
446 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
447 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
448 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
449 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
452 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
453 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
456 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
457 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
458 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
459 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
460 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
461 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
462 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
463 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
464 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
467 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
468 description various information about a character, including its
469 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
470 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
471 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
474 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
475 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
478 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
479 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
480 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
481 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
482 keyboard oriented alternative.
485 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
486 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
487 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
488 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
489 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
492 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
493 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
494 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
498 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
499 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
500 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
501 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
502 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
505 ** Incremental Search changes:
508 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
509 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
510 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
511 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
515 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
516 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
517 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
518 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
521 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
522 at the end of a line.
525 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
526 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
527 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
530 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
531 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
532 search string used as the string to replace.
535 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
536 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
537 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
539 ** Replace command changes:
542 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
543 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
544 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
547 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
548 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
549 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
550 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
551 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
552 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
553 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
554 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
555 can be edited for each replacement.
558 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
559 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
562 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
563 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
565 ** File operation changes:
568 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
569 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
570 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
571 is only rarely needed.
574 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
575 suffix from every line before processing all the lines.
578 *** If the local variables list contains any variable-value pairs that
579 are not known to be safe, Emacs shows a prompt asking whether to apply
580 the local variables list as a whole. In earlier versions, a prompt
581 was only issued for variables explicitly marked as risky (for the
582 definition of risky variables, see `risky-local-variable-p').
584 At the prompt, the user can choose to save the contents of this local
585 variables list to `safe-local-variable-values'. This new customizable
586 option is a list of variable-value pairs that are known to be safe.
587 Variables can also be marked as safe with the existing
588 `safe-local-variable' property (see `safe-local-variable-p').
589 However, risky variables will not be added to
590 `safe-local-variable-values' in this way.
593 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
594 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
597 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
598 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
601 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
604 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
606 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
607 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
608 directory with Dired.
611 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
612 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
613 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
617 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
618 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
621 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
622 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
623 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
624 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
625 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
626 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
629 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
630 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
631 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
634 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
635 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
636 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
639 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
640 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
641 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
642 in data loss, use with care.
645 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
646 Emacs asks for confirmation.
649 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
651 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
652 when visiting the file.
654 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
655 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
656 when saving the file.
659 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
660 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
661 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
662 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
663 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
666 ** Minibuffer changes:
669 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
670 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
673 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
674 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
675 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
679 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
681 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
682 have in common and where they begin to differ.
684 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
685 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
686 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
687 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
688 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
689 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
690 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
691 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
693 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
694 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
695 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
696 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
700 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
701 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
702 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
703 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
704 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
705 candidate is a directory.
708 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
709 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
710 it remains unchanged.
713 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
714 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
715 elements are deleted.
717 ** Redisplay changes:
720 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
721 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
722 appears between the position information and the major mode.
725 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
728 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
729 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
730 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
733 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
734 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
735 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
736 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
738 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
739 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
740 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
741 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
742 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
743 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
745 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
746 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
749 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller than
750 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
754 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
755 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
756 the mode line of the currently selected window.
758 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
759 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
762 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
763 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
764 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
765 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
769 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
770 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
771 the window can be scrolled.
773 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
774 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
775 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
777 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
778 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
780 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
781 position of each bitmap individually.
783 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
784 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
785 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
786 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
789 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
790 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
791 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
792 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
793 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
795 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
796 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
799 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
800 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
801 outside those margins.
804 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
805 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
807 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
808 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
809 or when the frame is resized.
811 ** Cursor display changes:
814 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
815 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
818 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
821 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
822 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
823 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
827 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
828 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
832 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
833 of the recognized cursor types.
836 *** On text terminals, the variable `visible-cursor' controls whether Emacs
837 uses the "very visible" cursor (the default) or the normal cursor.
842 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
843 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
846 *** `mode-line-buffer-id' is the standard face for buffer identification
847 parts of the mode line.
850 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
851 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
852 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
853 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
854 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
855 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
858 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
860 ** Font-Lock changes:
863 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
864 M-o M-o requests refontification.
867 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
868 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
869 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
871 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
872 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
876 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
877 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
878 The default value is 1.
881 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
882 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
883 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
884 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
885 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
888 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
891 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
894 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
895 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
896 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
897 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
900 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
901 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
902 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
903 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
904 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
907 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
909 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
910 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
911 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
912 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
915 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
917 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
918 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
919 refontification takes place.
924 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
925 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
926 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
927 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
928 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
929 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
932 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
935 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
938 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
939 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
940 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
943 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
944 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
947 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
948 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
951 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
952 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
953 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
956 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
957 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
960 *** For the Gtk+ version, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
961 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
967 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
968 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
969 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
970 can be selected only when it is active.
973 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
974 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
975 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
976 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
977 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
981 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
983 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
984 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
985 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
986 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
987 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
988 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
990 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
991 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
992 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
993 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
994 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
995 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
996 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
997 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
998 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1000 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1001 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1002 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1005 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1006 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1008 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1009 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1012 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1013 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1014 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1015 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1016 also disable mouse highlighting.
1019 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1020 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1021 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1024 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1025 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1028 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1030 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1031 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1032 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1033 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1036 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1038 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1041 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1042 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1043 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1044 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1045 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1048 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1049 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1050 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1051 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1052 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1053 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1054 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1055 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1058 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1059 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1062 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1066 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1070 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1074 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1075 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1076 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1080 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1081 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1084 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1085 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1086 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1087 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1088 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1089 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1090 mule-unicode-... ones.
1092 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1093 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1094 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1097 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1098 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1099 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1100 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1101 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1104 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1105 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1106 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1107 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1110 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1111 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1112 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1113 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1114 automatically according to the locale.)
1117 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1118 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1119 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1120 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1121 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1125 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1129 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1130 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1131 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1132 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1136 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1137 M-t (transpose-words)
1138 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1141 *** Indian support has been updated.
1142 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1143 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1144 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1148 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1151 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1152 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1153 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1154 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1155 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1156 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1157 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1158 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1159 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1160 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1161 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1162 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1165 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1166 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1167 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1170 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1171 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1172 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1173 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1174 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1177 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1178 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1181 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1182 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1183 fontset appropriately.
1185 ** Customize changes:
1188 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1189 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1190 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1191 enable-theme to renable a disabled theme.
1194 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1195 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1196 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1200 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1201 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1202 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1203 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1204 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1205 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1206 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1209 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1210 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1211 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1212 under the "[State]" button.
1214 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1217 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1218 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to T in Buffer Menu
1222 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1223 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1224 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1227 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1228 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1229 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1231 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1232 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1233 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1234 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1235 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1237 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1238 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1239 t, and the status is shown.
1241 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1242 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1247 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1248 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1249 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1252 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1253 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1256 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1257 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1260 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1261 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1262 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1263 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1264 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1265 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1268 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1269 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1272 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1274 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1275 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1276 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1280 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1281 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1282 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1283 directory listing into a buffer.
1288 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1289 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1290 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1291 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1292 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1294 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1295 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1297 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1298 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1299 lines, including any prompts.
1301 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1302 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1303 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1304 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1305 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1306 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1307 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1310 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1311 modes (shell-mode, etc.) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1312 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1313 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1316 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1317 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1318 but declared obsolete.
1320 ** M-x Compile changes:
1323 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1325 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1326 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1327 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1328 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1330 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1331 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1332 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1334 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1335 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1336 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1337 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1338 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1340 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1343 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1344 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1345 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1346 subprocesses inherit.
1349 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1350 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1353 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1354 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1355 in new face `next-error'.
1358 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1359 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1360 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1361 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1362 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1366 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1367 the compilation buffer.
1370 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1371 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1372 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1373 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1376 ** Occur mode changes:
1379 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1380 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1384 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1385 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1388 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1389 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1390 `multi-occur-in-matching-buffers' which allows you to specify the
1391 buffers to search by their filenames or buffer names. Internally,
1392 Occur mode has been rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other
1398 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1400 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1401 customization group.
1404 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1406 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1407 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1410 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1411 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1414 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1415 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1416 settings, for grep commands only.
1419 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1420 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1421 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1422 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1423 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1424 source line is highlighted.
1427 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1428 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1429 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1430 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1431 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1432 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1436 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1437 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1438 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1439 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1440 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1441 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1443 ** X Windows Support:
1446 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1447 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1448 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1451 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1452 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1453 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1454 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1456 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1457 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1460 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1461 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1463 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1464 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1467 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1468 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1469 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1470 and use the more appropriately result.
1473 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1474 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1475 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1480 *** If you enable Xterm Mouse mode, Emacs will respond to mouse clicks
1481 on the mode line, header line and display margin, when run in an xterm.
1484 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1485 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1486 following should work:
1487 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1488 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1489 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1491 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1494 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1495 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1496 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1497 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1498 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1499 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1500 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1501 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1502 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1505 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1506 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1507 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1508 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1509 all of these colors.
1512 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1513 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1514 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1515 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1519 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1521 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1523 ** ERC is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1525 ERC is a powerful, modular, and extensible IRC client for Emacs.
1527 To see what modules are available, type
1528 M-x customize-option erc-modules RET.
1530 To start an IRC session, type M-x erc-select, and follow the prompts
1531 for server, port, and nick.
1534 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1536 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1537 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1538 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1539 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1540 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1543 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1544 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1547 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1549 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1550 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1551 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1555 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1556 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1559 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1560 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1561 program files that include other program files.
1563 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1564 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1568 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1570 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1571 Emacs Lisp. The prefix for Calc has been changed to `C-x *' and Calc
1572 can be started with `C-x * *'. The Calc manual is separate from the
1573 Emacs manual; within Emacs, type "C-h i m calc RET" to read the
1574 manual. A reference card is available in `etc/calccard.tex' and
1578 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1579 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1582 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1584 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1585 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1586 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1587 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1590 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1591 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1594 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1596 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1597 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1598 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1599 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1600 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1601 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1603 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1604 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1605 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1606 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1608 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1609 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1610 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1611 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1612 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1613 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1614 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1616 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1617 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1618 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1620 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1621 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1623 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1624 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1625 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1626 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1628 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1629 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1630 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1631 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1633 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1634 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1635 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1636 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1639 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1641 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1642 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1643 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1646 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1647 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1649 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1650 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1651 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1654 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1655 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1656 to increment the SOA serial.
1659 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1660 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1661 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1662 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1663 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1664 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1667 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1668 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1671 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1672 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1673 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1674 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1675 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1677 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1678 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1679 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1680 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1681 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1682 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1684 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1685 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1686 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1687 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1688 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1689 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1690 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1691 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1692 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1696 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1697 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1699 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1700 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1701 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1702 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1704 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1707 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1708 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1709 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1710 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1711 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1714 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1715 the keyboard macro ring.
1717 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1718 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1720 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1721 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1722 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1723 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1725 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1726 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1727 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1730 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1731 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1732 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1735 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1736 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1739 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1740 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1741 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1742 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1743 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1744 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1745 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1746 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1747 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1750 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1752 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1753 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1754 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1755 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1756 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1757 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1760 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1761 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1762 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1763 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1765 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1768 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1769 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1770 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1774 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1775 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1776 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1777 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1780 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1781 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1784 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1785 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1786 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1787 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1788 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1789 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1791 ** The tumme.el package allows you to easily view, tag and in other ways
1792 manipulate image files and their thumbnails, using dired as the main interface.
1793 Tumme provides functionality to generate simple image galleries.
1796 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1798 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1799 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1800 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1801 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1802 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1803 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1804 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1805 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1806 `rsync' to do the copying).
1808 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1809 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1811 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1813 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1815 Removing Tramp, and re-enabling Ange-FTP, can be achieved by M-x
1819 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1822 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1823 configuration files.
1826 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1827 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1828 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1829 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1830 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1834 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1837 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1840 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1841 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1843 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1844 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1845 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1846 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1847 boundaries during scrolling.
1849 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1852 *** Bindings for Tumme added
1853 Several new keybindings, all starting with the C-t prefix, have been
1854 added to Dired. They are all bound to commands in Tumme. As a starting
1855 point, mark some image files in a dired buffer and do C-t d to display
1856 thumbnails of them in a separate buffer.
1857 ** Changes in Hi Lock:
1860 *** hi-lock-mode now only affects a single buffer, and a new function
1861 `global-hi-lock-mode' enables Hi Lock in all buffers. By default, if
1862 hi-lock-mode is used in what appears to be the initialization file, a
1863 warning message suggests to use global-hi-lock-mode instead. However,
1864 if the new variable `hi-lock-archaic-interface-deduce' is non-nil,
1865 using hi-lock-mode in an initialization file will turn on Hi Lock in all
1866 buffers and no warning will be issued (for compatibility with the
1867 behavior in older versions of Emacs).
1869 ** Changes in Allout
1871 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
1872 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
1873 clear-text within a single file to your heart's content, using symmetric
1874 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
1875 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
1876 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
1879 *** Default command prefix changed to "\C-c " (control-c space), to avoid
1880 intruding on user's keybinding space. Customize the
1881 `allout-command-prefix' variable to your preference.
1883 *** Allout now uses text overlay's `invisible' property (and others) for
1884 concealed text, instead of selective-display. This simplifies the code, in
1885 particularly avoiding the need for kludges for isearch dynamic-display,
1886 discretionary handling of edits of concealed text, undo concerns, etc.
1888 *** Many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
1890 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
1891 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
1892 - refuse to create "containment discontinuities", where a
1893 topic is shifted deeper than the offspring-depth of its' container
1894 - bulleting variation is simpler and more accommodating, both in the
1895 default behavior and in ability to vary when creating new topics
1896 - many internal fixes and refinements
1897 - many module and function docstring clarifications
1898 - version number incremented to 2.2
1900 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1901 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1902 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1903 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1904 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1907 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1909 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1910 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1912 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1913 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1914 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1916 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1917 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1918 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1919 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1920 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1923 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp, BSD make and imake.
1925 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter three
1926 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1930 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1931 of the file that precede the first header line.
1934 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1937 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1938 run most curses applications now.
1941 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1944 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1945 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1946 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1948 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1949 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1950 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1953 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1954 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1957 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1958 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1959 incompatible change.
1962 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1965 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1966 resync points in both windows.
1969 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1971 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1972 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1975 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1976 when Emacs visits them.
1978 ** Info mode changes:
1981 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1982 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1985 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1987 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1988 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1989 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1990 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1991 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1992 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1996 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1997 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1998 search without prompting for a new search string.
2001 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
2002 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
2003 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
2006 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
2009 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
2010 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
2013 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
2014 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
2018 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
2019 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
2020 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
2023 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
2024 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
2027 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
2028 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
2031 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
2033 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
2034 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
2037 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
2039 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
2040 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
2041 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2044 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2047 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2049 ** Lisp mode changes:
2052 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2055 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2057 *** New features in evaluation commands
2060 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2061 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2064 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2065 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2066 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2067 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2068 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2073 *** The CC Mode manual has been extensively revised.
2074 The information about using CC Mode has been separated from the larger
2075 and more difficult chapters about configuration.
2077 *** Changes in Key Sequences
2078 **** c-toggle-auto-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-t.
2080 **** c-toggle-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-d.
