1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
12 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
17 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
18 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
19 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
22 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
24 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
27 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
28 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
32 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
33 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
34 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
35 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
36 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
37 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
38 in each user's home directory.
41 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
42 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
46 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
48 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
49 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
50 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
51 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
54 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
57 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
58 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
59 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
60 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
62 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
65 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
68 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
71 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
72 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
75 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
78 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
81 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
84 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
86 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
87 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
88 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
89 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
90 keyboard oriented alternative.
92 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
93 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
94 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
95 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
96 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
98 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
99 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
100 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
101 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
104 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
105 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
106 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
107 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
108 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
109 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
110 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
112 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
113 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
116 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
117 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
118 an interactively callable function.
123 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
124 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
125 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
126 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
127 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
129 The following values are supported:
131 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
145 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
148 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
149 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
150 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
152 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
153 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
154 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
155 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
157 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
158 '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
160 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
161 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
162 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
164 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
165 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
166 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
167 osql flushes it's error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
168 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
171 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
172 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
173 credentials to authenticate the user.
175 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
176 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
179 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
180 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
183 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
184 with special modes such as Tar mode.
186 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
188 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
189 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
190 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
193 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
194 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
195 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
196 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
197 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
201 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
202 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
203 the operating system or your X server.
205 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
206 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
207 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
209 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
210 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
213 ** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
214 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
215 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
217 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
221 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
222 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
223 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
224 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
225 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
226 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
227 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
229 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
230 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
232 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
233 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
235 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
236 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
238 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
239 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
241 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
242 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
244 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
245 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
247 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
248 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
249 at the edges of the window.
251 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
252 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
254 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
255 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
256 or when the frame is resized.
258 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
260 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
261 horisontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
263 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
265 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
266 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
268 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
269 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
271 ** `describe-char' can show data from the Unicode database file. See
272 user option `unicode-data'.
274 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
276 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
277 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
279 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
280 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
282 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
284 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
285 and other common debugger commands.
289 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
290 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
293 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
294 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
295 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
296 recent list with different symbolic links.
298 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
299 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
300 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
301 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
302 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
304 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
309 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
310 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
312 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
314 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
315 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
316 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
317 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
318 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
319 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
323 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
324 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
327 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
328 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
329 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
331 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
334 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
335 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
336 appears between the position information and the major mode.
338 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
339 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
342 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
343 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
344 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
345 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
349 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
350 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
351 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
355 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
356 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
357 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
360 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
361 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
363 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
367 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
369 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
370 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
371 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
374 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
375 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
376 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
378 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
379 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
380 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
381 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
382 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
384 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
385 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
386 t, and the status is shown.
388 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
389 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
392 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
393 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
394 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
397 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
398 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
399 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
400 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
401 automatically according to the locale.)
403 ** Indian support has been updated.
404 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
405 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
406 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
410 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
411 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
412 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
413 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
414 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
418 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
419 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
420 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
423 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
424 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
425 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
426 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
427 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
428 latter is used by GNU locales.
430 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
431 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
432 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
433 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
434 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
435 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
436 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
437 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
438 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
439 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
440 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
442 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
443 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
444 fontset appropriately.
446 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
450 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
451 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
452 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
453 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
454 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
455 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
456 mule-unicode-... ones.
458 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
459 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
460 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
463 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
464 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
465 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
466 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
467 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
469 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
470 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
471 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
472 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
474 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
475 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
476 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
480 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
481 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
482 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
485 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
486 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
489 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
490 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
491 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
495 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
496 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
498 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
499 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
500 program files that include other program files.
502 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
503 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
507 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
508 when Emacs visits them.
511 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
513 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
514 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
515 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
517 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
518 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
519 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
520 and use the more appropriately result.
523 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
524 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
525 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
526 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
528 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
529 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
530 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
531 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
532 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
533 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
535 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
536 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
539 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
541 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
542 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
543 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
544 TeX commands to use at startup.
545 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
546 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
548 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
551 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
552 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
553 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
554 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
555 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
556 feature is not enabled.
559 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
560 description various information about a character, including its
561 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
562 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
563 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
566 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
567 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
568 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
569 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
570 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
573 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
574 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
575 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
576 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
577 also disable mouse highlighting.
580 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
581 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
582 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
583 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
584 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
587 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
588 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
589 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
593 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
594 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
595 the mode line of the currently selected window.
597 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
598 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
601 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
602 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
603 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
604 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
605 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
606 current date and time, current line and column number in the
610 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
613 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
614 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
615 `display-time-mail-directory'.
618 ** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
621 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
624 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
625 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
626 argument it toggles the mode.
628 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
629 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
632 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
633 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
634 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
635 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
636 `inhibit-splash-screen').
638 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
641 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
642 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
643 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
644 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
645 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
646 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
647 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
648 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
649 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
652 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
653 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
654 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
655 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
659 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
662 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
664 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
665 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
666 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
667 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
670 ** Info-index offers completion.
673 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
677 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
678 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
679 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
680 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
683 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
685 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
687 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
690 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
691 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
693 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
694 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
696 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
698 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
699 run by the key sequence.
701 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
702 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
705 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
706 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
708 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
709 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
711 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
712 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
714 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
715 new-kill-line is on C-k
718 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
719 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
720 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
721 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
724 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
725 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
726 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
727 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
730 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
731 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
732 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
733 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
736 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
737 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
738 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
739 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
740 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
741 command lines to be used than was possible before.
744 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
745 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
746 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
747 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
748 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
749 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
750 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
753 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
754 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
755 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
756 under the "[State]" button.
758 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
759 point (no integers are allowed).
762 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
763 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
766 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
768 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
769 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
770 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
771 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
772 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
774 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
775 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
776 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
779 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
782 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
783 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
784 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
786 Added Customization Variables
788 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
790 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
791 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
792 java sources (previous method).
794 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
795 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
800 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
803 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
804 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
805 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
808 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
809 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
810 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
811 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
812 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
813 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
816 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
817 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
818 what external viewers to use and when.
821 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
822 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
823 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
824 is only rarely needed.
827 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
829 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
830 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
831 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
832 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
835 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
836 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
837 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
838 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
839 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
843 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
844 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
845 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
846 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
847 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
850 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
851 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
852 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
855 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
856 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
857 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
861 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
862 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
863 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
866 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
867 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
871 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
872 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
873 affects the initial frame.
876 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
877 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
878 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
881 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
885 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
886 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
887 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
888 directory listing into a buffer.
891 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
892 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
894 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
895 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
896 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
897 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
900 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
901 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
902 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
903 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
904 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
905 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
906 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
907 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
910 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
911 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
912 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
913 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
914 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
917 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
918 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
921 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
922 of the recognized cursor types.
925 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
926 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
927 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
930 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
931 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
932 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
933 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
934 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
935 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
936 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
937 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
938 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
941 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
942 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
943 count backward from the end of the year.
945 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
946 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
947 and `diary-header-line-format'.
950 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
951 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
952 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
953 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
957 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
958 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
959 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
960 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
961 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
963 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
965 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
968 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
969 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
970 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
971 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
972 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
975 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
980 *** When comparing directories.
981 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
982 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
983 from one directory to another.
986 *** When comparing files or buffers.
987 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
988 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
989 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
992 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
993 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
994 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
999 *** New regular expressions features
1001 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1002 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1003 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1004 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1005 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1006 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1007 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1008 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1009 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1010 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1011 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1013 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1014 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1015 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1018 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1019 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1020 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1021 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1023 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1024 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1025 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1027 *** New language parsing features
1029 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1030 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1032 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1033 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1034 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1037 **** New language PHP.
1038 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1039 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1041 **** New language HTML.
1042 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1043 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1045 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1046 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1049 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1050 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1051 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1053 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1055 *** Honour #line directives.
1056 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1057 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1058 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1059 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1060 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1062 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1063 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1064 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1065 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1071 *** Font lock support.
1072 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1073 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1074 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1075 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1076 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1077 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1079 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1080 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1081 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1082 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1083 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1084 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1085 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1086 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1087 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1089 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1090 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1091 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1092 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1093 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1094 take the better part of a minute.
1096 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1097 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1098 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1099 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1100 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1101 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1103 **** Support for documentation comments.
1104 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1105 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1106 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1107 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1109 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1110 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1111 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1112 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1114 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1115 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1116 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1117 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1120 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1121 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1122 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1123 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1124 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1126 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1127 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1128 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1129 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1130 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1132 *** Support for the AWK language.
1133 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1134 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1135 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1138 **** Indentation Engine
1139 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1141 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1142 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1143 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1144 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1145 definition, or structured statement.
1147 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1148 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1149 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1151 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1152 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1153 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1154 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1157 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1158 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1159 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1160 the AWK language itself.
1162 **** Comment Commands
1163 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1164 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1166 **** Movement Commands
1167 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1168 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1169 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1171 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1172 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1173 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1176 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1177 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1178 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1179 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1181 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1182 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1183 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1184 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1185 composition-close, and incomposition.
1187 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1188 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1189 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1190 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1192 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1193 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1194 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1195 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1196 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1197 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1199 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1200 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1201 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1202 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1203 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1205 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1209 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1211 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1214 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1215 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1216 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1217 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1219 *** API changes for derived modes.
1220 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1221 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1222 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1223 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1224 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1226 **** New language variable system.
1227 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1229 **** New initialization functions.
1230 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1231 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1232 c-init-language-vars.
1234 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1235 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1236 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1237 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1239 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1240 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1241 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1242 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1243 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1245 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1246 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1247 its substatement. E.g:
1253 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1255 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1256 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1257 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1258 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1259 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1262 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1263 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1264 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1265 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1266 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1267 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1268 empty lines within the macro better.
1270 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1271 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1272 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1274 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1275 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1276 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1277 backslashes can be moved.
1279 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1280 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1281 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1282 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1284 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1285 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1286 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1287 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1288 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1289 backslash) in the macro.
1291 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1292 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1293 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1294 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1295 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1296 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1298 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1299 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1301 *** New lineup functions
1303 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1304 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1307 result = prefix + "A message "
1308 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1310 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1311 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1313 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1314 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1315 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1317 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1318 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1321 **** c-lineup-argcont
1322 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1323 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1325 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1326 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1327 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1328 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1329 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1330 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1332 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1333 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1334 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1335 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1338 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1339 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1340 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1341 happen when macros are involved.
1343 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1344 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1345 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1346 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1347 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1348 line is left untouched.
1350 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1351 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1352 syntactic indentation.
1354 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1355 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1358 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1359 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1362 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1363 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1364 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1367 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1368 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1369 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1372 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1373 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1374 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1377 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1378 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1379 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1380 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1381 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1382 from the file name or buffer contents.
1385 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1388 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1389 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1390 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1393 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1396 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1399 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1400 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1401 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1404 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1405 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1408 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1409 to support use of font-lock.
1412 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1413 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1417 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1418 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1419 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1422 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1423 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1424 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1425 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1426 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1427 candidate is a directory.
1430 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1431 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1432 it remains unchanged.
1435 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1436 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1437 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1439 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1441 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1442 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1443 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1444 subprocesses inherit.
1446 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1448 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1450 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1452 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1453 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1454 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1456 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1458 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1459 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1460 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1461 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1462 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1463 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1467 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1470 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1471 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1472 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1475 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1476 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1479 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1480 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1481 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1482 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1483 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1484 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1488 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1489 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1490 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1491 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1492 sound support for those formats.
1495 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1496 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1499 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1500 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1501 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1502 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1505 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1506 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1507 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1508 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1509 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1510 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1511 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1512 wish to use them in other faces.