2081 This binding has been taken over by c-hungry-delete-forwards.
2083 **** c-toggle-auto-state (C-c C-t) has been renamed to c-toggle-auto-newline.
2084 c-toggle-auto-state remains as an alias.
2086 **** The new commands c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forwards
2087 have key bindings C-c C-DEL (or C-c DEL, for the benefit of TTYs) and
2088 C-c C-d (or C-c C-<delete> or C-c <delete>) respectively. These
2089 commands delete entire blocks of whitespace with a single
2090 key-sequence. [N.B. "DEL" is the <backspace> key.]
2092 **** The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l.
2094 **** The new command c-subword-mode is bound to C-c C-w.
2096 *** C-c C-s (`c-show-syntactic-information') now highlights the anchor
2100 **** Electric Minor Mode toggles the electric action of non-alphabetic keys.
2101 The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l. Turning the
2102 mode off can be helpful for editing chaotically indented code and for
2103 users new to CC Mode, who sometimes find electric indentation
2104 disconcerting. Its current state is displayed in the mode line with an
2107 **** Subword Minor Mode makes Emacs recognize word boundaries at upper case
2108 letters in StudlyCapsIdentifiers. You enable this feature by C-c C-w. It can
2109 also be used in non-CC Mode buffers. :-) Contributed by Masatake YAMATO.
2113 **** `comment-close-slash'.
2114 With this clean-up, a block (i.e. c-style) comment can be terminated by
2115 typing a slash at the start of a line.
2117 **** `c-one-liner-defun'
2118 This clean-up compresses a short enough defun (for example, an AWK
2119 pattern/action pair) onto a single line. "Short enough" is configurable.
2121 *** Font lock support.
2122 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2123 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2124 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2125 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2126 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2127 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2129 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2130 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2131 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2132 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2133 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2134 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2135 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2136 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2137 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2139 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2140 fontification in mind; Just-In-Time-Lock mode should be enabled for
2141 the highest font lock level (by default, it is). Fontifying a file
2142 with several thousand lines in one go can take the better part of a
2145 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2146 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2147 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2148 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2149 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2150 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2152 **** Support for documentation comments.
2153 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2154 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2155 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2156 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2158 Currently three kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Sun's
2159 Javadoc, Autodoc (which is used in Pike) and GtkDoc (used in C). (The
2160 last was contributed by Masatake YAMATO). This is by no means a
2161 complete list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor
2162 of choice is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2164 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2165 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2166 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2167 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2170 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2171 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2172 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2173 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2174 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2176 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2177 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2178 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2179 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2180 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2182 *** Support for the AWK language.
2183 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2184 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2185 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2188 **** Indentation Engine
2189 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2191 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2192 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2193 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2194 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2195 definition, or structured statement.
2197 The predefined line-up functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2198 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't
2199 be any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2202 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2203 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2204 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2205 the AWK language itself.
2207 **** Comment and Movement Commands
2208 These commands all work for AWK buffers. The notion of "defun" has
2209 been augmented to include AWK pattern-action pairs - the standard
2210 "defun" commands on key sequences C-M-a, C-M-e, and C-M-h use this
2211 extended definition.
2213 **** "awk" style, Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2214 A new style, "awk" has been introduced, and this is now the default
2215 style for AWK code. With auto-newline enabled, the clean-up
2216 c-one-liner-defun (see above) is useful.
2218 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2219 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2220 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2221 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2222 composition-close, and incomposition.
2224 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2225 The new functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward'
2226 provide hungry deletion without having to toggle a mode. They are
2227 bound to C-c C-DEL and C-c C-d (and several variants, for the benefit
2228 of different keyboard setups. See "Changes in key sequences" above).
2230 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2232 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2233 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2234 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2235 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2237 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2238 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2240 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2242 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2243 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2244 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2245 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2247 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2251 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2253 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2256 This change might affect code that calls `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2257 directly, and custom lineup functions if they use
2258 `c-syntactic-context'. However, the argument given to lineup
2259 functions is still a single cons cell with nil or an integer in the
2262 *** API changes for derived modes.
2264 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2265 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2266 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2267 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2268 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2270 **** New language variable system.
2271 These are variables whose values vary between CC Mode's different
2272 languages. See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2274 **** New initialization functions.
2275 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2276 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2277 `c-init-language-vars'.
2279 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2280 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2281 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2282 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2284 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2285 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2286 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2287 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2288 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2290 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2291 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2292 its substatement. E.g:
2298 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2300 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2301 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2302 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2303 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2304 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2307 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2309 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2310 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2311 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2312 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2313 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2314 empty lines within the macro better.
2316 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2317 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2318 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2320 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2321 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2322 variable `c-backslash-max-column' puts a limit on how far out
2323 backslashes can be moved.
2325 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2326 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2327 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2328 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2330 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2331 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2332 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2333 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2334 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2335 backslash) in the macro.
2337 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2338 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2339 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior is
2340 based on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after
2341 #else and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other
2342 cases (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2344 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2345 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2347 *** New lineup functions
2349 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2350 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2353 result = prefix + "A message "
2354 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2356 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2357 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2359 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2360 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2361 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2363 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2364 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2366 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2367 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2369 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2370 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2371 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2372 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2373 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2374 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2376 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2377 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2378 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2379 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2382 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2383 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2384 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2385 happen when macros are involved.
2387 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2388 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2389 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2390 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2391 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2392 line is left untouched.
2394 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2395 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2396 syntactic indentation.
2398 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2399 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2402 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2405 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2406 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2407 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2408 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2410 ** Fortran mode changes:
2413 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2414 highlighting for the old default.
2417 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2418 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2419 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2422 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2423 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2424 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2425 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2428 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2429 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2433 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2434 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2437 ** Reftex mode changes
2440 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2442 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2443 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2444 support for multifile documents.
2446 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2447 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2448 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2449 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2450 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2451 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2452 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2455 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2456 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2458 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2461 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2465 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2467 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2468 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2469 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2471 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2472 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2473 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2474 citation selection buffer.
2476 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2477 cursor as a default search string.
2479 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2480 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2482 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2483 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2485 Support for jurabib has been added.
2488 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2490 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2491 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2494 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2496 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2497 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2498 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2499 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2500 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2501 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2504 *** Miscellaneous changes
2506 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2507 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2509 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2512 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2513 to support use of font-lock.
2515 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2518 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2522 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2523 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2524 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2525 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2526 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2527 from the file name or buffer contents.
2530 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2535 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2538 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2539 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2540 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2541 TeX commands to use at startup.
2544 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2545 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2548 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2552 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2553 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2555 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2556 an existing BibTeX entry by inserting fields that may occur but are not
2559 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2561 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2562 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2563 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2564 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2565 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2566 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2568 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2569 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2571 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2572 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2574 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2575 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2577 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2578 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2580 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2581 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2582 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2584 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2585 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2587 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2588 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2590 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2591 in multiple BibTeX files.
2593 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2594 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2596 *** The new variables bibtex-expand-strings and
2597 bibtex-autokey-expand-strings control the expansion of strings when
2598 extracting the content of a BibTeX field.
2601 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2602 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2608 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2609 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2612 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2613 and other common debugger commands.
2616 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2617 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2618 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2619 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2620 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2621 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2624 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2626 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2627 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2631 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2632 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2636 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2638 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class information.
2639 Fast startup since there is no need to scan all source files up front.
2640 There is also no need to create and maintain lists of source
2641 directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath' and
2642 `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2644 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2645 set/clear operations from Java source files under the classpath, stack
2646 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2649 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2652 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2653 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2654 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2656 *** Added Customization Variables
2658 **** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2660 **** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2661 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2662 java sources (previous method).
2664 **** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for Java
2665 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2668 *** Minor Improvements
2670 **** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2671 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2672 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2673 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2676 **** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2678 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2681 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2683 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2684 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2685 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2686 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2687 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2688 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2691 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2692 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2693 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2697 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2698 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2699 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2700 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2701 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2702 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2703 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2704 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2705 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2708 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2709 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2710 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2711 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2712 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2717 The recent file list is now automatically cleaned up when recentf mode is
2718 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2721 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2722 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2723 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2725 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2726 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2727 keep in the recent list.
2729 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2730 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2731 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2732 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2733 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2735 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2736 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2737 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2743 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2746 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2748 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2751 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2755 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2756 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2761 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2762 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2763 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2765 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2766 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2769 *** New customizable variables:
2770 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2772 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2773 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2774 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2775 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2776 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2778 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2779 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2780 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2781 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2784 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2788 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2789 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2792 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2794 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2795 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2796 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2797 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2798 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2804 *** When comparing directories.
2805 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2806 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2807 from one directory to another.
2810 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2811 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2812 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2813 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2817 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2818 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2819 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2824 *** New regular expressions features
2826 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2828 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2829 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2830 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2831 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2832 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2833 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2834 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2835 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2836 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2837 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2839 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2841 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2842 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2845 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2847 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2848 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2849 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2851 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2853 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2854 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2856 *** New language parsing features
2858 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2860 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2862 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2864 **** New language HTML.
2866 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2867 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2869 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2871 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2872 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2874 **** New language Lua.
2876 All functions are tagged.
2878 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2880 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2881 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2884 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2886 **** New language PHP.
2888 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2889 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2891 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2893 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2896 *** Honour #line directives.
2898 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2899 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2900 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2901 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2902 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2904 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2906 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2907 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2908 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2914 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2915 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2917 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2918 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2919 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2922 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2924 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2927 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2928 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2930 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2931 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2932 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2935 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2938 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2940 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2941 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2942 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2944 P: annotates the previous revision
2945 N: annotates the next revision
2946 J: annotates the revision at line
2947 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2948 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2949 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2950 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2955 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2956 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2960 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2961 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2962 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2966 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2967 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2968 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2971 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2973 See the documentation of the user option
2974 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2979 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2981 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2982 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2983 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2986 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2988 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2989 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2990 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2991 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2992 used instead of the native one.
2997 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2999 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
3003 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
3005 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
3010 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.92. There have been major changes since
3011 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
3013 ** Calendar changes:
3016 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
3017 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
3020 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
3021 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
3024 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
3025 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
3026 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
3027 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
3028 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
3029 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
3030 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
3031 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
3032 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
3035 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
3036 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
3037 count backward from the end of the year.
3040 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
3041 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
3042 day of that ISO week.
3045 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
3046 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
3049 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
3050 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
3051 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
3052 `christian-holidays' simpler.
3055 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
3056 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
3057 and `diary-header-line-format'.
3060 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
3061 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
3062 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
3063 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
3066 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
3067 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
3068 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
3069 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
3073 ** Speedbar changes:
3075 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
3076 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
3078 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
3081 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
3082 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
3084 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
3086 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
3087 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3088 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3091 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3092 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3093 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3094 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3097 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3098 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3099 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3100 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3101 that number to `other-frame'.
3103 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3104 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3106 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3107 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3108 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3109 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3110 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3111 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3112 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3113 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3114 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3119 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
3120 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3121 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3122 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3123 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3125 The following values are supported:
3127 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3141 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3144 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3145 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3146 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3148 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3150 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3151 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3152 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3153 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3155 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3156 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3158 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3160 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3161 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3163 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3165 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3166 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3167 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3168 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3171 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3172 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3173 credentials to authenticate the user.
3175 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3176 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3177 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3179 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3180 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3182 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3183 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3186 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3187 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3191 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3196 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3198 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3199 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3200 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3201 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3204 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3206 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3207 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3210 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3212 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3213 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3214 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3215 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3216 with other details of skeleton construction.
3219 ** Hideshow mode changes
3221 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3222 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3223 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3224 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3226 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3227 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3228 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3231 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3232 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3233 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3236 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3239 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3240 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3241 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3242 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3245 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3247 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3248 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3249 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3252 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3253 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3254 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3255 using strokes as an input method.
3257 ** Emacs server changes:
3260 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3262 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3263 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3264 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3265 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3268 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3269 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3270 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3273 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3276 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3279 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3281 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3282 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3283 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3286 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3287 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3290 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3292 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3293 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3297 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3299 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3300 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3301 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3303 ** battery.el changes:
3306 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3309 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3312 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3314 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3315 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3316 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3317 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3320 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3323 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3326 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3328 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3331 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3333 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3334 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3335 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3336 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3337 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3338 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3339 where USERNAME is your user name.
3341 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3342 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3343 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3346 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3348 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3349 existing values. For example:
3351 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3353 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3354 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3357 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3359 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3360 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3363 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3365 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3368 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3370 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3371 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3372 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3373 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3374 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3375 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3378 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3380 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3381 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3382 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3383 sound support for those formats.
3386 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3388 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3391 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3393 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3394 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3395 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3398 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3400 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3401 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3402 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3403 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3404 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3405 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3406 you wish to use them in other faces.
3409 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3411 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3412 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3413 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3414 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3418 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3420 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3421 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3422 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3423 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3424 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3425 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3426 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3427 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3428 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3429 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3432 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3435 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3436 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3437 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3439 ** The variable `mac-command-key-is-meta' is obsolete. Use
3440 `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' instead.
3442 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3445 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3446 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3449 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3450 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3451 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3455 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3456 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3457 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3460 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3463 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3464 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3466 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3468 ** General Lisp changes:
3470 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3471 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3472 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3475 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3478 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3481 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3483 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3484 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3485 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3488 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3489 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3492 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3494 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3497 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3499 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3500 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3504 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3506 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3507 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3510 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3512 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3513 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3514 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3518 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3520 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3523 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3525 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3529 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3531 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3535 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3537 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3538 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3541 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3543 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3544 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3545 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3547 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3548 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3551 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3553 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3554 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3555 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3558 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3560 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3561 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3562 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3565 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3567 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3568 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3569 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3570 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3573 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3575 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3576 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3577 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3579 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3580 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3583 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3585 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3588 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3590 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3591 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3592 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc.).
3595 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3596 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3597 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3599 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3601 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3603 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3605 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3608 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3610 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3611 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3613 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3615 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3616 possible declaration specifiers are:
3619 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3622 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3623 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3624 but this is cleaner.)
3627 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3629 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3632 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3634 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3635 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3636 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3640 ** Variable aliases:
3642 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3644 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3645 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3646 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3647 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3649 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3650 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3652 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3654 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3655 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3656 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3658 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3659 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3662 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3663 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3665 ** defcustom changes:
3668 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3673 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3675 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3676 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3677 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3680 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3683 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3686 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3687 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3688 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3689 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3690 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3693 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3694 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3697 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3701 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3702 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3703 been declared obsolete.
3706 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3708 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3709 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3710 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3711 warnings in a separate window.
3714 ** Progress reporters.
3716 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3717 progress messages for the user.
3719 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3720 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3721 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3723 ** Buffer positions:
3726 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3727 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3728 the usable window height and width is used.
3731 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3732 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3733 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3734 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3735 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3738 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3743 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3748 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' tests if a position is in a clickable link.
3750 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3754 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3756 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3759 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3761 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3762 give up and return LIMIT.
3765 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3766 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3770 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3771 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3772 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3774 ** Text modification:
3777 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3778 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3779 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3782 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3783 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3784 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3787 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3788 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3792 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3793 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3794 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3795 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3796 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3798 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3799 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3800 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3804 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3808 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3809 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3810 be inserted is translated through it.
3815 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3816 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3820 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3825 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3826 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3827 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3830 ** Atomic change groups.
3832 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3833 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3834 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3836 (atomic-change-group
3838 (delete-region x y))
3840 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3841 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3842 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3843 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3845 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3846 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3848 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3849 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3850 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3851 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3853 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3854 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3857 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3858 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3859 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3860 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3862 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3863 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3864 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3865 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3866 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3867 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3870 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3871 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3872 returned values, like this:
3874 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3875 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3877 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3878 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3879 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3881 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3882 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3883 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3884 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3887 ** Buffer-related changes:
3890 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3892 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3895 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3898 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3899 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3900 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3901 value of VARIABLE instead.
3903 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3904 various status records in parallel.
3906 It takes a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3907 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3908 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3909 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3910 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3911 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3914 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3915 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3916 vector into the variable and returns t.
3918 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3919 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3923 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3924 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3925 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3926 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3928 ** Local variables lists:
3931 *** Text properties in local variables.
3933 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3934 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3937 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3938 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3939 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3940 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3944 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3945 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3946 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3947 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3948 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3949 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3951 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3952 confirmation as before.
3954 ** Searching and matching changes:
3957 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3958 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3959 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3962 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3963 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3964 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3965 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3967 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3968 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3971 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3973 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3974 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3975 specified by the syntax table.
3978 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3981 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3982 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3983 characters and ranges.
3986 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3987 properties from surrounding text.
3990 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3991 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3992 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3995 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3996 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3997 passed to these functions will be reseated to point to nowhere.
4000 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
4001 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
4002 that end a sentence without following spaces.
4004 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
4005 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
4006 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
4007 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
4008 `sentence-end-without-space'.
4013 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
4015 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
4016 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
4017 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
4019 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
4020 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
4021 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
4024 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
4025 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
4026 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
4029 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
4030 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
4032 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
4033 elements with the following format:
4034 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
4036 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
4037 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
4038 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
4039 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
4041 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
4042 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
4043 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
4044 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
4045 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
4047 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
4048 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
4049 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
4050 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
4051 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
4052 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
4053 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
4054 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
4056 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
4057 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
4060 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4061 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
4062 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
4063 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4064 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
4066 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
4067 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
4068 string. The old behavior is available if you call
4069 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
4071 ** Syntax table changes:
4074 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
4077 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
4078 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
4079 of text properties as well as the character code.
4082 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
4086 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
4087 current syntactic context at point.
4089 ** File operation changes:
4092 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4093 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4096 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4097 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4101 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4102 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4103 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4104 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4107 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4108 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4111 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4112 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4113 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4116 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4118 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4121 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4122 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4125 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4126 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4127 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4128 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4131 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4132 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4133 tasks. For example, it can be used by the copyright package to make
4134 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4137 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4138 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4142 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4143 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4144 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4145 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4146 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4147 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4148 further filter candidate files.
4150 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4151 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4152 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependencies.
4155 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4157 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4158 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4159 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4160 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4161 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4164 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4166 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4167 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4168 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4171 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4172 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4175 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4176 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4181 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4182 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4183 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4186 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4187 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4188 it returns just the directory name.
4191 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4192 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4193 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4196 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4197 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4198 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4199 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4200 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4202 ** Minibuffer changes:
4205 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4206 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4207 defaults to the current buffer.
4210 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4211 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4214 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4215 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4218 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4219 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
4220 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4221 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4222 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4225 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4226 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4229 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4230 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4231 `read-file-name' function.
4234 *** The new function `read-directory-name' is for reading a directory name.
4236 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4237 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4239 ** Completion changes:
4242 *** The new function `minibuffer-completion-contents' returns the contents
4243 of the minibuffer just before point. That is what completion commands
4247 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4248 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4249 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4250 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4251 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4254 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4255 as a dynamic completion table.
4257 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4259 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4260 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4261 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4262 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4263 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4264 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4267 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4268 as a lazy completion table.
4270 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN)
4272 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4273 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with no
4274 arguments. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR.
4275 If completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4276 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4277 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4280 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4282 *** New keymaps for typing file names
4284 Two new keymaps, `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map' and
4285 `minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map', apply whenever
4286 Emacs reads a file name in the minibuffer. These key maps override
4287 the usual binding of SPC to `minibuffer-complete-word' (so that file
4288 names with embedded spaces could be typed without the need to quote
4291 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4293 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4294 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4297 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4299 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4301 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4302 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4303 binding and lookup functionality.
4305 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4306 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4310 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4311 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4312 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4313 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4316 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4317 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4318 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4320 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4321 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4323 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4324 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4326 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4327 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4328 runs `my-kill-line'.
4330 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4332 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4333 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4334 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4335 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4337 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4338 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4340 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4341 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4343 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4344 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4345 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4346 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4347 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4348 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4350 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4351 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4352 command was not remapped.
4354 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4355 over minor mode keymaps.
4357 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4358 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4359 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4361 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4363 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4364 bindings of the parent keymap.
4366 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4368 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4371 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4372 defined keys and their definitions.
4374 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4376 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4379 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4381 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4382 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4383 keymap alist to this list.
4388 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4390 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4393 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4395 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4396 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4397 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4401 ** Enhancements to process support
4403 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4404 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4406 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4408 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4409 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4412 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4413 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4415 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4416 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4418 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4419 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4420 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4421 entire property list of a process.
4423 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4424 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4425 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4426 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4427 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4430 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4432 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4433 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4434 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4435 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4436 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4437 from such processes, allowing them to produce more output before
4438 emacs tries to read it.
4440 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4442 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4444 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4445 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4446 `default-directory'.
4448 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4449 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4451 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4452 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4453 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4455 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4456 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4458 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4459 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4461 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4462 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4463 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4464 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4465 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4468 ** Enhanced networking support.
4470 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4471 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4472 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4474 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4475 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4476 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4477 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4478 - IPv6 is supported (when available). You may explicitly select IPv6
4479 using :family 'ipv6 arg.
4480 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4481 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4482 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4483 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4485 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4486 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4487 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:family ipv6))
4489 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4491 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4493 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4494 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4496 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4498 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4499 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4500 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4501 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4502 string for other formatting options.
4504 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4506 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4507 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4508 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4510 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4511 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4513 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4515 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4516 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4517 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4520 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4522 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4523 current network addresses.
4525 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4527 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4528 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4530 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4532 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4533 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4534 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4535 "connection broken by remote peer".
4537 ** Using window objects:
4540 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4542 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4546 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4548 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4552 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4554 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4555 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4556 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4557 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4558 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4561 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4562 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4563 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4567 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4568 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4571 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4572 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4573 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4576 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4578 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4581 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4582 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4583 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4587 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4589 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4590 and scroll-bar settings.
4593 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4596 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4597 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4601 *** The new function `adjust-window-trailing-edge' moves the right
4602 or bottom edge of a window. It does not move other window edges.
4605 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4607 *** New buffer-local variables `fringe-indicator-alist' and
4608 `fringe-cursor-alist' maps between logical (internal) fringe indicator
4609 and cursor symbols and the actual fringe bitmaps to be displayed.
4610 This decouples the logical meaning of the fringe indicators from the
4611 physical appearence, as well as allowing different fringe bitmaps to
4612 be used in different windows showing different buffers.
4614 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4615 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4617 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4618 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation' or `continued-line'.
4620 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4621 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4623 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4624 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4625 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4626 foreground color of the bitmap.
4628 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4629 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4630 bitmap of the display line.
4632 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4633 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4634 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4635 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4636 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4638 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4639 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4641 ** Other window fringe features:
4644 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4646 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4647 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4648 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4649 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4651 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4652 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4653 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4654 between the left and right fringe. To force a specific fringe width,
4655 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4656 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4658 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4659 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4660 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4661 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4664 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4666 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4669 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4670 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4671 `set-window-fringes'.
4673 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4674 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4675 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4676 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4678 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4679 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4680 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4681 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4682 an update of the display margins.
4684 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4685 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4687 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4688 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4689 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4690 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4691 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4692 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4693 of the display margins.
4695 ** Redisplay features:
4698 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4701 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4702 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4703 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4704 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4705 forcing an explicit window update.
4708 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4709 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4710 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4712 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4713 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4716 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4717 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4719 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4720 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4722 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4723 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4724 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4725 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4726 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4727 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4730 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4732 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4733 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4735 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4736 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4737 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4738 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4739 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4741 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4742 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4743 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4745 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4746 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4749 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4750 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4751 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4753 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4754 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4756 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4757 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4758 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4759 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4760 exactly that many pixels high.
4762 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4763 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4764 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4765 the `line-spacing' variable.
4767 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4768 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4771 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4772 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4775 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4777 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4778 PROPS is a property list, now allows pixel based width and height
4779 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4781 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4782 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4785 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4786 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4787 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4788 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4790 POS ::= left | center | right
4791 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4794 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4795 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4796 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4797 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4798 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4799 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4800 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4803 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4804 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4805 corresponding area of the window.
4807 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4808 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4809 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4810 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4811 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4812 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4813 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4814 the width of the area.
4816 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4817 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4819 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4820 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4821 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4823 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4824 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4825 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4826 height) of the specified image.
4828 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4829 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4832 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4833 text property string that may be present at the current window
4834 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4835 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4838 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4839 supported on text terminals.
4842 *** Support for displaying image slices
4844 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4845 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4847 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4848 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4850 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4851 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4854 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4856 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4857 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4858 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4859 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4860 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4861 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4862 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4863 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4865 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4866 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4867 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4868 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4869 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4870 for possible pointer shapes.
4872 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4873 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4874 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4877 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4878 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4879 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4880 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4881 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4882 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4883 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4885 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4888 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
4889 images that Emacs will load and display.
4891 ** Mouse pointer features:
4895 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4896 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4897 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4898 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4899 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4902 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4903 :pointer image property.
4906 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4907 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4909 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4912 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4913 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4916 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4917 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4918 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4921 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4924 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4927 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4931 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4935 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4936 of the mouse event position.
4939 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4942 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4943 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4946 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4947 (image or character) clicked on.
4950 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4952 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4953 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4954 the total width and height of that object.
4956 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4959 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4960 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4963 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4965 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4966 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4967 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4968 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4971 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4972 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4973 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4974 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4975 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4978 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4980 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4981 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4986 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4987 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4988 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4989 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4990 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4991 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4994 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4995 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4997 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4998 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4999 defined with `defface'.
5002 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
5003 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
5004 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
5005 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
5006 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
5009 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
5010 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
5011 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
5015 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
5016 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
5017 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
5018 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
5019 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
5022 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
5023 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
5024 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
5027 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
5029 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
5030 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
5034 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
5035 help with handling relative face attributes.
5038 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
5040 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
5041 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
5042 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
5043 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
5047 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
5048 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
5049 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
5050 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
5051 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
5054 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
5055 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
5057 ** Font-Lock changes:
5060 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
5062 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
5063 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
5064 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
5065 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5068 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
5070 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
5071 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
5072 properties than `face'.
5074 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
5075 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
5078 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
5080 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
5081 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
5082 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
5083 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
5084 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
5092 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
5093 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
5094 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
5095 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
5097 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
5100 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
5101 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
5102 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
5103 variable `magic-mode-alist'.
5106 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
5109 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
5110 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
5111 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5114 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5115 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5119 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5120 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5124 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5125 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5128 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5129 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5130 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5132 ** Minor mode changes:
5135 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5136 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5139 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5142 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5144 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5145 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5147 ** Command loop changes:
5150 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5151 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5152 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5154 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5155 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5158 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5160 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5161 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5165 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5166 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5167 covered by an image or composition property.
5169 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5170 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5171 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5172 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5173 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5176 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5177 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5178 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5179 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5180 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5183 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5184 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5185 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5188 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5189 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5191 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5194 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5195 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5196 current file redefined it).
5199 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5200 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5203 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5204 variable or face definitions.
5207 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5208 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5209 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5212 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5213 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5214 than 3 levels of nesting.
5217 ** Byte compiler changes:
5219 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5220 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5221 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5222 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5223 compilation output buffer.
5225 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5226 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5228 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5229 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5230 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5231 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5234 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5235 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5237 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5238 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5239 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5240 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5241 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5242 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5244 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5245 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5246 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5247 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5248 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5251 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5254 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5255 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5256 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5258 ** Frame operations:
5261 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5263 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5264 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5267 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5268 for all (existing and future) frames.
5271 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5272 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5273 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5274 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5277 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5278 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5283 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5285 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5286 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5287 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5290 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5292 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5293 the time it takes to convert the format.
5295 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5299 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5300 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5303 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5304 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5305 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5306 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5309 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5310 of one coding system from another coding system.
5313 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5314 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5318 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5319 it is read from a file without decoding.
5322 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5323 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5326 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5327 current input method to input a character.
5329 ** Mode line changes:
5332 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5334 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5335 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5338 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5339 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5342 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5343 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5347 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5349 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5352 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5353 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5354 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5355 several versions ago.
5358 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5359 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5360 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5362 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5363 made with easy-menu.
5366 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5367 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5368 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5369 need to have a name.
5371 ** Operating system access:
5374 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5375 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5378 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5379 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5380 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5383 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5386 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5387 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5388 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5391 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5392 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5397 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5399 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5400 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5401 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5402 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5403 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5404 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5405 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5407 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5410 *** Variable `local-write-file-hooks' is marked obsolete.
5412 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5415 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5421 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5422 as the heap size increases.
5425 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5426 on garbage collection.
5429 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5431 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5433 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5436 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5437 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5438 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5439 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5440 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5443 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5444 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5445 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5448 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5449 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5453 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5454 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5456 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5457 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5458 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5461 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5462 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5465 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5466 (function (lambda ()
5468 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5469 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5470 (function (lambda ()
5471 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5474 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5476 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5479 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5481 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5482 code. It works with edebug.
5484 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5485 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5486 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5487 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5488 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5490 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5491 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5492 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5493 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5494 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5495 value, such as (setq x 14).
5497 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5498 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5499 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5500 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5501 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5502 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5504 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5506 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5510 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5512 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5515 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5518 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5521 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5522 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5523 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5524 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5525 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5526 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5527 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5528 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5529 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5530 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5532 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5533 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5535 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5536 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5537 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5538 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5539 contrary to the compound text specification.
5542 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5544 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5546 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5549 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5551 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5553 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5554 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5555 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5556 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5557 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5559 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5562 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5563 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5565 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5566 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5567 instead of using default-major-mode.
5569 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5570 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5571 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5572 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5573 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5574 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5575 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5577 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5581 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5583 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5584 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5585 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5587 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5588 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5591 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5593 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5594 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5595 charsets in this release.
5597 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5599 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5601 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5602 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5605 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5606 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5607 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5608 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5609 necessary changes to unexec.
5611 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5612 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5614 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5615 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5617 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5618 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5620 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5621 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5622 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5623 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5624 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5626 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5627 new display features described below.
5630 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5632 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5634 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5635 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5636 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5637 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5640 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5642 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5643 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5644 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5645 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5648 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5649 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5650 under Lisp changes, below.