1515 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1516 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1517 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1518 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1520 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1521 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1523 * New modes and packages in 21.4
1526 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1527 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1529 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1532 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1534 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1535 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1536 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1537 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1540 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1542 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1543 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1544 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1545 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1546 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1547 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1549 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1550 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1551 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1552 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1554 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1555 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1556 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1557 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1558 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1559 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1560 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1562 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1563 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1564 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1566 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1567 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1569 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1570 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1571 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1572 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1574 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1575 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1576 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1577 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1579 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1580 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1581 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1582 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1584 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1585 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1586 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1587 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1588 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1590 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1591 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1592 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1593 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1594 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1595 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1597 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1598 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1599 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1600 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1601 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1602 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1603 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1604 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1605 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1608 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1609 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1611 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1612 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1613 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1614 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1616 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1619 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1620 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1621 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1622 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1623 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1626 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1627 the keyboard macro ring.
1629 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1630 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1632 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1633 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1634 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1635 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1637 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1638 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1639 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1642 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1643 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1644 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1645 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1647 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1649 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1650 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1651 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1652 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1653 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1654 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1657 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1659 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1660 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1661 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1662 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1665 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1667 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1668 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1669 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1670 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1671 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1672 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1673 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1674 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1675 `rsync' to do the copying).
1677 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1681 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1682 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1683 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1684 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1685 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1686 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1689 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1690 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1691 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1695 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1696 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1697 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1698 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1700 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1703 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1704 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1706 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1707 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1708 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1709 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1710 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1711 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1714 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1715 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1716 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1717 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1720 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1721 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1722 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1723 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1726 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1728 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1729 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1731 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1732 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1733 in Indented-Text mode.
1735 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1736 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1737 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1739 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1741 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1742 configuration files.
1744 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1746 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
1747 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
1748 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
1749 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
1751 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
1752 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
1753 string. The old behavior is available if you call
1754 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
1756 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
1757 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
1758 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
1759 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
1760 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
1762 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
1763 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
1764 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
1765 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
1766 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
1768 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
1769 :pointer image property.
1771 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
1772 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
1774 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
1776 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
1777 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
1778 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
1779 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
1780 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
1781 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
1782 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
1783 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
1785 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
1786 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
1787 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
1788 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
1789 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
1790 for possible pointer shapes.
1792 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
1793 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
1794 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
1796 ** Mouse event enhancements:
1798 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
1799 events, rather than a text area click event.
1801 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
1802 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
1803 corresponding text row.
1805 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
1808 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
1811 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
1814 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
1818 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
1821 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
1824 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
1827 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
1828 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
1831 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
1832 (image or character) clicked on.
1835 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
1836 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
1837 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
1838 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
1840 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
1841 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
1842 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
1843 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
1844 forcing an explicit window update.
1846 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
1847 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
1850 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
1851 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
1852 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
1853 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
1854 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
1857 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
1860 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
1861 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
1862 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
1865 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
1866 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
1870 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
1871 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
1875 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
1876 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
1879 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
1880 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
1881 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
1883 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
1884 does that, this value may not be accurate.
1887 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
1888 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
1889 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
1893 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
1894 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
1897 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
1900 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
1904 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
1905 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
1908 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
1909 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
1910 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
1913 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
1917 ** VC changes for backends:
1918 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
1919 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
1920 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
1921 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
1922 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
1925 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
1926 as a dynamic completion table.
1928 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
1930 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
1931 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
1932 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
1933 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
1934 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
1935 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
1938 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
1939 as a lazy completion table.
1941 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
1943 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
1944 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
1945 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
1946 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
1947 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
1948 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
1951 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
1954 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
1955 for all (existing and future) frames.
1958 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
1961 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
1964 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
1967 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
1968 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
1969 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
1970 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
1971 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
1974 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
1975 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
1976 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
1977 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
1980 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
1981 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
1982 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
1983 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
1986 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
1987 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
1990 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
1991 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
1992 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
1993 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
1996 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
1997 of a string given to a process's filter.
2000 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2001 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2004 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2005 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2006 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2007 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2010 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2011 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2012 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2013 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2014 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2017 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2018 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2021 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2022 on garbage collection.
2025 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2026 it is read from a file without decoding.
2029 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2032 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2033 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2034 by calling `select-window'.
2037 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2038 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2039 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2040 need to have a name.
2042 ** Byte compiler changes:
2045 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2046 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2047 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2048 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2049 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2053 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2054 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2055 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2056 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2059 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2060 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2062 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2063 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2064 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2065 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2066 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2067 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2070 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2071 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2074 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2075 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2076 be inserted is translated through it.
2079 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2080 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2081 current file redefined it).
2084 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2085 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2086 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2087 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2088 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2089 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2091 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2092 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2093 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2094 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2095 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2097 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2098 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2099 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2100 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2101 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2102 returns differing values.
2105 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2106 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2107 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2110 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2111 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2112 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2113 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2115 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2116 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2119 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2120 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2123 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2124 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2127 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2128 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2129 can start with this line:
2131 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2134 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2135 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2138 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2139 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2142 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2143 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2147 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2148 and `display-warning'.
2151 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2152 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2153 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2157 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2158 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2161 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2162 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2163 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2164 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2167 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2168 of one coding system from another coding system.
2171 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2172 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2173 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2174 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2178 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2179 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2180 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2181 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2182 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2183 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2185 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2186 confirmation as before.
2189 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2191 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2192 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2193 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2194 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2196 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2197 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2198 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2199 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2200 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2201 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2203 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2204 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2205 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2206 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2209 ** Per-window fringes settings
2211 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2214 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2215 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2216 `set-window-fringes'.
2218 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2219 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2220 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2221 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2223 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2224 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2225 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2226 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2227 an update of the display margins.
2230 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2232 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2233 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2235 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2236 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2237 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2238 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2239 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2240 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2241 of the display margins.
2244 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2245 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2246 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2249 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2250 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2251 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2252 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2253 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2254 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2257 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2258 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2259 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2262 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2263 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2264 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2265 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2266 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2269 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2270 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2273 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2274 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2275 will only show directories.
2278 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2279 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2280 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2283 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2284 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2285 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2288 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2289 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2290 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2292 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2294 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2295 declaration specifiers supported are:
2298 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2301 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2302 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2305 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2307 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2308 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2309 binding and lookup functionality.
2311 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2312 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2316 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2317 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2318 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2319 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2322 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2323 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2324 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2325 map using define-key:
2327 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2328 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2330 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2331 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2333 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2334 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2335 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2337 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2339 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2340 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2341 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2342 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2344 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2345 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2347 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2348 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2350 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2351 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2352 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2353 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2354 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2355 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2357 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2358 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2359 command was not remapped.
2362 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2364 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2365 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2369 ** Atomic change groups.
2371 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2372 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2373 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2375 (atomic-change-group
2377 (delete-region x y))
2379 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2380 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2381 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2382 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2384 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2385 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2387 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2388 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2389 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2390 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2392 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2393 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2396 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2397 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2398 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2399 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2401 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2402 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2403 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2404 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2405 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2406 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2409 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2410 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2411 returned values, like this:
2413 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2414 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2416 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2417 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2418 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2420 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2421 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2422 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2423 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2427 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2429 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2430 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2431 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2432 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2435 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2437 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2438 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2439 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2440 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2443 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2445 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2446 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2447 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2450 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2452 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2453 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2454 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2455 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2456 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2459 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2461 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2462 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2465 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2467 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2468 text properties from the inserted substring.
2471 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2472 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2474 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
2475 elements with the following format:
2476 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2478 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2479 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2480 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2481 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2483 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2484 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2485 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2486 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2487 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2489 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2490 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2491 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2492 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2493 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2494 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2495 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2496 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2498 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
2499 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
2502 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2503 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2504 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2505 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2506 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2509 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2510 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2512 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2513 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2514 defined with defface.
2517 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2518 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2519 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2522 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2523 help with handling relative face attributes.
2526 ** Enhancements to process support
2528 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2529 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2531 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2532 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2533 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2535 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2536 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2538 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2539 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2541 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2542 and modify elements on this property list.
2544 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2545 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
2548 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
2550 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
2551 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
2552 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
2553 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
2554 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
2555 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
2556 emacs tries to read it.
2559 ** Enhanced networking support.
2561 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
2562 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
2563 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
2565 - A server is started using :server t arg.
2566 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
2567 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
2568 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
2569 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
2570 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
2571 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
2572 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
2574 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
2575 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
2577 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
2579 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
2581 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
2582 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
2583 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
2584 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
2585 matching "open" or "failed".
2587 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
2589 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
2590 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
2591 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
2592 is called for the new process.
2594 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
2596 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
2597 and set the current address of the remote partner.
2599 *** New function format-network-address.
2601 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
2602 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
2603 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
2604 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
2605 string for other formatting options.
2607 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
2608 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
2609 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
2611 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
2612 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
2613 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
2614 the fifth is the port number.
2616 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
2617 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
2618 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
2619 no input is received in the stopped state.
2621 *** New function network-interface-list.
2623 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
2624 current network addresses.
2626 *** New function network-interface-info.
2628 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
2629 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
2632 ** New function copy-tree.
2635 ** New function substring-no-properties.
2638 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
2641 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
2644 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
2645 are now always lower case. If you specify the
2646 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
2647 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
2649 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
2650 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
2653 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
2654 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
2655 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
2656 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
2659 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
2660 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
2662 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
2663 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
2664 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
2667 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
2668 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
2671 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
2672 (function (lambda ()
2674 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2675 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
2676 (function (lambda ()
2677 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2680 ** File local variables.
2682 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
2683 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
2686 ** New function window-body-height.
2688 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
2692 ** New function format-mode-line.
2694 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
2695 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
2698 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
2700 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
2701 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
2704 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
2706 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
2707 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
2708 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
2709 you specify the map to use as an argument.
2712 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
2714 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
2715 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
2716 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
2719 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
2721 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
2722 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
2723 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
2724 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
2725 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
2728 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
2729 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
2730 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
2731 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
2734 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
2735 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
2738 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
2739 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
2740 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
2743 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
2744 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
2748 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
2749 cl-indent package. The new user options
2750 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
2751 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
2752 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
2755 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
2756 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
2759 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
2761 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
2762 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
2763 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
2766 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
2768 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
2769 the time it takes to convert the format.
2771 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
2775 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
2776 over minor mode keymaps.
2779 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
2780 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
2783 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
2784 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
2785 image or composition property.
2787 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
2788 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
2789 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
2790 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
2791 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
2794 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
2798 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
2799 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
2800 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
2801 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
2805 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
2808 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
2811 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
2812 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
2813 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
2814 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
2815 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
2816 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
2819 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
2820 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
2821 bindings of the parent keymap.
2824 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
2825 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
2826 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
2827 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
2828 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
2829 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
2837 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
2838 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
2839 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
2840 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
2843 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
2844 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
2846 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
2847 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
2850 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
2851 it receives a request from emacsclient.
2854 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
2855 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
2856 than 3 levels of nesting.
2859 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
2860 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
2864 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
2865 properties from surrounding text.
2868 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
2870 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
2871 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
2872 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
2875 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
2876 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
2880 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
2881 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
2882 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
2883 other properties than `face'.
2884 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
2885 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
2888 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
2889 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
2890 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
2891 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
2892 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
2895 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
2896 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
2897 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
2900 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
2901 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
2904 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
2905 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
2908 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
2909 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
2910 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
2913 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
2914 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
2915 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
2918 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
2919 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
2920 accepts a float as UID parameter.