5652 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5654 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5655 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5656 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5657 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5658 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5659 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5662 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5663 supported on character terminals.
5665 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5666 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5667 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5668 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5670 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5674 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5675 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5676 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5677 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5680 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5682 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5683 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5684 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5685 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5687 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5689 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5690 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5691 specifies a number of lines.
5695 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5697 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5698 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5699 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5702 Default is `grow-only'.
5706 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5707 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5709 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5711 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5712 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5715 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5717 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5718 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5719 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5721 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5723 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5724 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5725 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5726 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5727 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5730 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5731 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5732 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5733 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5734 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5735 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5737 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5738 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5739 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5740 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5741 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5742 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5744 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5745 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5746 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5747 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5748 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5750 ** Tool bar support.
5752 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5753 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5754 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5755 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5756 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5759 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5760 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5764 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5765 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5766 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5768 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5769 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5770 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5771 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5773 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5775 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5776 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5779 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5780 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5781 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5782 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5783 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5785 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5786 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5787 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5788 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5789 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5790 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5792 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5793 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5794 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5795 customizing face `fringe'.
5797 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5798 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5799 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5800 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5801 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5802 the window to be partially obscured.)
5804 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5805 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5806 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5807 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5809 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5811 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5812 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5813 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5814 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5815 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5818 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5820 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5822 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5824 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5825 `*') toggles the status.
5827 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5829 ** Hourglass pointer
5831 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5832 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5836 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5837 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5838 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5841 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5843 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5844 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5845 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5848 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5849 have to do anything to activate it.
5851 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5853 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5854 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5856 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5857 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5858 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5859 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5860 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5861 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5862 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5863 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5865 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5866 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5867 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5868 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5869 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5870 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5872 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5873 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5875 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5876 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5879 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5880 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5881 beginning and end of the buffer.
5883 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5884 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5887 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5888 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5890 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5891 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5894 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5895 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5898 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5900 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5901 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5902 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5904 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5905 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5906 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5908 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5911 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5913 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5914 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5915 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5916 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5917 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5920 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5921 all frames except the selected one.
5923 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5924 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5926 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5927 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5928 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5929 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5930 `Info-use-header-line'.
5932 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5933 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5934 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5936 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5938 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5939 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5942 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5943 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5944 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5945 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5947 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5949 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5950 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5951 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5952 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5954 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5955 point in a pop-up window.
5957 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5958 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5959 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5961 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5962 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5964 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5965 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5966 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5967 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5969 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5971 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5972 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5974 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5975 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5976 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5978 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5979 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5982 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5983 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5984 file that is already visited under a different name.
5986 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5987 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5989 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5990 and displays information about that.
5992 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5993 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5995 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5996 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5997 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5998 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5999 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
6000 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
6002 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
6003 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
6005 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
6006 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
6007 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
6008 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
6009 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
6010 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
6011 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
6013 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
6014 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
6016 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
6017 system for keyboard input.
6019 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
6020 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
6021 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
6022 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
6023 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
6024 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
6025 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
6026 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
6027 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
6029 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
6030 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
6032 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
6033 displays all characters in that character set.
6035 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
6036 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
6038 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
6039 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
6040 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
6042 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
6043 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
6044 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
6045 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
6046 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
6047 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
6050 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
6051 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
6054 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
6055 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
6056 Lisp Coding Convention".
6058 new command old-binding
6059 --- ------- -----------
6060 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
6061 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
6062 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
6064 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
6065 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
6066 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
6068 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
6069 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
6070 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
6071 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
6072 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
6073 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
6075 ** There are new Leim input methods.
6076 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
6077 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
6080 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
6081 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
6082 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
6083 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
6084 "`", you must type "=q".
6086 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
6087 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
6088 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
6089 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
6090 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
6093 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
6094 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
6095 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
6096 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
6098 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
6099 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
6100 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
6101 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
6103 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
6104 on the display using several methods
6106 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
6107 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
6108 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
6110 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
6111 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
6113 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6115 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6116 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6118 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6119 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6120 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6121 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6123 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6124 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6125 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6127 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6128 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6130 ** New X resources recognized
6132 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6133 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6134 is useful for debugging X problems.
6138 emacs.synchronous: true
6140 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6141 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6142 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6143 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6144 visual class names are
6153 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6154 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6157 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6158 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6159 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6164 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6166 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6167 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6168 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6169 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6173 emacs.privateColormap: true
6175 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6177 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6178 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6179 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6180 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6181 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6182 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6183 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6185 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6186 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6187 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6188 `default' face and vice versa.
6192 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6194 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6196 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6197 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6198 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6199 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6201 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6202 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6203 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6205 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6208 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6210 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6211 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6212 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6213 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6215 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6217 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6219 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6221 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6224 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6227 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6229 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6230 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6231 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6233 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6234 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6236 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6237 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6238 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6240 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6242 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6243 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6244 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6245 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6247 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6248 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6249 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6250 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6252 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6253 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6254 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6257 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6259 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6260 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6261 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6263 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6264 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6265 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6266 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6267 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6268 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6270 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6272 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6273 notably at the end of lines.
6275 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6276 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6278 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6280 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6281 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6283 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6284 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6285 after each match to get the replacement text.
6287 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6288 you edit the replacement string.
6290 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6291 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6292 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6294 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6296 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6297 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6299 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6300 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6301 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6302 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6305 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6306 read mail from the menu etc.
6308 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6309 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6310 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6311 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6313 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6314 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6316 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6317 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6318 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6319 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6320 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6323 ** Customize changes
6325 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6326 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6327 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6328 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6329 earlier versions of Emacs.
6331 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6332 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6335 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6336 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6337 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6338 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6341 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6342 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6343 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6344 already in your init file.
6346 ** New features in evaluation commands
6348 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6349 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6350 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6351 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6352 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6354 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6355 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6356 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6357 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6360 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6361 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6363 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6364 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6366 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6367 code when called with a prefix argument.
6371 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6372 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6373 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6374 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6375 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6376 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6379 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6380 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6381 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6384 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6385 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6386 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6387 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6389 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6390 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6392 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6393 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6395 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6396 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6397 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6398 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6400 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6401 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6402 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6403 earlier statement. An example:
6405 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6407 res += a[i]->offset;
6410 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6411 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6412 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6413 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6416 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6419 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6420 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6421 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6422 documentation or other natural language text.
6424 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6425 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6426 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6427 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6428 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6429 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6430 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6432 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6433 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6434 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6435 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6437 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6438 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6439 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6440 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6443 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6444 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6445 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6446 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6447 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6448 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6449 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6450 is reported afterwards.
6452 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6453 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6454 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6456 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6457 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6458 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6459 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6460 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6461 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6464 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6465 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6466 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6467 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6468 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6471 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6472 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6473 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6474 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6475 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6476 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6478 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6479 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6480 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6481 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6482 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6483 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6484 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6485 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6487 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6488 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6489 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6490 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6493 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6494 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6495 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6496 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6497 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6498 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6499 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6500 function documentation for more info.
6502 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6503 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6504 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6505 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6506 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6507 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6508 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6509 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6511 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6513 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6514 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6516 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6517 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6518 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6519 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6520 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6523 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6524 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6525 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6528 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6529 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6530 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6531 chapter about this in the manual.
6533 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6534 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6535 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6536 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6537 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6539 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6540 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6541 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6543 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6544 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6546 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6547 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6548 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6551 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6552 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6553 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6554 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6557 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6558 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6559 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6560 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6561 they were before the filling.
6563 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6564 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6565 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6568 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6569 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6570 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6571 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6574 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6575 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6576 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6577 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6578 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6580 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6581 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6582 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6584 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6586 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6587 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6588 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6589 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6591 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6592 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6593 the column specified by comment-column.
6595 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6596 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6597 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6598 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6599 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6600 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6602 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6603 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6606 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6608 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6609 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6610 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6611 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6614 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6618 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6619 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6620 is, delete only empty directories.
6622 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6623 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6624 copy directories recursively.
6626 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6627 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6628 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6630 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6631 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6634 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6635 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6636 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6637 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6638 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6640 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6643 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6644 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6645 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6646 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6650 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6651 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6652 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6654 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6655 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6657 If you used procmail like in
6659 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6660 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6661 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6662 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6664 this now has changed to
6667 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6670 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6671 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6673 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6674 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6675 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6676 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6678 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6679 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6680 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6682 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6683 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6684 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6685 now just a compatibility layer.
6687 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6690 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6691 called to position point.
6693 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6694 summary buffers and NOV files.
6696 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6697 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6699 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6700 subtly different manner.
6702 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6703 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6704 ever-changing layouts.
6706 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6708 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6710 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6712 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6716 -------------------------
6720 C-c C-c q @quotation
6722 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6725 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6727 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6729 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6730 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6731 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6733 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6735 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6736 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6737 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6738 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6739 buffers to kill, as before.
6741 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6742 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6745 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6746 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6748 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6750 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6751 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6752 use. Default is 1000.
6754 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6755 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6757 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6759 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6761 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6762 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6763 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6764 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6766 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6767 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6768 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6771 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6772 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6773 the normal block-hiding function.
6775 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6777 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6778 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6779 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6780 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6782 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6783 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6785 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6787 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6788 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6789 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6791 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6794 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6797 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6798 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6799 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6800 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6801 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6802 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6804 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6806 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6808 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6809 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6811 ** Changes in Font Lock
6813 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6814 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6816 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6817 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6819 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6820 the face used for each string/comment.
6822 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6823 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6825 ** Changes to Shell mode
6827 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6828 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6829 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6830 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6832 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6834 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6835 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6837 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6838 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6839 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6840 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6841 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6842 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6844 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6845 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6846 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6847 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6848 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6849 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6850 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6851 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6853 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6854 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6856 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6857 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6858 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6860 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6861 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6862 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6864 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6865 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6866 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6868 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6869 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6870 argument, it appends to the file.
6872 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6873 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6876 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6879 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6880 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6881 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6883 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6885 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6886 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6887 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6888 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6889 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6892 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6893 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6894 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6896 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6897 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6898 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6899 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6900 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6902 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6905 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6906 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6909 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6910 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6912 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6913 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6914 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6916 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6917 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6919 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6920 use the -f option when sending mail.
6922 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6923 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6924 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6925 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6926 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6927 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6929 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6930 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6931 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6933 ** Changes to TeX mode
6935 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6938 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6940 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6942 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6944 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6946 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6947 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6948 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6949 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6950 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6951 can be edited from that buffer.
6953 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6954 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6955 `A' to use all marked entries).
6957 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6958 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6960 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6961 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6962 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6965 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6966 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6967 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6968 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6970 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6971 has the following new features:
6973 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6974 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6975 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6976 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6978 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6979 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6980 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6981 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6982 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6985 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6990 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6991 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6992 spell-checks the current buffer.
6994 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6997 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6998 correction is made and re-checked.
7000 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
7002 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
7005 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
7008 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
7011 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
7013 ** Makefile mode changes
7015 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
7017 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
7018 Fontlock mode is active.
7022 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
7023 so that searches can be resumed.
7025 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
7026 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
7027 that started the search.
7029 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
7030 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
7032 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
7034 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
7035 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
7036 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
7037 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
7038 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
7039 `secondary-selection'.
7041 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
7042 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
7043 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
7044 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
7045 usual snappy response.
7047 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
7048 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
7049 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
7050 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
7054 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
7055 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
7056 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
7057 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
7058 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
7059 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
7060 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
7061 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
7062 file is registered in that backend.
7064 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
7065 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
7066 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
7067 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
7068 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
7069 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
7071 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
7072 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
7073 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
7074 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
7075 where it doesn't make sense.)
7077 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
7078 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
7079 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
7083 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
7084 checks are always done now.
7086 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
7089 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
7090 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
7091 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
7093 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
7094 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
7095 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
7096 the working file (``merge news'').
7098 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7099 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
7102 *** Multiple Backends
7104 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
7105 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
7106 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
7107 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
7110 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
7111 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
7112 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
7113 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7115 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7116 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7117 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7118 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7119 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7121 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7122 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7123 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7124 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7126 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7127 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7128 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7129 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7133 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7134 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7135 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7136 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7137 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7138 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7139 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7141 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7142 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7143 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7144 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7145 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7146 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7147 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7148 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7149 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7150 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7151 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7154 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7155 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7156 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7157 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7158 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7159 entire directory tree.
7161 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7162 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7163 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7164 "watched" by other developers.)
7166 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7167 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7168 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7169 starting at the given directory.
7171 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7173 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7174 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7175 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7176 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7177 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7178 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7179 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7180 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7181 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7183 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7184 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7185 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7186 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7188 ** New modes and packages
7190 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7191 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7192 the default is not applicable.
7194 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7195 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7196 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7200 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7201 drawn, like this: | \ /
7205 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7206 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7207 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7208 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7209 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7212 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7213 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7215 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7218 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7219 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7220 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7221 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7223 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7224 also do without the mouse.
7226 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7227 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7228 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7229 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7230 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7232 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7234 lines straight-lines
7236 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7238 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7239 spray-can setting size for spraying
7240 vaporize line vaporize lines
7241 erase characters erase rectangles
7243 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7244 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7245 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7248 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7249 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7250 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7251 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7253 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7256 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7257 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7258 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7259 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7260 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7261 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7262 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7263 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7264 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7266 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7267 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7268 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7269 on certain projects.
7271 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7272 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7274 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7276 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7277 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7278 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7279 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7280 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7281 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7282 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7283 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7285 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7288 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7289 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7291 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7292 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7294 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7295 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7296 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7297 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7298 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7300 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7301 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7302 separate Texinfo file.
7304 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7305 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7306 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7307 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7308 enter check-in log messages.
7310 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7311 without invoking external programs.
7313 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7314 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7315 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7316 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7317 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7319 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7320 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7322 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7323 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7325 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7326 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7327 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7328 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7329 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7332 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7333 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7334 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7335 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7337 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7338 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7339 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7341 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7344 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7346 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7348 ; comment (until end of line)
7352 $A default non-terminal
7353 $"C" default terminal
7354 $?C? default special
7355 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7356 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7357 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7358 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7359 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7360 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7361 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7362 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7363 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7364 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7365 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7366 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7367 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7368 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7369 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7371 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7373 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7374 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7375 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7376 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7377 equal signs of assignments.
7379 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7380 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7382 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7383 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7384 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7386 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7388 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7389 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7390 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7391 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7392 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7393 which answers different needs.
7395 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7396 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7397 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7398 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7399 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7402 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7403 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7405 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7407 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7408 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7409 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7411 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7413 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7414 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7415 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7416 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7417 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7418 and background colors.
7420 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7423 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7426 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7428 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7430 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7431 whitespace in a file.
7433 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7434 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7435 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7436 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7437 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7438 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7439 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7441 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7443 Here is an example of columns:
7446 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7447 porcupine strawberry airplane
7449 Doing the following settings:
7451 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7452 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7453 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7454 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7457 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7459 M-x delimit-columns-region
7463 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7464 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7465 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7467 delim-col has the following options:
7469 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7472 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7473 between each column.