2923 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
2926 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
2929 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
2930 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
2931 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
2932 the output of other GNU tools.
2935 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
2938 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
2941 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
2942 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
2945 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
2947 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
2949 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
2950 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
2951 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
2952 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
2954 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
2955 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
2957 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
2959 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
2960 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
2961 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
2963 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
2964 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
2967 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
2968 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
2971 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
2972 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
2975 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
2976 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
2979 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
2980 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
2981 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
2983 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
2984 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
2985 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
2987 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
2992 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2993 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2994 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2995 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
2996 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2997 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
2999 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3001 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3002 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3004 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3005 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3008 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3009 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3011 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3012 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3013 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3014 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3015 as help and apropos buffers.
3018 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
3020 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3024 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3026 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3029 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3030 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
3031 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
3032 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
3033 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
3035 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3038 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3039 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3040 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3041 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3042 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3043 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3044 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3045 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3046 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3047 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3049 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3050 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3052 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3053 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3054 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3055 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3056 contrary to the compound text specification.
3059 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3061 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3063 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3066 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3068 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3070 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3071 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3072 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3073 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3074 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3076 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3079 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3080 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3082 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3083 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3084 instead of using default-major-mode.
3086 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3087 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3088 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3089 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3090 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3091 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3092 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3094 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3098 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3100 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3101 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3102 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3104 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3105 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3108 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3110 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3111 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3112 charsets in this release.
3114 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3116 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3118 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3119 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3122 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3123 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3124 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3125 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3126 necessary changes to unexec.
3128 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3129 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3131 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3132 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3134 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3135 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3137 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3138 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3139 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3140 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3141 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3143 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3144 new display features described below.
3147 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3149 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3151 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3152 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3153 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3154 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3157 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3159 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3160 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3161 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3162 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3165 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3166 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3167 under Lisp changes, below.
3169 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3171 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3172 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3173 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3174 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3175 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3176 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3179 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3180 supported on character terminals.
3182 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3183 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3184 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3185 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3187 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3191 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3192 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3193 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3194 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3197 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3199 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3200 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3201 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3202 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3204 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3206 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3207 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3208 specifies a number of lines.
3212 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3214 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3215 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3216 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3219 Default is `grow-only'.
3223 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3224 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3226 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3228 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3229 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3232 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3234 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3235 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3236 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3238 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3240 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3241 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3242 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3243 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3244 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3247 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3248 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3249 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3250 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3251 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3252 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3254 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3255 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3256 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3257 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3258 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3259 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3261 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3262 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3263 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3264 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3265 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3267 ** Tool bar support.
3269 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3270 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3271 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3272 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3273 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3276 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3277 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3281 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3282 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3283 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3285 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3286 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3287 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3288 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3290 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3292 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3293 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3296 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3297 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3298 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3299 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3300 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3302 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3303 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3304 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3305 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3306 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3307 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3309 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3310 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3311 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3312 customizing face `fringe'.
3314 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3315 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3316 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3317 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3318 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3319 the window to be partially obscured.)
3321 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3322 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3323 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3324 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3326 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3328 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3329 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3330 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3331 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3332 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3335 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3337 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3339 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3341 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3342 `*') toggles the status.
3344 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3346 ** Hourglass pointer
3348 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3349 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3353 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3354 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3355 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3358 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3360 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3361 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3362 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3365 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3366 have to do anything to activate it.
3368 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3370 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3371 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3373 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3374 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3375 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3376 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3377 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3378 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3379 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3380 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3382 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3383 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3384 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3385 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3386 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3387 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3389 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3390 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3392 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3393 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3396 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3397 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3398 beginning and end of the buffer.
3400 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3401 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3404 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3405 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3407 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3408 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3411 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3412 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3415 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3417 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3418 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3419 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3421 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3422 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3423 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3425 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3428 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3430 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3431 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3432 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3433 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3434 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3437 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3438 all frames except the selected one.
3440 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3441 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3443 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3444 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3445 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3446 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3447 `Info-use-header-line'.
3449 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3450 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3451 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3453 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3455 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3456 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3459 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3460 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3461 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3462 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3464 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3466 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3467 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3468 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3469 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3471 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3472 point in a pop-up window.
3474 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3475 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3476 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3478 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3479 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3481 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3482 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3483 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3484 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3486 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3488 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3489 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3491 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3492 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3493 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3495 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3496 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3499 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3500 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3501 file that is already visited under a different name.
3503 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3504 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3506 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3507 and displays information about that.
3509 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3510 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3512 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3513 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3514 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3515 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3516 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3517 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3519 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3520 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3522 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3523 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3524 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3525 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3526 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3527 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3528 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3530 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3531 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3533 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3534 system for keyboard input.
3536 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3537 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3538 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3539 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3540 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3541 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3542 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3543 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3544 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
3546 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
3547 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
3549 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
3550 displays all characters in that character set.
3552 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
3553 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
3555 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
3556 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
3557 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
3559 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
3560 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
3561 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
3562 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
3563 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
3564 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
3567 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
3568 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
3571 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
3572 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
3573 Lisp Coding Convention".
3575 new command old-binding
3576 --- ------- -----------
3577 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
3578 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
3579 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
3581 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
3582 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
3583 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
3585 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
3586 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
3587 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
3588 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
3589 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
3590 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
3592 ** There are new Leim input methods.
3593 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
3594 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
3597 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
3598 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
3599 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
3600 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
3601 "`", you must type "=q".
3603 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
3604 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
3605 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
3606 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
3607 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
3610 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
3611 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
3612 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
3613 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
3615 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
3616 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
3617 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
3618 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
3620 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
3621 on the display using several methods
3623 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
3624 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
3625 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
3627 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
3628 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
3630 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
3632 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
3633 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
3635 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
3636 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
3637 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
3638 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
3640 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
3641 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
3642 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
3644 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
3645 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
3647 ** New X resources recognized
3649 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
3650 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
3651 is useful for debugging X problems.
3655 emacs.synchronous: true
3657 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
3658 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
3659 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
3660 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
3661 visual class names are
3670 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
3671 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
3674 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
3675 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
3676 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
3681 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
3683 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
3684 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
3685 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
3686 resource values are `true' or `on'.
3690 emacs.privateColormap: true
3692 ** Faces and frame parameters.
3694 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
3695 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3696 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
3697 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
3698 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
3699 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
3700 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
3702 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
3703 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
3704 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
3705 `default' face and vice versa.
3709 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
3711 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
3713 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
3714 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
3715 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
3716 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
3718 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
3719 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
3720 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
3722 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
3725 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
3727 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
3728 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
3729 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
3730 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
3732 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
3734 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
3736 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
3738 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
3741 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
3744 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
3746 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
3747 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
3748 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
3750 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
3751 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
3753 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
3754 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
3755 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
3757 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
3759 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
3760 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
3761 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3762 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
3764 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
3765 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
3766 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3767 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
3769 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
3770 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
3771 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
3774 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
3776 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
3777 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
3778 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
3780 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
3781 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
3782 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
3783 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
3784 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
3785 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
3787 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
3789 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
3790 notably at the end of lines.
3792 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
3793 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
3795 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
3797 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
3798 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
3800 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
3801 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
3802 after each match to get the replacement text.
3804 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
3805 you edit the replacement string.
3807 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
3808 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
3809 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
3811 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
3813 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
3814 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
3816 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
3817 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
3818 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
3819 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
3822 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
3823 read mail from the menu etc.
3825 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
3826 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
3827 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
3828 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
3830 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
3831 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3833 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
3834 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
3835 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
3836 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
3837 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
3840 ** Customize changes
3842 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
3843 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
3844 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
3845 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
3846 earlier versions of Emacs.
3848 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
3849 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
3852 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3853 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
3854 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
3855 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
3858 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3859 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
3860 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
3861 already in your init file.
3863 ** New features in evaluation commands
3865 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
3866 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
3867 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
3868 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
3869 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
3871 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
3872 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
3873 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
3874 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
3877 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
3878 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
3880 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
3881 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
3883 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
3884 code when called with a prefix argument.
3888 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
3889 current user setups (although it's believed that these
3890 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
3891 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
3892 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
3893 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
3896 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
3897 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
3898 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
3901 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
3902 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
3903 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
3904 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
3906 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
3907 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
3909 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
3910 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
3912 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
3913 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
3914 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
3915 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
3917 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
3918 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
3919 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
3920 earlier statement. An example:
3922 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
3924 res += a[i]->offset;
3927 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
3928 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
3929 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
3930 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
3933 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
3936 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
3937 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
3938 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
3939 documentation or other natural language text.
3941 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
3942 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
3943 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
3944 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
3945 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
3946 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
3947 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
3949 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
3950 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
3951 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
3952 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
3954 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
3955 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
3956 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
3957 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
3960 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
3961 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
3962 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
3963 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
3964 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
3965 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
3966 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
3967 is reported afterwards.
3969 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
3970 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
3971 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
3973 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
3974 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
3975 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
3976 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
3977 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
3978 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
3981 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
3982 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
3983 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
3984 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
3985 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
3988 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
3989 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
3990 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
3991 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
3992 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
3993 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
3995 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
3996 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
3997 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
3998 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
3999 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4000 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4001 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4002 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4004 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4005 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4006 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4007 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4010 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4011 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4012 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4013 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4014 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4015 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4016 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4017 function documentation for more info.
4019 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4020 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4021 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4022 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4023 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4024 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4025 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4026 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4028 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4030 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4031 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4033 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4034 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4035 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4036 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4037 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4040 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4041 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4042 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4045 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4046 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4047 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4048 chapter about this in the manual.
4050 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4051 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4052 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4053 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4054 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4056 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4057 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4058 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4060 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4061 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4063 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4064 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4065 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4068 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4069 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4070 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4071 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4074 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4075 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4076 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4077 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4078 they were before the filling.
4080 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4081 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4082 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4085 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4086 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4087 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4088 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4091 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4092 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4093 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4094 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4095 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4097 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4098 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4099 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4101 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4103 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4104 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4105 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4106 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4108 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4109 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4110 the column specified by comment-column.
4112 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4113 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4114 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4115 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4116 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4117 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4119 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4120 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4123 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4125 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4126 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4127 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4128 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4131 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4135 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4136 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4137 is, delete only empty directories.
4139 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4140 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4141 copy directories recursively.
4143 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4144 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4145 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4147 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4148 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4151 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4152 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4153 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4154 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4155 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4157 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4160 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4161 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4162 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4163 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4167 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4168 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4169 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4171 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4172 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4174 If you used procmail like in
4176 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4177 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4178 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4179 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4181 this now has changed to
4184 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4187 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4188 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4190 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4191 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4192 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4193 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4195 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4196 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4197 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4199 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4200 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4201 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4202 now just a compatibility layer.
4204 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4207 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4208 called to position point.
4210 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4211 summary buffers and NOV files.
4213 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4214 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4216 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4217 subtly different manner.
4219 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4220 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4221 ever-changing layouts.
4223 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4225 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4227 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4229 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4233 -------------------------
4237 C-c C-c q @quotation
4239 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4242 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4244 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4246 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4247 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4248 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4250 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4252 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4253 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4254 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4255 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4256 buffers to kill, as before.
4258 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4259 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4262 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4263 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4265 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4267 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4268 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4269 use. Default is 1000.
4271 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4272 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4274 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4276 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4278 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4279 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4280 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4281 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4283 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4284 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4285 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4288 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
4289 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4290 the normal block-hiding function.
4292 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4294 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4295 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4296 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4297 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4299 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4300 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4302 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4304 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4305 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4306 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4308 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4311 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4314 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4315 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4316 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4317 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4318 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4319 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4321 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4323 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4325 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4326 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4328 ** Changes in Font Lock
4330 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4331 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4333 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4334 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4336 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4337 the face used for each string/comment.
4339 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4340 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4342 ** Changes to Shell mode
4344 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4345 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4346 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4347 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4349 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4351 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4352 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4354 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4355 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4356 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4357 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4358 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4359 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4361 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4362 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4363 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4364 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4365 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4366 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4367 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4368 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4370 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4371 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4373 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4374 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4375 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4377 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4378 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4379 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4381 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4382 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4383 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4385 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4386 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4387 argument, it appends to the file.
4389 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4390 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4393 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4396 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4397 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4398 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4400 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4402 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4403 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4404 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4405 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4406 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4409 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4410 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4411 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4413 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4414 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4415 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4416 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4417 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4419 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4422 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4423 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4426 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4427 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4429 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4430 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4431 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4433 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4434 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4436 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4437 use the -f option when sending mail.
4439 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4440 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4441 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4442 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4443 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4444 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4446 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4447 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4448 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4450 ** Changes to TeX mode
4452 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4455 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4457 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4459 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4461 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4463 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4464 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4465 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4466 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4467 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4468 can be edited from that buffer.
4470 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4471 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4472 `A' to use all marked entries).
4474 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4475 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4477 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4478 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4479 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4482 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4483 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4484 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4485 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4487 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4488 has the following new features:
4490 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4491 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4492 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4493 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4495 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4496 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4497 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4498 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4499 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4502 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4507 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4508 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4509 spell-checks the current buffer.
4511 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4514 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4515 correction is made and re-checked.
4517 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4519 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4522 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4525 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4528 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4530 ** Makefile mode changes
4532 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4534 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4535 Fontlock mode is active.
4539 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4540 so that searches can be resumed.
4542 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4543 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4544 that started the search.
4546 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
4547 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
4549 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
4551 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
4552 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
4553 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
4554 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
4555 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
4556 `secondary-selection'.
4558 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
4559 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
4560 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
4561 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
4562 usual snappy response.
4564 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
4565 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
4566 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
4567 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
4571 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
4572 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
4573 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
4574 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
4575 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
4576 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
4577 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
4578 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
4579 file is registered in that backend.
4581 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
4582 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
4583 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
4584 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
4585 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
4586 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
4588 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
4589 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
4590 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
4591 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
4592 where it doesn't make sense.)
4594 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
4595 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
4596 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
4600 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
4601 checks are always done now.
4603 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
4606 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
4607 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
4608 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
4610 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
4611 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
4612 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
4613 the working file (``merge news'').
4615 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4616 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
4619 *** Multiple Backends
4621 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
4622 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
4623 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
4624 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
4627 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
4628 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
4629 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
4630 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
4632 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
4633 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
4634 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
4635 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
4636 current revision number from the more remote backend.
4638 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
4639 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
4640 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
4641 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
4643 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
4644 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
4645 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
4646 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
4650 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
4651 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
4652 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
4653 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
4654 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
4655 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
4656 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
4658 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
4659 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
4660 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
4661 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
4662 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
4663 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
4664 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
4665 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
4666 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
4667 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
4668 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
4671 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
4672 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
4673 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
4674 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
4675 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
4676 entire directory tree.
4678 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
4679 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
4680 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
4681 "watched" by other developers.)
4683 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4684 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
4685 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
4686 starting at the given directory.
4688 *** Lisp Changes in VC
4690 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
4691 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
4692 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
4693 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
4694 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
4695 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
4696 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
4697 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
4698 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
4700 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
4701 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
4702 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
4703 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
4705 ** New modes and packages
4707 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
4708 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
4709 the default is not applicable.
4711 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
4712 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
4713 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
4717 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
4718 drawn, like this: | \ /
4722 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
4723 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
4724 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
4725 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
4726 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
4729 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
4730 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
4732 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
4735 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
4736 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
4737 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
4738 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
4740 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
4741 also do without the mouse.
4743 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
4744 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
4745 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
4746 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
4747 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
4749 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
4751 lines straight-lines
4753 poly-lines straight poly-lines
4755 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
4756 spray-can setting size for spraying
4757 vaporize line vaporize lines
4758 erase characters erase rectangles
4760 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
4761 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
4762 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
4765 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
4766 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
4767 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
4768 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
4770 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
4773 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
4774 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
4775 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
4776 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
4777 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
4778 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
4779 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
4780 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
4781 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
4783 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
4784 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
4785 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
4786 on certain projects.
4788 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
4789 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
4791 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
4793 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
4794 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
4795 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
4796 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
4797 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
4798 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
4799 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
4800 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
4802 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
4805 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
4806 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
4808 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
4809 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
4811 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
4812 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
4813 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
4814 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
4815 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
4817 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
4818 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
4819 separate Texinfo file.
4821 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
4822 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
4823 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
4824 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
4825 enter check-in log messages.
4827 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
4828 without invoking external programs.
4830 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
4831 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
4832 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
4833 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
4834 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
4836 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
4837 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
4839 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
4840 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
4842 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
4843 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
4844 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
4845 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
4846 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
4849 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
4850 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
4851 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
4852 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
4854 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
4855 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
4856 actually modifying content of a buffer.
4858 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
4861 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
4863 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
4865 ; comment (until end of line)
4869 $A default non-terminal
4870 $"C" default terminal
4871 $?C? default special
4872 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
4873 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
4874 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
4875 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
4876 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
4877 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
4878 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
4879 C+ one or more occurrences of C
4880 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
4881 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
4882 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
4883 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
4884 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
4885 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4886 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4888 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
4890 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
4891 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
4892 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
4893 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
4894 equal signs of assignments.
4896 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
4897 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
4899 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
4900 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
4901 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
4903 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
4905 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
4906 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
4907 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
4908 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
4909 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
4910 which answers different needs.
4912 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
4913 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
4914 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
4915 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
4916 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
4919 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
4920 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
4922 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
4924 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
4925 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
4926 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
4928 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
4930 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
4931 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
4932 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
4933 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
4934 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
4935 and background colors.
4937 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
4940 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
4943 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
4945 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
4947 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
4948 whitespace in a file.
4950 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
4951 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
4952 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
4953 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
4954 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
4955 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
4956 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
4958 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
4960 Here is an example of columns:
4963 dog pineapple car EXTRA
4964 porcupine strawberry airplane
4966 Doing the following settings:
4968 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
4969 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
4970 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
4971 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
4974 Selecting the lines above and typing:
4976 M-x delimit-columns-region
4980 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
4981 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
4982 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
4984 delim-col has the following options:
4986 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
4989 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
4990 between each column.
4992 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
4995 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
4998 delim-col has the following commands:
5000 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5001 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5003 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5004 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5005 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5006 recent file list can be displayed:
5008 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5009 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5010 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5012 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5013 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5015 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5018 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5019 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5020 specific to Message mode.
5022 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5023 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5024 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5026 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5027 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5028 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5030 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5031 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5033 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5035 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5036 minibuffer with completion.
5038 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5039 with the diary features.
5041 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5042 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5044 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5047 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5048 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5049 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5050 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5052 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5053 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5056 ** Changes in sort.el
5058 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5059 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5060 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5063 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5065 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5066 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5067 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5069 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5070 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5072 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5073 output ^M at the end of lines.
5075 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5076 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5078 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5079 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5082 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5085 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5086 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5089 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5090 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5091 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5092 nil -- just delete one character.
5094 Default value is `untabify'.
5096 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5098 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5099 symbol, not double-quoted.
5101 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5102 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5103 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5104 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5106 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5107 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5108 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5110 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5111 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5112 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5114 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5115 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5117 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5118 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5120 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5121 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5123 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5124 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5125 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5126 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5127 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5128 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5130 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5131 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5133 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5135 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5136 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5138 ** Shell script mode changes.
5140 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5141 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5142 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5146 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5148 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5149 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5150 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5151 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5152 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5154 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5155 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5157 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5158 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5160 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5161 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5162 `template' keywords.
5164 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5165 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5167 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5170 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5172 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5174 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5177 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5179 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5180 variables are tagged.
5182 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5184 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5187 ** Changes in etags.el
5189 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5190 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5191 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5193 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5194 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5196 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5197 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5198 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5199 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5201 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5203 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5204 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5206 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5208 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5209 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5210 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5212 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5213 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5215 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5216 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5218 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5219 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5220 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5221 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5222 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5224 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5225 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5226 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5228 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5229 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5230 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5232 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5233 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5234 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5236 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5238 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5240 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5241 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5242 expression from that list, are not checked.
5244 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5245 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5246 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5247 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5249 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5251 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5252 displays local abbrevs, only.
5254 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5255 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5257 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5258 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5259 is measured in pixels.
5261 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5262 to be visited as images.
5264 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5265 were added to compile.el.
5267 ** Withdrawn packages
5269 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5270 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5272 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5274 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5277 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5279 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5280 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5281 See the sections below for details.
5283 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5284 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5285 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5286 to remove the properties of the copy.
5288 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
5289 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5290 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5291 these properties are active.
5293 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5294 ranges may affect some code.
5296 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5297 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5298 make a difference to some code.
5300 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5301 operates on the minibuffer.
5303 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5304 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5305 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5306 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5307 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5308 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5309 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5310 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5311 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5312 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5313 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5314 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5316 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5317 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5318 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5320 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5321 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5322 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5324 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5325 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5326 such as `mapconcat'.
5328 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5331 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5332 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5333 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5334 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5335 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5336 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5337 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5338 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5340 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5341 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5342 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5343 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5344 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5345 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5346 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5347 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5348 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5349 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5352 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5353 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5355 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5357 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5358 allows the animated display of strings.
5360 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5361 interactive form of a function.
5363 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5364 between custom options. Example:
5366 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5367 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5368 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5369 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5371 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5372 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5374 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5375 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5376 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5378 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5379 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5380 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5381 (signal or normal termination).
5383 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5384 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5386 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5387 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5389 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5390 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5392 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5394 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5395 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5398 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5400 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5401 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5402 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5403 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5404 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5407 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5408 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5411 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5412 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5414 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5415 with the more general `:mask' property.
5417 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5419 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5422 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5423 is running in batch mode. For example,
5425 (message "%s" (read t))
5427 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5430 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5431 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5433 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5434 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5437 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5440 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5442 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5443 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5445 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5447 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5448 comparison is done with `eq'.
5450 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5452 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5453 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5454 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5456 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5457 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5458 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5460 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5461 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5463 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5464 function was declared obsolete.
5466 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5467 retained as an alias).
5469 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5470 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5471 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5473 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5475 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5477 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5478 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5479 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5480 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5481 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5482 means never include the minibuffer window.
5484 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5486 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5488 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5490 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5491 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5492 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5493 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5496 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5497 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5498 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5499 minibuffer even if it is active.
5501 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5502 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5503 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5504 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5505 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5506 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5508 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5509 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5510 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5511 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5512 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5513 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5514 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5516 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5517 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5518 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5520 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5521 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5522 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5523 Default value is nil.
5525 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5528 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5529 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5530 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5532 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5533 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5534 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5536 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5537 list of a primitive.
5539 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5541 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5542 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5543 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5544 than replacing the local map.
5546 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
5547 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
5548 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
5551 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
5553 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
5554 as promised long ago.
5556 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
5558 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
5559 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
5560 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
5563 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
5565 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
5566 regular expressions.
5568 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
5570 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5574 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5576 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
5580 matches string STRING literally.