7475 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7478 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7481 delim-col has the following commands:
7483 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7484 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7486 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7487 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7488 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7489 recent file list can be displayed:
7491 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7492 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7493 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7495 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7496 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7498 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7501 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7502 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7503 specific to Message mode.
7505 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7506 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7507 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7509 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7510 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7511 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7513 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7514 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7516 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7518 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7519 minibuffer with completion.
7521 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7522 with the diary features.
7524 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7525 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7527 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7530 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7531 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7532 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7533 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7535 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7536 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7539 ** Changes in sort.el
7541 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7542 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7543 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7546 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7548 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7549 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7550 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7552 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7553 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7555 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7556 output ^M at the end of lines.
7558 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7559 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7561 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7562 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7565 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7568 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7569 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7572 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7573 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7574 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7575 nil -- just delete one character.
7577 Default value is `untabify'.
7579 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7581 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7582 symbol, not double-quoted.
7584 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7585 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7586 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7587 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7589 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7590 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7591 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7593 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7594 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7595 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7597 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7598 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7600 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7601 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7603 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7604 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7606 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7607 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7608 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7609 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7610 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7611 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7613 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7614 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7616 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7618 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7619 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7621 ** Shell script mode changes.
7623 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7624 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7625 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7629 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7631 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7632 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7633 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7634 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7635 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7637 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7638 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7640 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7641 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7643 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7644 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7645 `template' keywords.
7647 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7648 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7650 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7653 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7655 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7657 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7660 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7662 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7663 variables are tagged.
7665 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7667 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7670 ** Changes in etags.el
7672 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7673 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7674 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7676 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7677 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7679 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7680 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7681 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7682 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7684 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7686 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7687 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7689 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7691 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7692 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7693 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7695 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7696 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7698 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7699 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7701 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7702 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7703 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7704 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7705 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7707 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7708 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7709 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7711 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7712 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7713 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7715 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7716 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7717 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7719 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7721 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7723 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7724 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7725 expression from that list, are not checked.
7727 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7728 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7729 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7730 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7732 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7734 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7735 displays local abbrevs, only.
7737 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7738 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7740 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7741 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7742 is measured in pixels.
7744 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7745 to be visited as images.
7747 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7748 were added to compile.el.
7750 ** Withdrawn packages
7752 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7753 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7755 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7757 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7760 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7762 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7763 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7764 See the sections below for details.
7766 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7767 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7768 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7769 to remove the properties of the copy.
7771 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7772 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7773 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7774 these properties are active.
7776 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7777 ranges may affect some code.
7779 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7780 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7781 make a difference to some code.
7783 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7784 operates on the minibuffer.
7786 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7787 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7788 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7789 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7790 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7791 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7792 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7793 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7794 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7795 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7796 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7797 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7799 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7800 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7801 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7803 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7804 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7805 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7807 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7808 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7809 such as `mapconcat'.
7811 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7814 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7815 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7816 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7817 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7818 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7819 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7820 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7821 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7823 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7824 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7825 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7826 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7827 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7828 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7829 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7830 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7831 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7832 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7835 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7836 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7838 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7840 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7841 allows the animated display of strings.
7843 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7844 interactive form of a function.
7846 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7847 between custom options. Example:
7849 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7850 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7851 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7852 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7854 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7855 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7857 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7858 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7859 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7861 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7862 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7863 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7864 (signal or normal termination).
7866 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7867 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7869 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7870 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7872 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7873 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7875 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7877 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7878 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7881 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7883 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7884 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7885 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7886 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7887 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7890 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7891 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7894 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7895 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7897 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7898 with the more general `:mask' property.
7900 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7902 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7905 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7906 is running in batch mode. For example,
7908 (message "%s" (read t))
7910 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7913 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7914 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7916 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7917 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7920 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7923 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7925 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7926 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7928 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7930 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7931 comparison is done with `eq'.
7933 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7935 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7936 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7937 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7939 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7940 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7941 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7943 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7944 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7946 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7947 function was declared obsolete.
7949 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7950 retained as an alias).
7952 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7953 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7955 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7957 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7959 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7960 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7961 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7962 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7963 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7964 means never include the minibuffer window.
7966 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7968 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7970 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7972 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7973 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7974 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7975 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7978 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7979 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7980 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7981 minibuffer even if it is active.
7983 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7984 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7985 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7986 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7987 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7988 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7990 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7991 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7992 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7993 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7994 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7995 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7996 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7998 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7999 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
8000 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
8002 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
8003 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
8004 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
8005 Default value is nil.
8007 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
8010 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
8011 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
8012 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
8014 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
8015 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
8016 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
8018 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
8019 list of a primitive.
8021 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
8023 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
8024 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
8025 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
8026 than replacing the local map.
8028 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
8029 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
8030 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
8033 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
8035 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
8036 as promised long ago.
8038 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
8040 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
8041 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
8042 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
8045 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
8047 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
8048 regular expressions.
8050 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
8052 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8056 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8058 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
8062 matches string STRING literally.
8065 matches character CHAR literally.
8068 matches any character except a newline.
8071 matches any character
8074 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
8075 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
8081 matches any character not in SET
8084 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
8085 in the text being matched
8088 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
8091 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8092 string being matched against.
8095 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8096 string being matched against.
8099 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8100 buffer being matched against.
8103 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8104 buffer being matched against.
8107 matches the empty string, but only at point.
8110 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8114 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8117 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8120 `(not word-boundary)'
8121 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8125 matches 0 through 9.
8128 matches ASCII control characters.
8131 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8134 matches space and tab only.
8137 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8141 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8145 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8146 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8149 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8150 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8153 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8156 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8159 matches anything lower-case.
8162 matches anything upper-case.
8165 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8166 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8169 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8172 matches anything that has word syntax.
8175 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8176 of the following symbols.
8178 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8179 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8182 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8183 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8184 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8185 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8186 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8188 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8189 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8190 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8192 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8193 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8195 `(category CATEGORY)'
8196 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8197 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8199 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8201 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8202 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8206 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8208 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8209 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8210 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8211 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8212 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8213 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8214 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8215 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8216 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8217 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8218 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8227 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8231 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8238 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8239 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8241 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8242 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8244 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8245 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8246 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8248 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8249 another name for `submatch'.
8251 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8252 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8253 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8256 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8257 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8258 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8259 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8260 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8262 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8263 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8265 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8266 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8269 like `zero-or-more'.
8272 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8275 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8277 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8278 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8284 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8287 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8289 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8290 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8296 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8299 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8302 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8305 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8308 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8312 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8314 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8316 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8317 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8318 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8319 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8321 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8322 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8323 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8324 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8326 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8327 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8328 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8330 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8331 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8332 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8333 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8334 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8335 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8336 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8339 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8341 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8342 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8343 character set as previously.
8345 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8346 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8347 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8349 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8350 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8351 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8352 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8354 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8355 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8357 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8358 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8361 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8362 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8364 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8365 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8366 buffers and strings.
8368 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8369 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8370 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8371 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8372 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8373 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8374 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8377 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8378 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8379 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8381 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8382 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8383 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8384 may differ between buffer and string text.
8386 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8387 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8389 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8390 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8391 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8392 `composition' from STRING.
8394 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8395 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8397 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8400 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8401 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8403 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8404 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8405 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8406 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8408 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8409 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8410 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8411 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8412 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8413 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8415 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8416 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8417 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8419 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8420 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8421 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8423 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8424 have been introduced.
8426 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8427 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8428 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8429 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8430 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8431 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8432 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8433 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8434 their multibyte equivalent.
8436 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8437 that offset in the file before writing.
8439 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8440 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8442 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8443 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8444 from which the command was issued.
8446 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8447 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8448 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8449 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8452 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8453 to `window-buffer-height'.
8455 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8457 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8458 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8459 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8461 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8464 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8465 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8467 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8468 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8469 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8471 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8472 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8473 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8474 is currently displayed in some window.
8476 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8477 argument function's results.
8479 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8480 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8481 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8482 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8485 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8486 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8488 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8489 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8491 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8492 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8495 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8496 nil don't display a cursor
8497 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8498 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8499 others display a box cursor.
8501 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8502 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8503 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8504 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8506 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8507 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8508 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8509 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8513 (string-to-syntax "()")
8516 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8519 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8520 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8527 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8532 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8537 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8544 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8545 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8548 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8549 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8550 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8551 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8553 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8555 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8556 for a regexp in a string.
8558 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8559 `mouse-position-function'.
8561 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8562 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8564 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8565 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8567 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8570 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8571 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8573 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8574 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8575 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8576 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8579 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8580 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8582 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8583 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8584 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8585 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8588 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8589 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8590 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8591 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8593 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8594 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8595 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8597 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8598 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8601 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8603 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8604 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8605 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8608 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8609 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8610 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8611 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8612 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8614 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8615 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8617 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8618 instead of being optional.
8620 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8621 modify read-only text.
8623 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8625 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8626 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8627 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8628 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8629 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8631 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8632 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8633 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8634 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8635 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8636 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8637 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8639 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8640 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8641 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8644 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8645 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8647 ** New function `propertize'
8649 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8650 strings with text properties.
8652 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8654 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8655 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8656 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8657 specified value of that property. Example:
8659 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8661 ** push and pop macros.
8663 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8664 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8665 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8667 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8668 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8669 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8671 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8673 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8674 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8676 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8677 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8678 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8679 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8681 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8682 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8683 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8684 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8686 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8687 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8688 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8691 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8692 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8693 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8694 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8695 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8697 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8699 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8700 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8701 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8702 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8703 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8704 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8705 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8706 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8707 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8708 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8709 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8710 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8711 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8712 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8713 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8715 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8717 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8719 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8721 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8722 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8726 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8727 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8728 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8732 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8733 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8735 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8737 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8738 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8739 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8740 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8741 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8743 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8745 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8746 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8747 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8751 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8752 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8753 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8754 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8755 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8757 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8759 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8761 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8763 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8765 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8767 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8770 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8772 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8774 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8776 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8778 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8780 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8782 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8784 Returns the size of TABLE.
8786 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8788 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8790 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8792 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8794 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8798 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8800 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8803 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8805 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8806 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8808 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8810 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8812 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8814 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8815 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8817 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8819 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8821 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8823 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8824 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8825 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8826 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8827 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8829 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8831 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8832 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8833 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8835 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8836 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8838 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8839 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8841 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8842 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8844 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8845 'case-fold-string-hash))
8847 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8849 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8851 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8852 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8853 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8855 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8857 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8858 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8860 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8861 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8862 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8863 is too short to reach that column.
8865 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8866 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8867 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8868 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8870 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8871 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8872 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8874 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8875 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8877 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8878 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8880 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8881 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8882 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8883 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8884 temporary-file-directory instead.
8886 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8887 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8888 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8889 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8891 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8892 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8894 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8896 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8897 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8898 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8900 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8902 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8903 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8904 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8905 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8906 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8907 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8909 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8910 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8911 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8912 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8914 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8916 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8917 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8918 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8921 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8922 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8926 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8928 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8929 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8932 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8934 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8936 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8937 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8940 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8942 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8943 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8948 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8949 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8951 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8952 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8953 to enable sound support.
8955 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8956 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8957 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8958 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8959 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8961 The following sound properties are supported:
8965 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8966 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8970 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8971 may be present, but not both.
8975 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8976 0..1. This property is optional.
8980 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8981 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8983 Other properties are ignored.
8985 An alternative interface is called as
8986 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8988 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8990 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8993 ** Changes to garbage collection
8995 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8996 of live and free strings.
8998 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8999 strings that have been consed so far.
9002 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
9005 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
9008 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
9009 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
9010 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
9012 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
9014 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
9016 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
9019 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
9021 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
9023 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
9024 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
9025 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
9026 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
9027 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
9029 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
9032 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
9034 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
9035 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
9036 or omitted means use the selected frame.
9038 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
9039 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
9041 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
9044 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
9048 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
9050 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
9051 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
9053 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
9054 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
9055 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
9056 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
9057 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
9058 just display it black instead.
9060 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
9063 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
9067 ** New face implementation.
9069 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
9070 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
9074 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
9076 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
9078 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
9079 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
9081 3. Font height in 1/10pt
9083 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
9085 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
9087 6. Foreground color.
9089 7. Background color.
9091 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
9093 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
9095 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
9097 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
9099 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
9102 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
9103 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
9105 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
9106 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
9107 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
9108 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
9109 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
9110 attributes mentioned above.
9112 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
9113 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9116 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9117 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9122 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9123 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9124 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9125 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9126 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9127 results in a fully-specified face.
9129 *** Face realization.
9131 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9132 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9133 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9134 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9135 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9136 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9138 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9139 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9140 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9141 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9143 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9144 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9145 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9146 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9147 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9149 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9150 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9151 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9152 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9153 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9156 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9157 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9158 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9159 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9161 **** Clearing face caches.
9163 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9164 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9169 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9170 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9171 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9173 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9174 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9175 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9176 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9177 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9179 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9180 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9181 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9183 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9185 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9186 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9187 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9188 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9189 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9190 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9191 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9193 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9194 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9197 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9198 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9201 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9204 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9209 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9210 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9213 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9214 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9215 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9216 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9217 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9220 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9222 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9224 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9226 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9228 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9229 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9230 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9232 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9233 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9234 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9235 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9236 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9237 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9238 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9239 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9240 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9241 of the face font sort order.
9243 - Function: x-font-family-list
9245 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9246 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9247 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9248 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9250 - Variable: font-list-limit
9252 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9253 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9254 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9256 *** Setting face attributes.
9258 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9259 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9260 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9263 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9264 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9266 The following attributes are recognized:
9270 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9271 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9272 and `?' are allowed.
9276 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9277 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9278 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9279 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9283 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9284 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9285 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9286 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9290 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9291 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9292 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9296 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9297 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9300 `:foreground', `:background'
9302 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9306 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9307 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9308 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9313 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9314 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9315 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9320 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9321 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9322 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9323 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9327 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9328 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9329 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9330 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9331 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9332 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9333 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9334 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9335 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9336 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9337 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9338 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9339 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9340 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9341 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9342 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9347 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9348 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9352 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9353 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9354 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9355 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9356 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9357 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9359 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9360 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9364 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9365 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9366 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9369 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9370 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9371 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9373 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9378 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9379 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9380 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9382 *** Face attributes and X resources
9384 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9387 Face attribute X resource class
9388 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9389 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9390 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9391 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9392 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9393 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9394 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9395 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9396 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9397 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9398 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9399 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9400 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9401 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9402 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9403 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9404 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9405 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9406 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9407 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9409 *** Text property `face'.
9411 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9412 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9413 specification can be
9415 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9417 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9418 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9419 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9420 for face attribute names.
9422 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9423 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9424 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9426 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9428 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9429 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9430 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9431 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9432 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9433 used to clear the mapping table.
9435 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9437 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9438 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9439 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9440 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9441 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9442 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9443 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9444 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9445 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9446 modify their color-related behavior.
9448 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9451 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9453 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9454 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9455 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9456 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9457 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9458 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9459 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9460 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9461 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9463 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9464 display can display image files.
9466 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9468 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9469 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9470 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9471 `Inviolable' option.