5583 matches character CHAR literally.
5586 matches any character except a newline.
5589 matches any character
5592 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
5593 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
5599 matches any character not in SET
5602 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
5603 in the text being matched
5606 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
5609 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5610 string being matched against.
5613 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5614 string being matched against.
5617 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5618 buffer being matched against.
5621 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5622 buffer being matched against.
5625 matches the empty string, but only at point.
5628 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5632 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
5635 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5638 `(not word-boundary)'
5639 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
5643 matches 0 through 9.
5646 matches ASCII control characters.
5649 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5652 matches space and tab only.
5655 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5659 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5663 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5664 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5667 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5668 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5671 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5674 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5677 matches anything lower-case.
5680 matches anything upper-case.
5683 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5684 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5687 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5690 matches anything that has word syntax.
5693 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
5694 of the following symbols.
5696 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
5697 `punctuation' (\\s.)
5700 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
5701 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
5702 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
5703 `string-quote' (\\s\")
5704 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
5706 `character-quote' (\\s/)
5707 `comment-start' (\\s<)
5708 `comment-end' (\\s>)
5710 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
5711 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
5713 `(category CATEGORY)'
5714 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
5715 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
5717 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
5719 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
5720 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
5724 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
5726 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
5727 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
5728 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
5729 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
5730 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
5731 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
5732 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
5733 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
5734 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
5735 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
5736 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
5745 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
5749 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
5756 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
5757 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
5759 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5760 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
5762 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5763 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
5764 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
5766 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5767 another name for `submatch'.
5769 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5770 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
5771 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
5774 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
5775 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
5776 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
5777 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
5778 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
5780 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
5781 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
5783 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
5784 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5787 like `zero-or-more'.
5790 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5793 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5795 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
5796 matches one or more occurrences of A.
5802 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5805 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5807 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
5808 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
5814 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5817 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5820 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5823 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5826 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
5830 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
5832 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
5834 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
5835 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
5836 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
5837 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
5839 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
5840 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
5841 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
5842 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
5844 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
5845 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
5846 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
5848 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
5849 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
5850 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
5851 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
5852 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
5853 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
5854 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
5857 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
5859 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
5860 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
5861 character set as previously.
5863 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
5864 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
5865 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
5867 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
5868 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
5869 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
5870 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
5872 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
5873 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
5875 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
5876 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
5879 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
5880 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
5882 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
5883 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
5884 buffers and strings.
5886 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
5887 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
5888 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
5889 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
5890 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
5891 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
5892 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
5895 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
5896 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
5897 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
5899 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
5900 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
5901 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
5902 may differ between buffer and string text.
5904 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
5905 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
5907 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
5908 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
5909 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
5910 `composition' from STRING.
5912 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
5913 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
5915 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
5918 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
5919 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
5921 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
5922 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
5923 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
5924 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
5926 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
5927 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
5928 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
5929 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
5930 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
5931 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
5933 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
5934 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
5935 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
5937 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
5938 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
5939 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
5941 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
5942 have been introduced.
5944 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5945 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
5946 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
5947 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
5948 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
5949 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
5950 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
5951 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
5952 their multibyte equivalent.
5954 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
5955 that offset in the file before writing.
5957 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
5958 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
5960 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
5961 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
5962 from which the command was issued.
5964 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
5965 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
5966 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
5967 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
5970 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
5971 to `window-buffer-height'.
5973 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
5975 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
5976 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
5977 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
5979 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
5982 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
5983 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
5985 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
5986 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
5987 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
5989 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
5990 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
5991 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
5992 is currently displayed in some window.
5994 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
5995 argument function's results.
5997 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
5998 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
5999 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6000 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6003 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6004 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6006 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6007 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6009 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6010 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6013 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6014 nil don't display a cursor
6015 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6016 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6017 others display a box cursor.
6019 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6020 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6021 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6022 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6024 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6025 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6026 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6027 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6031 (string-to-syntax "()")
6034 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6037 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6038 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6045 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6050 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6055 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6062 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6063 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6066 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6067 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6068 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6069 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6071 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6073 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6074 for a regexp in a string.
6076 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6077 `mouse-position-function'.
6079 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6080 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6082 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6083 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6085 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6088 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6089 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6091 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6092 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6093 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6094 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6097 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6098 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6100 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6101 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6102 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6103 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6106 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6107 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6108 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6109 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6111 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6112 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6113 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6115 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6116 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6119 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6121 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6122 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6123 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6126 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6127 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6128 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6129 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6130 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6132 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6133 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6135 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6136 instead of being optional.
6138 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6139 modify read-only text.
6141 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6143 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6144 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6145 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6146 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6147 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6149 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6150 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6151 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6152 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6153 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6154 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6155 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6157 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6158 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6159 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6162 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6163 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6165 ** New function `propertize'
6167 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6168 strings with text properties.
6170 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6172 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6173 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6174 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6175 specified value of that property. Example:
6177 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6179 ** push and pop macros.
6181 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6182 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6183 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6185 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6186 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6187 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6189 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6191 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6192 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6194 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6195 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6196 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6197 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6199 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6200 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6201 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6202 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6204 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6205 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6206 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6209 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6210 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6211 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6212 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6213 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6215 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6217 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6218 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6219 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6220 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6221 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6222 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6223 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6224 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6225 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6226 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6227 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6228 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6229 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6230 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6231 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6233 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6235 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6237 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6239 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6240 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6244 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6245 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6246 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6250 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6251 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6253 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6255 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6256 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6257 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6258 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6259 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6261 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6263 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6264 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6265 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6269 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6270 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6271 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6272 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6273 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6275 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6277 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6279 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6281 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6283 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6285 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6288 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6290 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6292 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6294 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6296 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6298 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6300 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6302 Returns the size of TABLE.
6304 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6306 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6308 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6310 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6312 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6316 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6318 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6321 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6323 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6324 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6326 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6328 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6330 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6332 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6333 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6335 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6337 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6339 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6341 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6342 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6343 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6344 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6345 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6347 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6349 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6350 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6351 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6353 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6354 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6356 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6357 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6359 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6360 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6362 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6363 'case-fold-string-hash))
6365 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6367 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6369 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6370 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6371 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6373 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6375 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6376 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6378 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6379 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6380 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6381 is too short to reach that column.
6383 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6384 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6385 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6386 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6388 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6389 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6390 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6392 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6393 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6395 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6396 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6398 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6399 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6400 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6401 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6402 temporary-file-directory instead.
6404 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6405 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6406 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6407 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6409 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6410 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6412 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6414 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6415 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6416 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6418 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6420 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6421 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6422 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6423 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6424 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6425 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6427 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6428 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6429 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6430 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6432 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6434 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6435 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6436 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6439 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6440 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6444 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6446 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6447 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6450 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6452 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6454 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6455 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6458 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6460 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6461 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6466 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6467 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6469 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6470 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6471 to enable sound support.
6473 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6474 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6475 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6476 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6477 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6479 The following sound properties are supported:
6483 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6484 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6488 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6489 may be present, but not both.
6493 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6494 0..1. This property is optional.
6498 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6499 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6501 Other properties are ignored.
6503 An alternative interface is called as
6504 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6506 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6508 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6511 ** Changes to garbage collection
6513 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6514 of live and free strings.
6516 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6517 strings that have been consed so far.
6520 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6523 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6526 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6527 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6528 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6530 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6532 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6534 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6537 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6539 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6541 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6542 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6543 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6544 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
6545 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
6547 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
6550 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
6552 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
6553 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
6554 or omitted means use the selected frame.
6556 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
6557 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
6559 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
6562 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
6566 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
6568 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
6569 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
6571 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
6572 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
6573 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
6574 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
6575 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
6576 just display it black instead.
6578 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
6581 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
6585 ** New face implementation.
6587 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
6588 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
6592 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
6594 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
6596 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
6597 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
6599 3. Font height in 1/10pt
6601 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
6603 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
6605 6. Foreground color.
6607 7. Background color.
6609 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
6611 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
6613 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
6615 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
6617 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
6620 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
6621 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
6623 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
6624 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
6625 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
6626 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
6627 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
6628 attributes mentioned above.
6630 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
6631 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
6634 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
6635 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
6640 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
6641 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
6642 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
6643 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
6644 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
6645 results in a fully-specified face.
6647 *** Face realization.
6649 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
6650 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
6651 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
6652 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
6653 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
6654 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
6656 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
6657 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
6658 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
6659 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
6661 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
6662 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
6663 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
6664 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
6665 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
6667 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
6668 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
6669 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
6670 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
6671 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
6674 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
6675 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
6676 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
6677 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
6679 **** Clearing face caches.
6681 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
6682 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
6687 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
6688 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
6689 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
6691 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
6692 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
6693 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
6694 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
6695 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
6697 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
6698 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
6699 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
6701 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
6703 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
6704 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
6705 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
6706 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
6707 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
6708 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
6709 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
6711 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6712 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
6715 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6716 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
6719 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
6722 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
6727 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
6728 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
6731 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
6732 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
6733 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
6734 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
6735 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
6738 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
6740 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
6742 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
6744 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
6746 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
6747 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
6748 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
6750 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
6751 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
6752 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
6753 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
6754 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
6755 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
6756 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
6757 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
6758 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
6759 of the face font sort order.
6761 - Function: x-font-family-list
6763 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
6764 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
6765 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
6766 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
6768 - Variable: font-list-limit
6770 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
6771 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
6772 matching font. The default is currently 100.
6774 *** Setting face attributes.
6776 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
6777 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
6778 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
6781 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
6782 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
6784 The following attributes are recognized:
6788 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
6789 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
6790 and `?' are allowed.
6794 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
6795 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
6796 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
6797 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
6801 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
6802 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
6803 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
6804 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
6808 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
6809 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
6810 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
6814 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
6815 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
6818 `:foreground', `:background'
6820 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
6824 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
6825 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
6826 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
6831 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
6832 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
6833 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
6838 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
6839 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
6840 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
6841 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
6845 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
6846 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
6847 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
6848 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
6849 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
6850 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
6851 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
6852 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
6853 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
6854 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
6855 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
6856 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
6857 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
6858 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
6859 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
6860 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
6865 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
6866 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
6870 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
6871 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
6872 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
6873 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
6874 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
6875 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
6877 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
6878 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
6882 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
6883 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
6884 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
6887 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
6888 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
6889 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
6891 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
6896 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
6897 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
6898 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
6900 *** Face attributes and X resources
6902 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
6905 Face attribute X resource class
6906 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
6907 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
6908 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
6909 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
6910 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
6911 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
6912 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
6913 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
6914 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
6915 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
6916 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
6917 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
6918 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
6919 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
6920 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
6921 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
6922 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6923 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
6924 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
6925 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6927 *** Text property `face'.
6929 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
6930 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
6931 specification can be
6933 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
6935 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
6936 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
6937 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
6938 for face attribute names.
6940 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
6941 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
6942 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
6944 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
6946 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
6947 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
6948 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
6949 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
6950 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
6951 used to clear the mapping table.
6953 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
6955 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
6956 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
6957 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
6958 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
6959 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
6960 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
6961 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
6962 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
6963 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
6964 modify their color-related behavior.
6966 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
6969 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
6971 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
6972 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
6973 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
6974 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
6975 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
6976 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
6977 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
6978 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
6979 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
6981 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
6982 display can display image files.
6984 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
6986 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
6987 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
6988 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
6989 `Inviolable' option.