9473 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9474 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9475 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9477 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9479 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9480 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9481 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9483 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9484 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9485 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9486 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9487 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9488 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9489 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9492 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9493 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9494 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9496 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9498 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9500 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9502 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9503 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9504 constrained position if that is different.
9506 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9507 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9508 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9509 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9510 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9511 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9512 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9513 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9514 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9516 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9517 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9518 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9519 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9520 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9522 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9523 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9525 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9527 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9529 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9530 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9531 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9533 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9535 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9536 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9537 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9538 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9539 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9541 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9543 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9544 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9545 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9546 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9547 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9549 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9551 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9552 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9553 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9555 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9557 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9558 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9559 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9563 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9564 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9565 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9566 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9568 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9569 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9570 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9571 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9574 IMAGE is an image specification.
9576 *** Image specifications
9578 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9579 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9580 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9581 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9582 described below are ignored.
9584 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9588 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9589 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9590 to use for its ascent.
9592 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9593 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9595 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9596 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9597 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9598 overlays that apply to the image.
9602 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9603 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9604 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9608 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9613 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9615 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9616 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9618 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9619 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9620 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9621 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9622 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9623 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9624 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9625 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9628 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9630 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9632 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9633 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9634 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9635 of the factors' absolute values.
9637 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9643 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9649 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9654 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9655 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9656 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9657 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9658 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9659 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9660 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9663 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9664 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9669 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9670 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9671 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9672 may be present in the image specification.
9676 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9677 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9678 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9679 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9681 *** Supported image types
9683 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9685 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9686 properties supported are:
9690 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9691 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9695 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9696 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9698 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9699 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9700 instead of a `:file' property.
9704 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9708 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9714 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9715 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9717 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9719 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9722 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9723 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9726 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9728 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9729 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9730 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9731 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9733 Additional image properties supported are:
9735 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9737 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9738 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9741 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9742 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9744 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9745 to display compressed images.
9747 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9749 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9750 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9755 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9756 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9760 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9761 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9763 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9765 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9766 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9769 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9771 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9772 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9775 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9777 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9778 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9780 Additional image properties supported are:
9784 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9785 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9788 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9789 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9790 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9793 (defun show-anim (file max)
9794 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9795 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9797 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9800 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9803 (goto-char (point-min))
9804 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9805 (insert-image img "x"))
9806 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9808 **** PNG, image type `png'
9810 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9811 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9814 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9816 Additional image properties supported are:
9820 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9821 integer. This is a required property.
9825 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9826 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9830 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9831 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9832 files. This is an required property.
9834 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9839 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9840 which are supported in the current configuration.
9842 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9843 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9844 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9845 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9846 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9848 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9850 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9851 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9852 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9853 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9854 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9859 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9862 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9863 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9864 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9865 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9866 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9867 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9868 of the display margins.
9870 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9871 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9872 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9873 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9878 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9879 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9880 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9881 that have a `help-echo' property.
9883 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9884 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9885 the window in which the help was found.
9887 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9888 `help-echo' text property was found.
9890 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9891 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9893 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9894 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9897 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9898 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9900 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9901 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9902 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9903 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9904 used as help string.
9906 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9907 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9908 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9910 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9912 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9913 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9915 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9916 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9917 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9918 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9921 (global-set-key [A-down]
9924 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9925 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9926 (global-set-key [A-up]
9929 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9930 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9932 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9934 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9935 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9936 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9937 is called with one argument, POS.
9939 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9940 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9941 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9942 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9943 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9945 ** Tool bar support.
9947 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9948 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9949 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9950 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9951 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9952 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9954 *** Tool bar item definitions
9956 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9957 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9958 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9960 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9961 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9962 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9963 property (see below).
9965 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9966 binding are currently ignored.
9968 The following properties are recognized:
9972 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9977 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9981 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9982 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9983 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9985 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9987 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9988 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9992 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9993 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9994 meaning of each of the four elements:
9996 Index Use when item is
9997 ----------------------------------------
9998 0 enabled and selected
9999 1 enabled and deselected
10000 2 disabled and selected
10001 3 disabled and deselected
10003 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
10004 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
10006 `:help HELP-STRING'.
10008 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
10009 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
10011 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
10012 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
10013 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
10016 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
10017 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
10018 buffer-locally to override the global map.
10020 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
10022 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
10023 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
10024 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
10026 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
10027 raised when the mouse moves over them.
10029 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
10030 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
10031 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
10032 vertical margins . Default is 1.
10034 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
10035 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
10037 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
10039 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
10040 a tool bar item. If
10042 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
10043 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
10044 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
10046 is the original tool bar item definition, then
10048 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
10050 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
10053 ** Mode line changes.
10055 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
10057 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
10058 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
10059 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
10061 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
10062 a `local-map' text property.
10064 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
10065 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
10067 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
10068 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
10069 `local-map' property.
10071 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
10072 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
10075 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
10076 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
10078 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
10079 variable mode-line-format to nil.
10081 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
10083 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
10084 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
10085 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
10086 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
10089 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
10092 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
10093 position in the header-line.
10095 ** Text property `display'
10097 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
10098 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
10099 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
10100 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
10101 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
10103 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
10105 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
10106 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
10108 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
10109 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
10110 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
10111 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10112 simpler form STRING as property value.
10114 *** Variable width and height spaces
10116 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10117 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10118 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10119 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10120 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10121 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10122 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10124 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10125 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10126 properties described below.
10128 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10129 characters having the `display' property.
10133 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10134 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10136 - :relative-width FACTOR
10138 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10139 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10140 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10141 width of that character by FACTOR.
10145 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10146 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10148 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10152 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10153 normal line height.
10155 - :relative-height FACTOR
10157 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10158 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10162 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10163 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10164 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10167 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10171 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10172 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10173 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10174 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10175 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10176 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10177 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10178 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10179 as display specification.
10181 *** Other display properties
10183 - (space-width FACTOR)
10185 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10186 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10191 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10193 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10194 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10195 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10196 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10197 a font is available counts as a step.
10199 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10200 as tall as the frame's default font.
10202 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10203 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10205 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10206 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10210 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10211 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10212 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10213 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10214 `height' subproperty.
10216 *** Conditional display properties
10218 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10219 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10220 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10221 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10222 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10223 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10224 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10225 different when object is a string.
10227 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10230 ** New menu separator types.
10232 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10233 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10234 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10235 to specify other menu separator types.
10237 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10239 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10242 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10244 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10246 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10248 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10250 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10252 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10254 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10256 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10258 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10260 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10261 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10263 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10265 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10267 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10269 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10271 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10273 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10275 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10277 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10279 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10281 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10283 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10285 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10287 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10289 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10291 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10292 the corresponding single-line separators.
10294 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10296 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10297 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10298 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10299 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10300 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10301 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10302 default foreground is black.
10304 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10305 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10306 `ScrollBarBackground').
10308 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10309 settings for scroll bar colors.
10311 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10312 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10314 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10315 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10316 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10317 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10318 the original window start.
10320 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10321 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10322 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10324 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10326 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10327 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10328 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10329 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10331 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10332 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10334 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10336 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10337 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10338 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10339 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10340 temporarily to nil, for example
10342 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10343 (enlarge-window 10))
10345 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10346 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10348 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10349 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10350 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10351 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10352 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10353 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10357 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10359 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10362 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10364 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10366 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10367 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10368 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10369 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10370 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10372 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10376 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10378 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10382 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10384 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10385 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10387 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10389 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10391 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10392 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10393 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10395 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10396 is the one that is used.
10398 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10399 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10400 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10401 separate from the command's regular output.
10402 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10403 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10404 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10407 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10408 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10409 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10410 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10412 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10413 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10414 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10415 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10417 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10418 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10419 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10420 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10422 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10423 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10424 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10425 they never ignore case.
10427 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10428 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10429 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10430 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10431 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10432 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10433 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10435 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10436 the same format that was used in the file before.
10438 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10439 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10441 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10442 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10443 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10445 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10446 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10447 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10448 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10449 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10450 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10451 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10453 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10454 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10455 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10456 format. You can now customize these variables.
10458 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10459 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10460 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10461 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10463 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10464 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10465 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10467 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10468 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10469 doesn't have any effect.
10471 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10472 not one per buffer.
10474 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10475 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10476 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10478 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10479 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10480 `auto-show-mode' command.
10482 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10483 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10484 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10485 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10486 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10488 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10489 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10491 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10492 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10493 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10495 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10496 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10497 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10498 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10500 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10502 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10503 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10504 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10505 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10506 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10508 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10509 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10511 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10512 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10513 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10514 `?' on other systems.
10516 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10517 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10520 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10521 current codepage when it starts.
10525 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10526 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10527 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10528 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10529 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10530 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10534 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10535 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10537 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10538 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10539 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10540 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10541 buffer-file-coding-system.
10543 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10544 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10547 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10548 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10549 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10550 list of possible coding systems.
10554 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10555 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10556 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10557 docstring for details.
10559 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10560 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10561 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10562 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10563 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10565 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10566 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10568 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10569 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10571 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10572 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10573 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10574 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10577 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10578 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10580 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10581 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10582 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10583 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10585 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10586 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10587 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10588 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10589 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10591 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10593 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10595 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10596 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10598 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10600 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10601 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10602 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10603 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10604 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10608 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10609 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10610 Gnus manual for the full story.
10612 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10613 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10614 group, which is created automatically.
10616 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10619 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10621 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10622 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10624 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10627 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10629 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10630 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10632 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10634 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10635 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10637 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10638 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10640 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10641 control over simplification.
10643 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10645 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10648 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10650 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10652 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10653 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10654 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10656 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10657 `a' forces normal posting method.
10659 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10662 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10663 to a non-nil value.
10665 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10666 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10668 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10671 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10673 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10675 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10676 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10678 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10679 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10681 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10683 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10686 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10687 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10689 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10690 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10692 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10694 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10696 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10698 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10700 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10701 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10702 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10704 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10705 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10706 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10707 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10708 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10710 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10711 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10712 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10713 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10715 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10716 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10717 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10720 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10722 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10723 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10725 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10726 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10727 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10728 removed from the label.
10730 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10731 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10733 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10734 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10736 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10737 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10740 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10742 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10744 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10745 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10747 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10748 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10749 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10751 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10752 changes with a special face.
10754 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10755 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10756 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10758 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10760 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10761 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10762 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10763 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10764 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10766 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10767 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10768 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10770 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10771 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10772 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10773 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10774 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10775 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10776 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10777 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10778 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10780 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10781 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10782 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10783 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10784 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10787 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10788 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10789 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10790 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10791 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10792 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10794 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10795 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10796 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10797 was not documented clearly before.
10799 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10800 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10802 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10804 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10805 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10806 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10807 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10809 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10810 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10811 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10813 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10815 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10816 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10818 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10819 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10822 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10823 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10824 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10825 file names and attributes are returned.
10827 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10828 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10829 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10830 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10831 returns the result.
10833 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10834 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10836 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10838 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10839 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10840 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10843 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10844 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10847 The new function process-running-child-p
10848 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10849 terminal to its own child process.
10851 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10852 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10853 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10854 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10856 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10857 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10859 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10860 :included is an alias for :visible.
10862 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10863 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10864 to move or copy menu entries.
10866 ** Multibyte editing changes
10868 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10869 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10870 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10871 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10872 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10873 (setq char (sref str idx)
10874 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10875 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10877 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10878 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10879 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10881 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10882 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10883 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10885 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10887 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10888 across the boundary.
10890 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10891 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10892 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10893 contains 8-bit characters.
10894 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10895 contains invalid characters.
10897 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10898 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10899 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10900 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10903 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10904 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10905 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10906 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10908 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10909 compose Thai characters in a string.
10911 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10912 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10913 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10914 menus should always use the third argument.
10916 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10917 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10918 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10919 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10921 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10922 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10923 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10924 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10926 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10927 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10928 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10929 echo area contents.
10931 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10933 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10934 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10935 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10937 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10938 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10939 means to clear out that attribute.
10941 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10942 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10944 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10945 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10946 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10947 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10949 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10950 the gap of the current buffer.
10952 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10953 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10956 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10957 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10958 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10959 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10961 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10963 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10964 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10965 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10966 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10967 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10969 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10970 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10971 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10972 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10973 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10975 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10976 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10977 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10979 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10980 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10981 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10982 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10983 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10986 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10987 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10988 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10989 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10991 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10993 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10994 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10995 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10996 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10998 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10999 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
11000 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
11001 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
11002 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
11003 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
11004 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
11007 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
11010 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
11011 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
11012 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
11013 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
11014 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
11016 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
11017 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
11018 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
11019 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
11021 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
11022 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
11023 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
11024 something that most users not do.
11026 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
11027 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
11028 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
11031 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
11032 pasting operations.
11034 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
11035 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
11036 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
11037 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
11040 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
11041 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
11042 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
11043 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
11044 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
11047 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
11048 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
11049 to be confused by TeX commands.
11051 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
11052 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
11053 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
11054 of various alternative replacements and actions.
11056 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
11057 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
11058 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
11059 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
11060 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
11062 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
11063 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
11065 ** Changes in input method usage.
11067 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
11068 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
11071 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
11073 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
11074 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
11076 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
11077 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
11079 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
11081 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
11083 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
11084 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
11086 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
11087 given in the following case:
11088 o When you are using a complex input method.
11089 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
11091 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
11092 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
11093 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
11094 setting it to t is helpful.
11096 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
11098 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
11100 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
11101 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
11102 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
11103 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
11106 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
11107 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
11108 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
11111 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
11113 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11115 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11116 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11118 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11119 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11120 its owner and group.
11122 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11123 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11125 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11126 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11128 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11129 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11130 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11131 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11133 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11134 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11135 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11136 for writing keyboard macros.
11138 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11139 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11140 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11141 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11142 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11145 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11147 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11148 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11151 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11152 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11153 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11154 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11156 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11157 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11158 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11160 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11161 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11162 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11163 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11165 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11166 failure if the command produces no output.
11168 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11169 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11172 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11173 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11174 function and variable names.
11176 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11177 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11178 file-coding-system-alist.
11180 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11181 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11182 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11183 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11184 according to the current fontset.
11186 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11188 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11189 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11190 nonascii-insert-offset.
11192 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11193 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11194 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11195 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11197 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11198 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11200 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11201 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11203 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11204 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11207 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11208 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11210 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11211 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11212 all variables that have documentation.
11214 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11215 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11216 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11217 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11218 it should show; the default is 20.
11220 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11221 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11224 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11225 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11226 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11227 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11228 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11229 Newly added options are included as well.
11231 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11232 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11233 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11235 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11238 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11239 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11241 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11242 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11245 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11246 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11249 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11250 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11251 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11252 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11255 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11257 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11258 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11259 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11261 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11262 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11263 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11268 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11269 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11271 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11272 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11274 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11275 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11277 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11278 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11279 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11280 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11281 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11282 made invisible again.
11284 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11286 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11287 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11288 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11291 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11292 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11293 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11294 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11295 rmail-default-body-file.