6991 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
6992 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
6993 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
6995 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
6997 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
6998 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
6999 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7001 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7002 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7003 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7004 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7005 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7006 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7007 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7010 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7011 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7012 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7014 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7016 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7018 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7020 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7021 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7022 constrained position if that is different.
7024 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7025 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7026 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7027 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7028 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7029 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7030 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7031 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7032 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7034 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7035 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7036 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7037 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7038 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7040 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7041 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7043 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7045 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7047 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7048 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7049 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7051 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7053 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7054 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7055 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7056 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7057 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7059 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7061 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7062 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7063 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7064 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7065 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7067 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7069 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7070 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7071 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7073 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7075 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7076 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7077 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7081 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7082 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7083 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7084 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7086 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7087 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7088 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7089 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7092 IMAGE is an image specification.
7094 *** Image specifications
7096 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7097 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7098 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7099 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7100 described below are ignored.
7102 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7106 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7107 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7108 to use for its ascent.
7110 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7111 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7113 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7114 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7115 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7116 overlays that apply to the image.
7120 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7121 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7122 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7126 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7131 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7133 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7134 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7136 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7137 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7138 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7139 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7140 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7141 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7142 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7143 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7146 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7148 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7150 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7151 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7152 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7153 of the factors' absolute values.
7155 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7161 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7167 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7172 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7173 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7174 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7175 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7176 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7177 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7178 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7181 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7182 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7187 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7188 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7189 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7190 may be present in the image specification.
7194 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7195 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7196 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7197 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7199 *** Supported image types
7201 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7203 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7204 properties supported are:
7208 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7209 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7213 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7214 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7216 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7217 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7218 instead of a `:file' property.
7222 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7226 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7232 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7233 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7235 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7237 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7240 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7241 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7244 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7246 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7247 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7248 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7249 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7251 Additional image properties supported are:
7253 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7255 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7256 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7259 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7260 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7262 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7263 to display compressed images.
7265 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7267 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7268 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7273 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7274 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7278 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7279 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7281 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7283 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7284 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7287 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
7289 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7290 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7293 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7295 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7296 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7298 Additional image properties supported are:
7302 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7303 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
7306 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7307 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7308 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7311 (defun show-anim (file max)
7312 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7313 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7315 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7318 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7321 (goto-char (point-min))
7322 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7323 (insert-image img "x"))
7324 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7326 **** PNG, image type `png'
7328 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7329 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7332 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7334 Additional image properties supported are:
7338 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7339 integer. This is a required property.
7343 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7344 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7348 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7349 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7350 files. This is an required property.
7352 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7357 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7358 which are supported in the current configuration.
7360 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7361 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7362 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7363 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7364 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7366 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7368 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7369 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7370 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7371 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7372 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7377 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7380 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7381 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7382 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7383 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7384 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7385 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7386 of the display margins.
7388 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7389 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7390 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7391 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7396 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7397 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7398 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7399 that have a `help-echo' property.
7401 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7402 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7403 the window in which the help was found.
7405 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7406 `help-echo' text property was found.
7408 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7409 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7411 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7412 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7415 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7416 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7418 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7419 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7420 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7421 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7422 used as help string.
7424 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7425 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7426 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7428 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7430 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7431 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7433 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7434 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7435 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7436 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7439 (global-set-key [A-down]
7442 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7443 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7444 (global-set-key [A-up]
7447 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7448 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7450 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7452 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7453 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7454 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7455 is called with one argument, POS.
7457 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7458 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7459 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7460 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7461 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7463 ** Tool bar support.
7465 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7466 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7467 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7468 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7469 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7470 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7472 *** Tool bar item definitions
7474 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7475 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7476 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7478 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7479 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7480 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7481 property (see below).
7483 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7484 binding are currently ignored.
7486 The following properties are recognized:
7490 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7495 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7499 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7500 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7501 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7503 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7505 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7506 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7510 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7511 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7512 meaning of each of the four elements:
7514 Index Use when item is
7515 ----------------------------------------
7516 0 enabled and selected
7517 1 enabled and deselected
7518 2 disabled and selected
7519 3 disabled and deselected
7521 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7522 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7524 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7526 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7527 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7529 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7530 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7531 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7534 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7535 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7536 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7538 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7540 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7541 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7542 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7544 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
7545 raised when the mouse moves over them.
7547 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
7548 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
7549 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
7550 vertical margins . Default is 1.
7552 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
7553 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
7555 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
7557 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
7560 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
7561 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
7562 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
7564 is the original tool bar item definition, then
7566 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
7568 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
7571 ** Mode line changes.
7573 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
7575 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
7576 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
7577 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
7579 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
7580 a `local-map' text property.
7582 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
7583 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
7585 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
7586 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
7587 `local-map' property.
7589 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
7590 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
7593 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
7594 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
7596 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
7597 variable mode-line-format to nil.
7599 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
7601 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
7602 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
7603 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
7604 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
7607 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
7610 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
7611 position in the header-line.
7613 ** Text property `display'
7615 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
7616 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
7617 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
7618 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
7619 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
7621 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
7623 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
7624 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
7626 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
7627 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
7628 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
7629 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7630 simpler form STRING as property value.
7632 *** Variable width and height spaces
7634 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
7635 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
7636 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
7637 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
7638 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
7639 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7640 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
7642 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
7643 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
7644 properties described below.
7646 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
7647 characters having the `display' property.
7651 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
7652 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
7654 - :relative-width FACTOR
7656 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
7657 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
7658 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
7659 width of that character by FACTOR.
7663 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
7664 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
7666 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
7670 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
7673 - :relative-height FACTOR
7675 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
7676 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
7680 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
7681 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
7682 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
7685 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
7689 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
7690 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
7691 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
7692 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
7693 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
7694 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
7695 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
7696 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
7697 as display specification.
7699 *** Other display properties
7701 - (space-width FACTOR)
7703 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
7704 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
7709 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
7711 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
7712 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
7713 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
7714 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
7715 a font is available counts as a step.
7717 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
7718 as tall as the frame's default font.
7720 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
7721 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
7723 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
7724 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
7728 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
7729 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
7730 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
7731 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
7732 `height' subproperty.
7734 *** Conditional display properties
7736 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
7737 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
7738 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
7739 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
7740 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
7741 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
7742 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
7743 different when object is a string.
7745 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
7748 ** New menu separator types.
7750 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
7751 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
7752 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
7753 to specify other menu separator types.
7755 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
7757 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
7760 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
7762 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
7764 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
7766 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
7768 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
7770 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7772 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
7774 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7776 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
7778 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
7779 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
7781 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
7783 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
7785 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
7787 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
7789 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
7791 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
7793 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
7795 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7797 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
7799 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
7801 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
7803 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7805 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
7807 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
7809 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
7810 the corresponding single-line separators.
7812 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
7814 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
7815 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
7816 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
7817 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
7818 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
7819 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
7820 default foreground is black.
7822 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
7823 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
7824 `ScrollBarBackground').
7826 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
7827 settings for scroll bar colors.
7829 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
7830 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
7832 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
7833 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
7834 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
7835 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
7836 the original window start.
7838 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
7839 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
7840 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
7842 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
7844 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
7845 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
7846 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
7847 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
7849 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
7850 fixed-width and fixed-height.
7852 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
7854 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
7855 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
7856 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
7857 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
7858 temporarily to nil, for example
7860 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
7861 (enlarge-window 10))
7863 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
7864 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
7866 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
7867 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
7868 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
7869 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
7870 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
7871 support a vertical-bar cursor).
7875 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
7877 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
7880 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
7882 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
7884 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
7885 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
7886 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
7887 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
7888 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
7890 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
7894 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
7896 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
7900 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7902 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
7903 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
7905 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
7907 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
7909 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
7910 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
7911 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
7913 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
7914 is the one that is used.
7916 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
7917 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
7918 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
7919 separate from the command's regular output.
7920 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
7921 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
7922 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
7925 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
7926 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
7927 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
7928 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
7930 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
7931 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
7932 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
7933 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
7935 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
7936 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
7937 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
7938 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
7940 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
7941 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
7942 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
7943 they never ignore case.
7945 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
7946 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
7947 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
7948 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
7949 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
7950 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
7951 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
7953 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
7954 the same format that was used in the file before.
7956 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
7957 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
7959 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
7960 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
7961 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
7963 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
7964 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
7965 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
7966 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
7967 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
7968 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
7969 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
7971 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
7972 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
7973 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
7974 format. You can now customize these variables.
7976 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
7977 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
7978 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
7979 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
7981 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
7982 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
7983 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
7985 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
7986 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
7987 doesn't have any effect.
7989 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
7992 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
7993 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
7994 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
7996 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
7997 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
7998 `auto-show-mode' command.
8000 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8001 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8002 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8003 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8004 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8006 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8007 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8009 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8010 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8011 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8013 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8014 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8015 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8016 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8018 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8020 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8021 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8022 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8023 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8024 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8026 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8027 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8029 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8030 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8031 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8032 `?' on other systems.
8034 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8035 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8038 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8039 current codepage when it starts.
8043 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8044 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8045 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8046 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8047 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8048 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8052 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8053 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8055 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8056 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8057 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8058 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8059 buffer-file-coding-system.
8061 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8062 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8065 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8066 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8067 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8068 list of possible coding systems.
8072 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8073 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8074 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8075 docstring for details.
8077 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8078 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8079 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8080 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8081 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8083 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8084 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8086 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8087 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8089 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8090 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8091 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8092 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8095 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8096 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8098 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8099 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8100 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8101 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8103 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8104 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8105 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8106 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8107 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8109 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8111 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8113 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8114 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8116 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8118 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8119 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8120 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8121 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8122 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8126 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8127 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8128 Gnus manual for the full story.
8130 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8131 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8132 group, which is created automatically.
8134 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8137 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8139 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8140 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8142 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8145 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8147 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8148 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8150 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8152 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8153 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8155 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8156 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8158 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8159 control over simplification.
8161 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8163 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8166 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8168 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8170 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8171 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8172 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8174 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8175 `a' forces normal posting method.
8177 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8180 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8183 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8184 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8186 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8189 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8191 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8193 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8194 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8196 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8197 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8199 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8201 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8204 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8205 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8207 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8208 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8210 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8212 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8214 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8216 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8218 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8219 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8220 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8222 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8223 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8224 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8225 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8226 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8228 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8229 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8230 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8231 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8233 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8234 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8235 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8238 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8240 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8241 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8243 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8244 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8245 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8246 removed from the label.
8248 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8249 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8251 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8252 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8254 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8255 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8258 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8260 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8262 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8263 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8265 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8266 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8267 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8269 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8270 changes with a special face.
8272 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8273 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8274 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8276 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8278 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8279 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8280 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8281 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8282 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8284 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8285 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8286 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8288 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
8289 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
8290 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8291 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8292 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8293 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8294 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8295 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8296 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8298 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8299 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8300 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8301 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8302 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8305 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8306 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8307 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8308 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8309 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8310 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8312 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8313 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8314 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8315 was not documented clearly before.
8317 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8318 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8320 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8322 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8323 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8324 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8325 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8327 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8328 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8329 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8331 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8333 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8334 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8336 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8337 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8340 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8341 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8342 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8343 file names and attributes are returned.
8345 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8346 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8347 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8348 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8351 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8352 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8354 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8356 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8357 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8358 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8361 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8362 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8365 The new function process-running-child-p
8366 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8367 terminal to its own child process.
8369 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8370 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8371 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8372 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8374 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8375 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8377 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8378 :included is an alias for :visible.
8380 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8381 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8382 to move or copy menu entries.
8384 ** Multibyte editing changes
8386 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8387 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8388 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8389 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8390 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8391 (setq char (sref str idx)
8392 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8393 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8395 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8396 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8397 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8399 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8400 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8401 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8403 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8405 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8406 across the boundary.
8408 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8409 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8410 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8411 contains 8-bit characters.
8412 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8413 contains invalid characters.
8415 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8416 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8417 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8418 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8421 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8422 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8423 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8424 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8426 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8427 compose Thai characters in a string.
8429 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8430 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8431 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8432 menus should always use the third argument.
8434 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8435 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8436 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8437 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8439 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8440 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8441 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8442 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8444 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8445 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8446 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8449 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8451 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8452 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8453 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8455 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8456 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8457 means to clear out that attribute.
8459 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8460 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8462 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8463 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8464 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8465 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8467 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8468 the gap of the current buffer.
8470 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8471 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8474 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8475 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8476 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8477 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8479 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8481 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8482 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8483 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8484 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8485 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8487 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8488 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8489 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8490 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8491 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8493 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8494 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8495 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8497 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8498 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8499 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8500 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8501 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8504 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8505 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8506 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8507 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8509 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8511 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8512 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8513 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8514 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8516 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8517 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8518 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8519 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8520 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8521 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8522 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8525 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8528 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8529 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8530 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8531 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8532 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8534 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8535 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8536 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8537 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8539 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8540 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8541 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8542 something that most users not do.
8544 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
8545 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
8546 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
8549 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
8552 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
8553 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
8554 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
8555 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
8558 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
8559 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
8560 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
8561 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
8562 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
8565 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
8566 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
8567 to be confused by TeX commands.
8569 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
8570 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
8571 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
8572 of various alternative replacements and actions.
8574 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
8575 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
8576 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
8577 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
8578 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
8580 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
8581 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
8583 ** Changes in input method usage.
8585 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
8586 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
8589 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
8591 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
8592 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
8594 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
8595 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
8597 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
8599 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
8601 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
8602 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
8604 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
8605 given in the following case:
8606 o When you are using a complex input method.
8607 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
8609 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
8610 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
8611 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
8612 setting it to t is helpful.
8614 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
8616 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
8618 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
8619 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
8620 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
8621 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
8624 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
8625 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
8626 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
8629 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
8631 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
8633 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
8634 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
8636 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
8637 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
8638 its owner and group.
8640 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
8641 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
8643 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
8644 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
8646 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
8647 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
8648 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
8649 by the left edge of the rectangle.
8651 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
8652 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
8653 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
8654 for writing keyboard macros.
8656 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
8657 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
8658 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
8659 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
8660 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
8663 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
8665 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
8666 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
8669 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
8670 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
8671 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
8672 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
8674 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
8675 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
8676 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
8678 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
8679 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
8680 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
8681 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
8683 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
8684 failure if the command produces no output.
8686 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
8687 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
8690 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
8691 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
8692 function and variable names.
8694 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
8695 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
8696 file-coding-system-alist.
8698 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
8699 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
8700 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
8701 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
8702 according to the current fontset.
8704 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
8706 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
8707 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
8708 nonascii-insert-offset.
8710 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
8711 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
8712 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
8713 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
8715 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
8716 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
8718 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
8719 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
8721 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
8722 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
8725 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
8726 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
8728 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
8729 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
8730 all variables that have documentation.
8732 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
8733 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
8734 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
8735 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
8736 it should show; the default is 20.
8738 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
8739 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
8742 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
8743 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
8744 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
8745 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
8746 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
8747 Newly added options are included as well.
8749 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
8750 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
8751 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
8753 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
8756 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
8757 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
8759 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
8760 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
8763 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
8764 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
8767 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
8768 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
8769 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
8770 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
8773 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
8775 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
8776 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
8777 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
8779 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
8780 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
8781 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
8786 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
8787 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
8789 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
8790 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
8792 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
8793 read and post multi-lingual articles.
8795 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
8796 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
8797 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
8798 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
8799 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
8800 made invisible again.
8802 ** Mail reading and sending changes
8804 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
8805 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
8806 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
8809 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
8810 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
8811 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
8812 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
8813 rmail-default-body-file.
8815 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
8816 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
8817 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
8819 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
8820 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
8821 is evaluated to insert the signature.
8823 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
8824 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
8825 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
8826 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
8827 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
8828 especially interested in trying feedmail.
8830 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
8831 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
8832 provided by feedmail are:
8834 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
8835 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
8836 there is also a queue for draft messages
8838 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
8839 be prompted for confirmation
8841 **** does smart filling of address headers
8843 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
8844 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
8845 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
8847 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
8848 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
8849 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
8850 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
8854 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
8855 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
8857 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
8858 run Dired on the directory name at point.
8860 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
8861 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
8862 for a specified regexp.
8866 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
8869 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
8870 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
8873 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
8874 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
8875 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
8876 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
8878 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
8879 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
8880 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
8881 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
8882 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
8884 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
8885 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
8886 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
8887 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
8888 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
8890 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
8891 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
8892 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
8893 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
8895 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
8896 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
8897 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
8899 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
8900 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
8901 session to resolve them.
8903 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
8904 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
8905 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
8908 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
8909 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
8910 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
8911 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
8912 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
8913 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
8916 ** Changes in Font Lock
8918 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
8919 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
8920 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
8921 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
8922 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
8924 ** Frame name display changes
8926 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
8927 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
8928 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
8929 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
8931 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
8932 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
8935 ** Comint (subshell) changes
8937 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
8938 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
8939 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
8941 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
8943 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
8944 that is, the line after the last line you got.
8945 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
8947 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
8948 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
8951 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
8952 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
8953 previously sent input.
8955 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
8956 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
8957 as the search string.
8959 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
8960 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
8964 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
8965 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
8966 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
8969 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
8970 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
8971 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
8972 style is still the default however.
8974 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
8976 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
8977 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
8978 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
8980 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
8981 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
8983 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
8984 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
8986 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
8987 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
8989 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
8990 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
8992 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
8993 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
8994 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
8995 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
8997 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
8999 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9000 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9001 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9003 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9004 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9005 expanding dynamically.
9007 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9008 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9010 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9011 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9012 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9013 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9015 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9017 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9019 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9020 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9021 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9022 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9023 against the first word in the title.
9025 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9026 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9027 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9028 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9029 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9030 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9032 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9033 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9034 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9035 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9037 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9039 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9040 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9041 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9042 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9043 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9044 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9046 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9047 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9049 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9050 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9051 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9053 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9054 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9058 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9059 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9060 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9062 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9063 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9064 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9065 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9068 o URLs are automatically skipped
9069 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9071 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9073 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9075 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9076 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9077 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9078 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9080 *** New recursive parser.
9082 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9083 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9084 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9086 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9088 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9089 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9090 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9092 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9094 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9096 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9098 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9100 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9102 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9103 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9105 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9107 *** References to external documents.
9109 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9110 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9111 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9112 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9113 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9114 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9115 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9117 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9119 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9120 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9122 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9123 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9125 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9127 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9128 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9130 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9132 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9133 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9134 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9135 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9136 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9137 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9140 *** Support for the varioref package
9142 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9146 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9147 and citations are created. These hooks are
9148 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9149 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9151 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9153 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9154 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9156 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9158 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9159 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9162 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9164 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9165 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9166 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9167 directories that contain the same file name.
9169 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9170 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9171 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9172 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9173 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9174 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9175 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9178 ** New modes and packages
9180 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9181 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9182 it, but some do not.
9184 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9187 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9188 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9191 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9193 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9194 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9195 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9196 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9198 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9199 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9200 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9202 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9203 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9204 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9205 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9206 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9209 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9210 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9212 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9213 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9214 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9215 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9217 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9219 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9220 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9221 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9222 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9223 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9224 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9225 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9226 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9227 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9228 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9229 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9231 Platform-specific modes:
9233 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9234 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9235 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9236 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9237 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9238 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9239 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9240 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9241 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9243 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9245 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9246 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9247 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9248 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9250 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9251 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9252 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9254 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9255 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9256 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9257 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9259 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9260 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9261 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9264 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9265 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9266 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9267 current input method for reading this one event.
9269 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9270 now control whether to output certain characters as
9271 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9272 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9273 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9274 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9276 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9278 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9279 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9281 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9282 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9283 always increases point by 1.
9285 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9286 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9288 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
9290 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9291 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9292 default value changed. For example,
9294 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9299 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9302 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9303 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9304 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9305 `:version' in the top level group.
9307 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9309 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9310 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9312 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9313 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9314 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9317 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9318 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9321 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9322 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9323 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9325 ** Frame-local variables.
9327 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9328 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9329 local bindings for that variable.
9331 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9332 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9333 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9336 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9337 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9338 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9339 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9341 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9342 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9343 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9344 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9346 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9347 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9348 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9349 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9350 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9352 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9353 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9354 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9355 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9357 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9358 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9360 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9361 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9362 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9364 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9365 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9366 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9367 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9369 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9370 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9373 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9374 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9375 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9376 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9377 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9379 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9380 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9381 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9382 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9384 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9385 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9386 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9387 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9388 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9390 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9391 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9392 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9393 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9395 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9396 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9397 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9399 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9400 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9401 was directed to display this buffer.
9403 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9404 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9405 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9406 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9407 set-window-configuration.
9409 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9410 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9411 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9412 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9414 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9415 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9416 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9418 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9419 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9420 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9422 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9423 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9425 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9426 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9428 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9429 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9430 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9432 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9433 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9434 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9435 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9439 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9440 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9443 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9444 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9445 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9446 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9447 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9449 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9451 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9452 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9453 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9454 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9457 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9458 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9459 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9460 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9461 The supported properties include
9463 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9465 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9466 item should appear in the menu.
9468 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9469 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9470 It should return a binding to use instead.
9472 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9473 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9474 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9475 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9476 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9479 This means that the command normally has no
9480 keyboard equivalent.
9481 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9482 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9483 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9484 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9485 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9487 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9488 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9490 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9494 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9495 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9496 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9497 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9499 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9501 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9502 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9503 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9504 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9505 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9506 forward, away from the user.
9508 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9510 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9511 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9512 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9513 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9514 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9516 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9518 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9519 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9520 that were dragged and dropped.
9522 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9524 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9526 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9527 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9528 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9530 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9531 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9532 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9534 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9535 in Emacs 19 and before.
9537 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9538 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9540 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9541 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9542 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9543 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
9545 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
9546 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
9547 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
9548 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
9549 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
9551 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
9552 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
9553 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
9554 consistent with the new representation.
9556 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
9557 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
9558 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
9559 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9561 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
9562 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
9563 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
9565 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
9566 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
9567 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9569 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
9570 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
9571 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
9573 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9574 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
9576 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9577 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
9579 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
9580 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
9581 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
9582 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
9584 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
9585 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
9587 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
9588 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
9589 buffer or string being searched.
9591 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
9592 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
9593 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
9594 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
9595 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
9596 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
9597 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
9599 *** Structure of coding system changed.
9601 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
9602 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
9603 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
9604 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
9605 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
9606 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
9607 define-coding-system-alias.
9609 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
9610 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
9611 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
9612 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
9613 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
9614 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
9615 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
9618 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
9619 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
9620 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
9621 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
9623 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
9624 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
9625 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
9626 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
9628 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
9629 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
9630 This function requires a user interaction.
9632 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
9633 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
9634 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
9635 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
9636 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
9637 select-safe-coding-system.
9639 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
9640 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
9641 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
9644 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
9645 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
9646 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
9648 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
9649 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
9650 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
9651 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
9653 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
9654 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
9655 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
9658 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
9659 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
9661 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
9662 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
9663 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
9664 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
9665 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
9666 range of characters.