11297 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11298 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11299 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11301 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11302 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11303 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11305 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11306 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11307 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11308 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11309 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11310 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11312 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11313 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11314 provided by feedmail are:
11316 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11317 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11318 there is also a queue for draft messages
11320 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11321 be prompted for confirmation
11323 **** does smart filling of address headers
11325 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11326 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11327 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11329 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11330 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11331 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11332 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11336 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11337 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11339 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11340 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11342 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11343 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11344 for a specified regexp.
11348 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11351 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11352 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11355 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11356 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11357 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11358 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11360 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11361 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11362 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11363 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11364 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11366 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11367 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11368 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11369 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11370 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11372 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11373 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11374 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11375 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11377 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11378 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11379 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11381 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11382 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11383 session to resolve them.
11385 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11386 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11387 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11390 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11391 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11392 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11393 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11394 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11395 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11398 ** Changes in Font Lock
11400 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11401 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11402 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11403 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11404 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11406 ** Frame name display changes
11408 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11409 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11410 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11411 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11413 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11414 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11417 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11419 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11420 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11421 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11423 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11425 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11426 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11427 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11429 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11430 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11431 the following line.
11433 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11434 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11435 previously sent input.
11437 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11438 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11439 as the search string.
11441 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11442 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11446 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11447 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11448 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11451 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11452 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11453 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11454 style is still the default however.
11456 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11458 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11459 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11460 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11462 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11463 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11465 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11466 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11468 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11469 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11471 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11472 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11474 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11475 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11476 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11477 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11479 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11481 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11482 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11483 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11485 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11486 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11487 expanding dynamically.
11489 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11490 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11492 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11493 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11494 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11495 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11497 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11499 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11501 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11502 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11503 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11504 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11505 against the first word in the title.
11507 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11508 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11509 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11510 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11511 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11512 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11514 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11515 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11516 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11517 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11519 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11521 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11522 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11523 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11524 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11525 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11526 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11528 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11529 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11531 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11532 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11533 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11535 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11536 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11540 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11541 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11542 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11544 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11545 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11546 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11547 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11550 o URLs are automatically skipped
11551 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11553 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11555 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11557 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11558 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11559 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11560 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11562 *** New recursive parser.
11564 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11565 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11566 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11568 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11570 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11571 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11572 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11574 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11576 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11578 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11580 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11582 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11584 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11585 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11587 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11589 *** References to external documents.
11591 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11592 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11593 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11594 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11595 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11596 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11597 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11599 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11601 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11602 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11604 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11605 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11607 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11609 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11610 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11612 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11614 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11615 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11616 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11617 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11618 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11619 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11622 *** Support for the varioref package
11624 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11628 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11629 and citations are created. These hooks are
11630 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11631 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11633 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11635 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11636 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11638 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11640 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11641 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11644 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11646 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11647 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11648 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11649 directories that contain the same file name.
11651 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11652 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11653 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11654 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11655 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11656 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11657 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11660 ** New modes and packages
11662 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11663 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11664 it, but some do not.
11666 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11669 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11670 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11671 around in a buffer.
11673 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11675 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11676 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11677 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11678 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11680 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11681 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11682 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11684 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11685 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11686 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc.); others are implementations of
11687 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11688 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11691 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11692 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11694 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11695 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11696 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11697 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11699 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11701 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11702 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11703 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11704 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11705 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.)
11706 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11707 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11708 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11709 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11710 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11711 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11713 Platform-specific modes:
11715 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11716 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11717 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11718 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11719 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11720 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11721 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11722 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11723 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11725 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11727 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11728 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11729 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11730 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11732 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11733 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11734 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11736 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11737 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11738 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11739 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11741 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11742 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11743 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11746 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11747 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11748 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11749 current input method for reading this one event.
11751 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11752 now control whether to output certain characters as
11753 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11754 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11755 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11756 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11758 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11760 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11761 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11763 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11764 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11765 always increases point by 1.
11767 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11768 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11770 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11772 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11773 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11774 default value changed. For example,
11776 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11781 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11784 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11785 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11786 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11787 `:version' in the top level group.
11789 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11791 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11792 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11794 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11795 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11796 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11799 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11800 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11803 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11804 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11805 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11807 ** Frame-local variables.
11809 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11810 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11811 local bindings for that variable.
11813 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11814 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11815 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11818 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11819 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11820 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11821 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11823 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11824 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11825 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11826 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11828 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11829 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11830 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11831 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11832 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11834 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11835 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11836 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11837 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11839 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11840 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11842 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11843 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11844 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11846 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11847 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11848 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11849 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11851 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11852 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11855 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11856 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11857 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11858 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11859 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11861 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11862 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11863 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11864 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11866 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11867 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11868 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11869 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11870 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11872 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11873 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11874 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11875 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11877 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11878 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11879 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11881 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11882 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11883 was directed to display this buffer.
11885 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11886 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11887 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11888 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11889 set-window-configuration.
11891 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11892 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11893 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11894 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11896 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11897 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11898 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11900 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11901 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11902 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11904 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11905 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11907 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11908 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11910 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11911 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11912 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11914 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11915 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11916 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11917 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11921 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11922 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11925 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11926 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11927 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11928 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11929 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11931 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11933 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11934 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11935 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11936 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11939 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11940 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11941 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11942 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11943 The supported properties include
11945 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11947 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11948 item should appear in the menu.
11950 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11951 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11952 It should return a binding to use instead.
11954 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11955 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11956 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11957 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11958 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11961 This means that the command normally has no
11962 keyboard equivalent.
11963 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11964 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11965 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11966 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11967 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11969 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11970 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11972 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11976 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11977 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11978 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11979 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11981 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11983 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11984 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11985 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11986 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11987 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11988 forward, away from the user.
11990 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11992 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11993 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11994 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11995 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11996 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11998 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
12000 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
12001 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
12002 that were dragged and dropped.
12004 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
12006 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
12008 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
12009 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
12010 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
12012 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
12013 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
12014 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
12016 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
12017 in Emacs 19 and before.
12019 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
12020 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
12022 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
12023 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
12024 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
12025 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
12027 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
12028 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
12029 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
12030 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
12031 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
12033 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
12034 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
12035 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
12036 consistent with the new representation.
12038 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
12039 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
12040 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
12041 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12043 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
12044 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
12045 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
12047 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
12048 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
12049 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12051 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
12052 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
12053 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
12055 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12056 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
12058 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12059 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
12061 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
12062 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
12063 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
12064 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
12066 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
12067 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
12069 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
12070 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
12071 buffer or string being searched.
12073 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
12074 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
12075 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
12076 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
12077 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
12078 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
12079 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
12081 *** Structure of coding system changed.
12083 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
12084 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
12085 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
12086 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
12087 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
12088 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
12089 define-coding-system-alias.
12091 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
12092 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
12093 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
12094 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
12095 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
12096 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
12097 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
12100 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
12101 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
12102 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
12103 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
12105 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
12106 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
12107 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
12108 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
12110 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
12111 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
12112 This function requires a user interaction.
12114 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12115 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12116 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12117 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12118 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12119 select-safe-coding-system.
12121 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12122 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12123 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12126 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12127 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12128 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12130 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12131 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12132 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12133 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12135 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12136 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12137 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12140 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12141 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12143 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12144 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12145 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12146 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12147 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12148 range of characters.
12150 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12151 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12153 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12154 in the current buffer at position POS.
12156 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12157 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12158 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12159 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12160 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12161 binding input-method-function to nil.
12163 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12164 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12165 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12166 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12167 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12169 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12170 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12172 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12173 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12175 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12176 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12177 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12178 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12179 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12181 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12183 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12184 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12185 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12188 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12189 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12191 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12192 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12193 in your .emacs file.)
12195 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12196 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12198 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12199 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12201 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12202 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12205 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12206 delete the character before point, as usual.
12208 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12209 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12210 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12212 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12213 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12214 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12215 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12216 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12219 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12220 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12221 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12222 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12223 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12225 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12226 and is an alias for it.
12228 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12229 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12231 ** Scrolling changes
12233 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12234 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12236 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12237 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12240 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12241 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12242 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12243 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12245 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12246 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12247 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12248 recenters the window.
12250 ** International character set support (MULE)
12252 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12253 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12254 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12255 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12256 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12257 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12259 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12260 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12261 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12262 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12263 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12265 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12266 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12267 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12268 language, to make it possible to type them.
12270 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12271 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12273 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12274 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12276 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12278 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12280 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12281 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12282 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12283 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12284 characters for their work until they want to change.
12288 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12289 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12290 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12291 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12292 support several input methods.
12294 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12295 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12298 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12299 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12300 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12301 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12302 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12305 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12306 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12307 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12308 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12309 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12311 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12312 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12313 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12314 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12316 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12317 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12318 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12319 the first guess is wrong.
12321 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12322 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12324 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12325 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12326 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12327 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12329 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12330 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12331 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12332 translate automatically to and from either one.
12334 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12336 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12337 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12338 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12341 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12342 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12343 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12344 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12346 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12347 character conversion as well.
12349 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12351 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12352 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12353 requires using many fonts.
12355 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12356 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12358 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12359 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12360 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12361 you would use a font.
12363 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12364 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12365 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12367 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12368 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12371 *** Defining fontsets.
12373 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12374 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12375 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12377 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12378 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12379 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12380 standard fontset are created automatically.
12382 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12383 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12384 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12385 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12386 name is `fontset-startup'.
12388 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12389 The resource value should have this form:
12390 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12391 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12392 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12393 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12394 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12395 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12396 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12397 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12398 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12400 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12401 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12402 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12404 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12405 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12406 following resource,
12407 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12408 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12409 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12410 Here is the substitution rule:
12411 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12412 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12413 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12414 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12415 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12417 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12418 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12419 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12421 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12422 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12423 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12424 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12427 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12428 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12430 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12431 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12432 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12433 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12434 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12435 system for new files that you create.
12437 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12438 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12439 whole Emacs session.
12441 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12442 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12443 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12445 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12446 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12447 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12448 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12449 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12451 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12452 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12453 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12454 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12455 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12457 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12458 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12460 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12461 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12463 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12464 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12466 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12467 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12468 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12469 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12472 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12473 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12474 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12475 translated into that character code.
12477 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12478 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12480 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12482 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12483 the coding system for keyboard input.
12485 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12486 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12487 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12489 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12491 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12492 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12493 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12494 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12495 designed to work with terminals.
12497 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12498 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12499 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12500 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12501 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12502 in the corresponding buffer.
12504 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12506 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12507 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12508 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12510 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12511 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12512 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12515 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12516 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12518 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12519 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12520 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12521 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12523 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12524 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12525 related information.
12527 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12528 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12531 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12532 information about the support for a particular language.
12533 You specify the language as an argument.
12535 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12536 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12539 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12540 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12541 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12542 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12544 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12546 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12547 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12548 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12549 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12550 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12551 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12552 K euc-korea (Korean)
12555 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12558 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12559 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12560 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12561 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12564 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12565 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12566 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12567 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12569 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12570 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12572 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12573 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12574 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12575 Rmail files themselves.
12577 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12578 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12580 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12583 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12584 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12585 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12586 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12587 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12589 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12590 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12591 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12594 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12595 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12596 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12597 without any conversion.
12599 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12600 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12601 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12602 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12604 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12605 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12607 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12608 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12610 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12611 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12613 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12614 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12615 in the buffer before point.
12617 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12618 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12621 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12622 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12624 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12626 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12627 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12629 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12630 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12631 can become a bottleneck.
12633 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12634 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12635 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12636 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12637 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12638 so useful that the change is worth while.
12640 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12641 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12642 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12643 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12645 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12646 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12649 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12650 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12651 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12653 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12654 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12655 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12657 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12658 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12659 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12661 ** Changes in View mode.
12663 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12664 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12666 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12667 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12669 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12672 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12673 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12675 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12676 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12677 not just the selected window.
12679 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12680 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12681 turns View mode on or off.
12683 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12684 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12685 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12687 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12688 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12690 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12691 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12692 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12693 which version to compare with.
12695 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12696 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12698 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12699 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12700 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12701 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12703 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12704 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12705 blocks, all of them or none.
12707 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12708 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12709 confirmation first.
12711 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12712 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12713 However, the mode will not be changed if
12714 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12715 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12716 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12717 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12719 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12721 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12722 these commands do not change the major mode.
12724 ** M-x occur changes.
12726 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12727 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12729 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12730 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12731 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12733 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12734 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12735 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12736 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12737 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12739 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12740 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12741 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12742 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12744 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12745 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12746 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12748 ** Outline mode changes.
12750 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12752 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12754 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12755 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12756 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12757 was already active.
12759 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12760 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12761 get confused by it.
12763 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12764 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12766 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12768 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12769 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12770 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12771 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12773 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12774 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12775 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12777 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12778 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12781 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12782 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12783 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12784 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12786 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12787 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12788 can be. The default value is 30.
12790 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12792 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12793 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12794 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12795 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12796 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12799 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12800 compose-mail-other-frame.
12802 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12803 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12804 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12805 buffer that shows the original message.
12807 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12808 with separator lines around the contents.
12810 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12811 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12812 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12813 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12815 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12817 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12818 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12819 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12820 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12822 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12823 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12826 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12827 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12830 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12831 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12832 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12833 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12835 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12836 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12837 be taken to be magic.
12839 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12840 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12841 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12843 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12844 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12846 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12847 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12849 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12851 new key dired.el binding old key
12852 ------- ---------------- -------
12853 * c dired-change-marks c
12855 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12856 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12857 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12859 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12860 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12861 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12862 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12863 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12864 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12868 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12869 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12870 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12871 each time you run it.
12873 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12874 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12876 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12877 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12878 means to move in the opposite direction.
12880 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12881 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12883 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12884 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12885 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12886 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12891 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12893 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12896 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12897 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12899 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12902 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12904 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12906 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12908 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12909 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12910 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12912 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12914 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12916 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12917 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12919 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12920 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12921 used to pick articles.
12923 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12924 another have been added.
12926 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12928 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12929 generating lines in buffers.
12931 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12934 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12936 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12938 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12940 *** Scores can be decayed.
12942 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12944 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12945 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12947 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12950 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12952 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12953 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12955 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12957 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12958 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12960 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12961 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12963 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12966 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12967 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12969 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12971 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12973 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12975 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12977 Use the `Y c' command.
12979 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12981 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12983 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12985 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12986 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12988 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12990 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12992 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12993 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12995 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12997 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12998 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12999 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
13000 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
13003 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
13004 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
13005 particular news group. This can be done by:
13007 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
13009 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
13010 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
13011 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
13012 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
13013 for reading and posting).
13015 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
13016 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
13017 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
13018 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
13021 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
13022 default. Here are some of these default settings:
13024 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
13025 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
13026 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
13027 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
13028 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
13030 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
13031 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
13033 ** CC mode changes.
13035 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
13036 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
13037 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
13038 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
13039 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
13042 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
13043 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
13044 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
13045 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
13046 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
13047 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
13049 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
13050 of the current buffer.
13052 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
13053 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
13054 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
13056 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
13057 style that the Python developers like.
13059 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
13060 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
13061 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
13063 ** VC Changes [new]
13065 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
13066 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
13067 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
13069 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
13070 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
13073 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
13074 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
13076 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
13077 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
13078 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
13079 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
13081 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
13082 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
13084 ** Calendar changes.
13086 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
13087 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
13088 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
13089 following/previous years.
13091 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
13092 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
13093 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
13094 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
13095 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
13096 supposed attribute of God.
13098 ** ps-print changes
13100 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
13103 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
13105 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
13106 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
13107 printer system has this behavior, set variable
13108 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
13110 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
13111 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
13112 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13114 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13115 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13117 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13118 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13119 printing for your printer.
13121 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13122 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13124 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13125 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13127 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13128 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13129 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13130 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13131 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13132 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13133 The default value is nil.
13135 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13136 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13138 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13139 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13140 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13141 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13142 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13143 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13144 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13146 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13147 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13149 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13150 The default is 0 ("black").
13152 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13153 The default is 0 ("black").
13155 border-width Specify the border width.
13156 The default is 0.4.
13158 Any other property is ignored.
13160 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13161 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13164 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13165 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13166 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13167 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13168 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13169 controlling headers.
13171 *** Color management (subgroup)
13173 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13176 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13178 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13179 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13180 background should be used. Valid values are:
13182 t always use face background color.
13183 nil never use face background color.
13184 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13186 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13188 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13191 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13192 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13194 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13197 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13198 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13199 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13201 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13205 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13209 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13213 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13217 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13219 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13221 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13224 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13225 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13226 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13228 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13229 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13230 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13231 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13232 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13236 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13237 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13238 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13241 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13242 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13243 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13244 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13245 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13246 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13247 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13248 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13249 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13250 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13251 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13254 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13256 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13259 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13261 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13262 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13263 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13264 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13267 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13268 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13269 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13271 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13272 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13275 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13277 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13278 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13279 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13280 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13281 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13282 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13285 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13286 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13287 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13289 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13290 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13291 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13292 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13293 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13294 its TO, are ignored.
13296 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13297 pages. Valid values are:
13299 nil print all pages.
13301 `even-page' print only even pages.
13303 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13305 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13306 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13307 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13308 print only the even sheet of paper.
13310 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13311 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13312 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13313 only the odd sheet of paper.
13315 Any other value is treated as nil.
13317 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13318 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13319 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13321 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13323 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13324 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13326 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13327 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13328 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13329 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13330 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13331 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13332 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13334 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13335 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13336 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13337 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13338 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13339 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13340 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13342 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13344 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13345 messages should be sent.
13347 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13348 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13349 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13351 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13353 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13354 points for line numbers.
13356 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13357 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13359 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13360 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13361 to 2, the printing will look like:
13373 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13374 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13377 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13378 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13380 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13382 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13383 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13384 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13385 3, the output will look like:
13399 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13400 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13402 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13403 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13406 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13407 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13410 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13412 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13413 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13415 ** hideshow changes.
13417 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13420 *** Support for java-mode added.
13422 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13423 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13425 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13426 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13427 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13429 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13430 robust and a lot faster.
13432 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13434 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13435 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13436 documentation for more details.
13438 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13440 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13441 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13442 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13443 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13444 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13446 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13447 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13448 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13449 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13455 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13456 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13457 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13458 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13459 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13460 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13462 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13464 *** Maximum decoration
13466 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13467 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13468 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13469 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13470 to get the old behavior.
13474 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13476 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13477 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13479 *** Configurable support
13481 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13482 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13483 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13484 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13485 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13486 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13487 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13489 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13490 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13491 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13493 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13495 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13496 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13499 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13501 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13507 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13508 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13509 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13510 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13512 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13514 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13515 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13516 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13518 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13520 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13521 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13522 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13523 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13524 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13525 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13526 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13528 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13529 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13530 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13531 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13532 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13533 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13535 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13537 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13538 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13539 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13540 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13542 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13545 ** Ada mode changes.
13547 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13548 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13549 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13550 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13553 *** There are two new commands:
13554 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13555 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13557 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13558 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13559 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13561 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13562 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13563 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13565 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13566 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13567 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13568 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13570 ** Scheme mode changes.
13572 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13573 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13574 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13575 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13578 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13579 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13580 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13581 variables as buffer-local variables.
13583 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13584 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13586 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13588 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13589 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13590 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13591 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13593 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13594 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13597 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13598 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13599 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13600 option takes precedence.
13602 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13603 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13604 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13606 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13607 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13610 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13611 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13613 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13614 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13617 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13618 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13619 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13620 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13621 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13622 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13624 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13625 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13626 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13627 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13629 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13630 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13631 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13632 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13633 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13635 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13636 since it applies only to the current frame.
13638 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13639 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13640 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13642 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13643 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13644 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13645 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13646 instead of just the file you are editing.
13650 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13651 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13652 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13653 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13654 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13657 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13658 knows which kind of label is needed.
13660 C-c ) reftex-reference
13661 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13662 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13664 C-c [ reftex-citation
13665 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13666 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13668 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13669 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13672 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13673 can quickly jump to every section.
13675 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13676 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13677 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13678 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13679 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13681 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13683 *** Info documentation is now available.
13685 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13686 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13688 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13689 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13691 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13692 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13694 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13695 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13696 appropriate functions.
13698 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13699 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13701 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13704 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13705 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13707 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13708 shall be delimited.
13710 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13711 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13712 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13714 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13715 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13716 prefixed with `ALT'.
13718 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13719 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13720 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13723 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13724 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13725 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13727 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13728 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13730 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13731 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13732 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13734 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13736 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13738 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13739 from alien sources.
13741 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13742 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13745 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13748 *** Added support for imenu.
13750 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13751 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13752 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13753 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13755 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13756 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13758 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13760 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13762 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13763 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13764 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13767 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13768 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13770 ** browse-url changes
13772 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13773 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13774 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13775 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13776 customization variables.
13778 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13780 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13781 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13782 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13784 ** Changes in Ediff
13786 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13787 pops up the Info file for this command.
13789 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13790 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13791 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13794 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13795 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13796 files in the same directory.
13798 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13799 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13800 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13802 ** Changes in Viper
13804 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13805 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13807 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13808 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13809 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13810 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13811 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13812 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13813 color when Viper is in insert state.
13814 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13815 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13816 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13820 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13821 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13822 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13823 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13824 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13826 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13828 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13829 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13831 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13832 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13833 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13835 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13836 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13837 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13838 methods and protocols.
13840 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13841 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13842 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13845 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13846 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13847 at least M times and as many as N times.
13849 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13850 in files has changed slightly.
13852 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13853 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13854 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13855 with old time-stamp-format values.
13857 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13858 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13859 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13862 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13863 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13864 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13865 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13866 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13867 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13869 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13870 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13871 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13873 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13874 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13875 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13876 recommended now will continue to work then.
13878 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13881 ** There are some additional major modes:
13883 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13884 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13885 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13887 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13888 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13891 ** New Lisp packages include:
13893 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13895 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13896 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13898 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13900 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13903 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13904 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13907 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13908 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13909 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13910 strings or comments.
13912 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13913 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13914 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13915 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13918 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13919 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13921 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13922 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13924 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13926 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13927 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13929 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13931 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13933 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13935 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13936 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13938 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13939 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13940 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13941 original place after inserting the copy.
13943 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13946 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13947 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13948 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13950 Enable mouse-drag with:
13951 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13953 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13955 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13956 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13958 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13959 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13963 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13964 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13965 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13966 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13967 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13968 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13969 instance) and vice versa.
13971 To use this package load it using
13972 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13973 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13974 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13975 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13976 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13977 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13979 *** Interface to ph.
13981 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13983 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13984 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13987 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13989 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13990 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13991 while the real cursor does not move.
13993 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13994 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13996 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13997 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
14001 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
14002 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
14003 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
14004 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
14006 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
14008 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
14010 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
14012 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
14013 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
14014 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
14015 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
14016 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
14018 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
14019 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
14020 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
14021 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
14022 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
14023 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
14025 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
14027 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
14028 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
14029 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
14030 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
14032 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
14033 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
14035 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
14036 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
14039 ** Basic Lisp changes
14041 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
14042 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
14044 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
14045 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
14048 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
14050 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
14052 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
14053 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
14055 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
14056 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
14059 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
14061 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
14063 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
14065 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
14066 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
14067 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
14070 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
14071 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
14072 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
14074 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
14075 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
14076 adding one of these suffixes.
14078 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
14079 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
14080 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
14082 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
14083 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
14085 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
14087 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
14088 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
14090 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
14091 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
14093 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
14095 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
14096 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
14098 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
14099 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
14100 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
14101 works using `save-current-buffer'.
14103 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
14104 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
14107 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
14108 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
14109 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
14112 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
14113 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14116 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14118 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14119 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14120 Then it returns that string.
14122 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14124 (with-output-to-string
14125 (princ "The buffer is ")
14126 (princ (buffer-name)))
14128 returns "The buffer is foo".
14130 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14133 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14134 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14135 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14137 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14138 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14140 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14141 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14142 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14143 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14144 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14145 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14147 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14148 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14149 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14152 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14153 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14154 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14155 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14156 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14158 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14159 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14160 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14161 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14163 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14164 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14166 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14168 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14169 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14170 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14171 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14174 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14175 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14178 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14180 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14181 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14182 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14183 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14184 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14186 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14188 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14189 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14190 more than the number of characters.
14192 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14193 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14194 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14195 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14196 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14197 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14199 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14200 and returns a string containing those characters.
14202 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14203 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14204 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14205 character, sref signals an error.
14207 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14208 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14209 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14211 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14212 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14213 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14215 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14216 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14217 to a vector of the characters in it.
14219 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14220 of a string. You call it as follows:
14222 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14224 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14225 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14226 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14227 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14228 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14230 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14231 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14233 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14234 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14236 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14237 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14238 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14239 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14241 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14243 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14245 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14246 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14247 are not included in the resulting value.
14249 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14250 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14251 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14252 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14254 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14255 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14256 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14257 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14258 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14259 column START-COLUMN.
14261 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14262 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14263 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14264 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14265 changed text, before the change.
14267 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14268 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14269 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14271 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14273 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14275 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14276 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14278 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14279 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14280 which identify the character within that character set.
14282 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14283 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14284 opposite of split-char.
14286 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14287 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14289 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14290 of all the characters in a string.
14292 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14293 and specifying coding systems.
14295 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14296 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14297 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14298 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14299 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14300 as what to do about code conversion.)
14302 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14303 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14305 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14306 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14307 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14309 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14310 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14311 to match against a file name.
14313 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14314 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14315 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14316 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14317 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14318 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14320 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14321 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14323 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14324 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14326 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14327 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14328 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14331 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14332 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14333 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14334 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14335 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14336 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14338 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14339 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14341 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14342 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14343 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14344 start the subprocess.
14346 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14347 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14348 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14349 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14350 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14352 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14353 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14356 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14357 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14358 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14359 connection permanently or until overridden.
14361 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14362 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14363 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14364 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14365 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14366 system for one operation at a time.
14368 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14369 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14371 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14372 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14373 The value is a cons cell,
14374 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14375 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14376 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14377 input to the subprocess.
14379 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14380 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14382 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14383 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14384 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14386 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14387 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14388 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14389 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14392 Thus, instead of writing
14394 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14395 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14397 you would now write this:
14399 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14400 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14404 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14405 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14406 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14407 for a description of them.
14409 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14410 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14412 (defgroup ispell nil
14413 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14416 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14417 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14418 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14419 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14420 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14422 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14423 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14424 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14425 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14426 first-level subgroups.
14428 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14430 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14431 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14435 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14436 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14437 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14438 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14439 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14440 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14442 ** Text property changes
14444 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14447 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14448 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14449 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14450 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14451 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14453 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14454 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14455 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14456 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14458 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14459 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14460 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14462 ** Changes in invisibility features
14464 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14465 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14466 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14467 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14468 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14469 make the overlay visible.
14471 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14472 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14473 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14474 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14475 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14476 t when it should hide it.
14478 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14480 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14481 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14482 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14483 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14484 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14485 Here is an example of how to do this:
14487 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14488 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14489 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14490 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14493 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14496 ;; When done with the overlays:
14497 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14498 ;; Or respectively:
14499 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14501 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14503 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14504 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14505 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14506 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14508 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14509 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14510 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14512 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14513 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14515 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14516 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14518 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14519 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14520 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14522 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14523 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14524 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14525 determine the syntax type of the character.
14527 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14528 of the current buffer.
14530 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14531 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14532 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14534 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14535 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14536 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14537 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14538 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14540 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14543 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14544 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14545 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14547 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14548 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14549 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14550 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14551 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14553 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14554 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14555 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14557 ** Changes in face features
14559 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14560 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14562 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14563 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14565 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14566 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14568 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14569 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14571 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14572 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14573 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14574 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14577 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14578 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14580 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14582 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14583 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14584 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14585 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14587 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14590 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14591 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14593 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14594 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14596 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14597 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14599 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14600 character code conversion as well as other things.
14602 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14603 (formerly it did not).
14605 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14606 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14608 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14609 instead of constant strings.
14611 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14612 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14613 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14615 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14616 in the same way as before.
14618 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14619 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14620 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14622 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14623 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14624 else, and returns nil.
14626 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14627 directory cannot be listed.
14629 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14631 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14632 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14633 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14634 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14637 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14638 It is available through the history command M-n.
14640 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14641 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14642 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14643 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14644 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14646 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14647 argument in this way.
14649 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14650 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14651 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14653 ** Echo area features
14655 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14656 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14657 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14658 after the echo area is cleared.
14660 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14661 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14663 ** Keyboard input features
14665 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14666 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14668 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14669 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14670 by keyboard macros.
14672 ** Frame-related changes
14674 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14675 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14676 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14678 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14679 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14680 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14682 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14683 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14684 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14685 in the selected frame.
14687 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14688 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14689 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14691 ** X Windows features
14693 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14694 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14695 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14697 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14698 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14700 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14701 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14702 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14704 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14705 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14707 ** Subprocess features
14709 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14710 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14713 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14714 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14716 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14717 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14719 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14720 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14722 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14723 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14724 goes after the other menu items.
14726 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14727 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14728 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14731 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14732 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14734 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14735 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14738 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14739 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14740 but its hook is still run.
14742 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14743 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14745 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14746 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14747 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14749 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14750 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14751 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14754 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14755 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14757 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14758 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14759 functions like display-time.
14761 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14762 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14764 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14765 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14766 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14768 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14769 if there is an error in compilation.
14771 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14772 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14773 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14774 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14776 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14777 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14778 the *scratch* buffer.
14780 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14781 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14782 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14783 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14785 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14786 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14787 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14789 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14790 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14791 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14792 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14794 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14795 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14796 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14798 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14799 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14800 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14801 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14802 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14805 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14806 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14807 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14808 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14810 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14811 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14812 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14813 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14815 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14817 ** imenu.el changes.
14819 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14820 item from menu created by imenu.
14822 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14823 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14824 select one of those items.
14826 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14828 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14829 Copyright information:
14831 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14832 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14834 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14835 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14836 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14837 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14839 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14840 of this document, or of portions of it,
14841 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14842 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14846 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14849 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793