9668 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
9669 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
9671 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
9672 in the current buffer at position POS.
9674 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
9675 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
9676 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
9677 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
9678 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
9679 binding input-method-function to nil.
9681 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
9682 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
9683 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
9684 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
9685 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
9687 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
9688 subsequent events of a key sequence.
9690 *** You can customize any language environment by using
9691 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
9693 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
9694 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
9695 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
9696 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
9697 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
9699 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
9701 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
9702 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
9703 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
9706 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
9707 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
9709 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
9710 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
9711 in your .emacs file.)
9713 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
9714 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
9716 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
9717 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
9719 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
9720 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
9723 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
9724 delete the character before point, as usual.
9726 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
9727 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
9728 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
9730 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
9731 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
9732 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
9733 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
9734 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
9737 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
9738 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
9739 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
9740 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
9741 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
9743 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
9744 and is an alias for it.
9746 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
9747 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
9749 ** Scrolling changes
9751 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
9752 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
9754 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
9755 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
9758 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
9759 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
9760 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
9761 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
9763 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
9764 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
9765 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
9766 recenters the window.
9768 ** International character set support (MULE)
9770 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
9771 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
9772 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
9773 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
9774 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
9775 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
9777 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
9778 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
9779 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
9780 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
9781 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
9783 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
9784 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
9785 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
9786 language, to make it possible to type them.
9788 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
9789 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
9791 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
9792 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
9794 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
9796 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
9798 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
9799 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
9800 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
9801 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
9802 characters for their work until they want to change.
9806 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
9807 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
9808 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
9809 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
9810 support several input methods.
9812 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
9813 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
9816 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
9817 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
9818 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
9819 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
9820 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
9823 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
9824 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
9825 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
9826 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
9827 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
9829 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
9830 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
9831 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
9832 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
9834 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
9835 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
9836 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
9837 the first guess is wrong.
9839 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
9840 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
9842 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
9843 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
9844 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
9845 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
9847 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
9848 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
9849 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
9850 translate automatically to and from either one.
9852 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
9854 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
9855 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
9856 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
9859 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
9860 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
9861 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
9862 multibyte characters in that buffer.
9864 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
9865 character conversion as well.
9867 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
9869 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
9870 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
9871 requires using many fonts.
9873 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
9874 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
9876 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
9877 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
9878 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
9879 you would use a font.
9881 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
9882 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
9883 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
9885 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
9886 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
9889 *** Defining fontsets.
9891 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
9892 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
9893 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
9895 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
9896 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
9897 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
9898 standard fontset are created automatically.
9900 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
9901 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
9902 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
9903 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
9904 name is `fontset-startup'.
9906 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
9907 The resource value should have this form:
9908 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
9909 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
9910 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
9911 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
9912 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
9913 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
9914 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
9915 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
9916 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
9918 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
9919 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
9920 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
9922 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
9923 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
9925 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
9926 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
9927 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
9928 Here is the substitution rule:
9929 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
9930 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
9931 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
9932 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
9933 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
9935 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
9936 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
9937 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
9939 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
9940 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
9941 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
9942 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
9945 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
9946 defaults for a particular choice of language.
9948 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
9949 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
9950 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
9951 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
9952 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
9953 system for new files that you create.
9955 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
9956 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
9957 whole Emacs session.
9959 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
9960 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
9961 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
9963 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
9964 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
9965 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
9966 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
9967 coding systems that Emacs supports.
9969 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
9970 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
9971 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
9972 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
9973 is used for *the immediately following command*.
9975 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
9976 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
9978 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
9979 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
9981 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
9982 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
9984 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
9985 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
9986 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
9987 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
9990 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
9991 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
9992 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
9993 translated into that character code.
9995 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
9996 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
9998 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10000 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10001 the coding system for keyboard input.
10003 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10004 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10005 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10007 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10009 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10010 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10011 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10012 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10013 designed to work with terminals.
10015 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10016 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10017 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10018 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10019 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10020 in the corresponding buffer.
10022 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10024 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10025 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10026 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10028 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10029 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10030 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10033 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10034 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10036 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10037 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10038 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10039 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10041 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10042 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10043 related information.
10045 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10046 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10049 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10050 information about the support for a particular language.
10051 You specify the language as an argument.
10053 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10054 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10057 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10058 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10059 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10060 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10062 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10064 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10065 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10066 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10067 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10068 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10069 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10070 K euc-korea (Korean)
10073 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10076 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10077 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10078 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10079 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10082 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10083 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10084 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10085 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10087 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10088 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10090 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10091 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10092 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10093 Rmail files themselves.
10095 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10096 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10098 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10101 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10102 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10103 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10104 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10105 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10107 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10108 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10109 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10112 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10113 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10114 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10115 without any conversion.
10117 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10118 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10119 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10120 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10122 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10123 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10125 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10126 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10128 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10129 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10131 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10132 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10133 in the buffer before point.
10135 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10136 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10139 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10140 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10142 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10144 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10145 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10147 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10148 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10149 can become a bottleneck.
10151 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10152 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10153 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10154 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10155 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10156 so useful that the change is worth while.
10158 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10159 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10160 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10161 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10163 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10164 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10167 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10168 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10169 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10171 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10172 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10173 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10175 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10176 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10177 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10179 ** Changes in View mode.
10181 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10182 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10184 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10185 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10187 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10190 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10191 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10193 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10194 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10195 not just the selected window.
10197 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10198 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10199 turns View mode on or off.
10201 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10202 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10203 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10205 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10206 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10208 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10209 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10210 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10211 which version to compare with.
10213 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10214 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10216 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10217 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10218 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10219 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10221 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10222 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10223 blocks, all of them or none.
10225 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10226 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10227 confirmation first.
10229 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10230 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10231 However, the mode will not be changed if
10232 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10233 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10234 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10235 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10237 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10239 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10240 these commands do not change the major mode.
10242 ** M-x occur changes.
10244 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10245 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10247 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10248 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10249 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10251 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10252 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10253 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10254 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10255 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10257 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10258 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10259 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10260 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10262 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10263 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10264 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10266 ** Outline mode changes.
10268 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10270 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10272 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10273 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10274 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10275 was already active.
10277 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10278 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10279 get confused by it.
10281 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10282 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10284 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10286 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10287 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10288 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
10289 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10291 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10292 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10293 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10295 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10296 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10299 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10300 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10301 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10302 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10304 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10305 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10306 can be. The default value is 30.
10308 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10310 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10311 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10312 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10313 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10314 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10317 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10318 compose-mail-other-frame.
10320 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10321 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10322 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10323 buffer that shows the original message.
10325 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10326 with separator lines around the contents.
10328 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10329 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10330 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10331 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10333 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10335 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10336 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10337 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10338 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10340 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10341 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10344 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10345 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10348 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10349 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10350 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10351 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10353 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10354 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10355 be taken to be magic.
10357 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10358 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10359 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10361 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10362 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10364 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10365 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10367 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10369 new key dired.el binding old key
10370 ------- ---------------- -------
10371 * c dired-change-marks c
10373 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10374 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10375 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10377 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10378 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10379 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10380 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10381 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10382 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10386 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10387 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10388 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10389 each time you run it.
10391 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10392 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10394 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10395 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10396 means to move in the opposite direction.
10398 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10399 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10401 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10402 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10403 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10404 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10409 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10411 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10414 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10415 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10417 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10420 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10422 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10424 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10426 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10427 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10428 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10430 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10432 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10434 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10435 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10437 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10438 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10439 used to pick articles.
10441 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10442 another have been added.
10444 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10446 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10447 generating lines in buffers.
10449 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10452 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10454 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10456 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10458 *** Scores can be decayed.
10460 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10462 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10463 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10465 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10468 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10470 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10471 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10473 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10475 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10476 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10478 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10479 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10481 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10484 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10485 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10487 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10489 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10491 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10493 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10495 Use the `Y c' command.
10497 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10499 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10501 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10503 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10504 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10506 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10508 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10510 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10511 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10513 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10515 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10516 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10517 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10518 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10521 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10522 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10523 particular news group. This can be done by:
10525 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10527 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10528 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10529 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10530 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10531 for reading and posting).
10533 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10534 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10535 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10536 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10539 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10540 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10542 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10543 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10544 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
10545 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
10546 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
10548 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
10549 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
10551 ** CC mode changes.
10553 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
10554 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
10555 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
10556 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
10557 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
10560 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
10561 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
10562 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
10563 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
10564 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
10565 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
10567 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
10568 of the current buffer.
10570 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
10571 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
10572 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
10574 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
10575 style that the Python developers like.
10577 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
10578 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
10579 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
10581 ** VC Changes [new]
10583 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
10584 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
10585 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
10587 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
10588 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
10591 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
10592 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
10594 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
10595 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
10596 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
10597 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
10599 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
10600 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
10602 ** Calendar changes.
10604 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
10605 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
10606 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
10607 following/previous years.
10609 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
10610 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
10611 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
10612 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
10613 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
10614 supposed attribute of God.
10616 ** ps-print changes
10618 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
10621 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
10623 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
10624 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
10625 printer system has this behavior, set variable
10626 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
10628 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
10629 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
10630 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
10632 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
10633 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
10635 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
10636 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
10637 printing for your printer.
10639 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
10640 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10642 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
10643 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10645 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
10646 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
10647 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
10648 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
10649 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
10650 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
10651 The default value is nil.
10653 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
10654 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
10656 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
10657 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
10658 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
10659 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
10660 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
10661 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
10662 color). The default is 0 ("black").
10664 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
10665 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
10667 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
10668 The default is 0 ("black").
10670 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
10671 The default is 0 ("black").
10673 border-width Specify the border width.
10674 The default is 0.4.
10676 Any other property is ignored.
10678 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
10679 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
10682 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
10683 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
10684 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
10685 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
10686 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
10687 controlling headers.
10689 *** Color management (subgroup)
10691 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
10694 *** Face Management (subgroup)
10696 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
10697 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
10698 background should be used. Valid values are:
10700 t always use face background color.
10701 nil never use face background color.
10702 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
10704 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
10706 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
10709 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
10710 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
10712 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
10715 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
10716 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
10717 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
10719 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
10723 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
10727 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
10731 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
10735 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
10737 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
10739 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
10742 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
10743 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
10744 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
10746 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
10747 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10748 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10749 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10750 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10754 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10755 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10756 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10759 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10760 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10761 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
10762 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
10763 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
10764 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10765 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10766 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10767 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
10768 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
10769 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
10772 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10774 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
10777 *** Printer management (subgroup)
10779 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
10780 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
10781 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
10782 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
10785 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
10786 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
10787 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
10789 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
10790 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
10793 *** Page settings (subgroup)
10795 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
10796 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
10797 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
10798 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
10799 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
10800 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
10803 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
10804 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
10805 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
10807 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
10808 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
10809 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
10810 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
10811 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
10812 its TO, are ignored.
10814 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
10815 pages. Valid values are:
10817 nil print all pages.
10819 `even-page' print only even pages.
10821 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
10823 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
10824 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10825 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
10826 print only the even sheet of paper.
10828 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
10829 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10830 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
10831 only the odd sheet of paper.
10833 Any other value is treated as nil.
10835 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
10836 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
10837 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
10839 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
10841 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
10842 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
10844 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
10845 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10846 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
10847 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10848 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10849 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10850 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10852 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
10853 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10854 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
10855 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
10856 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
10857 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
10858 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
10860 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
10862 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
10863 messages should be sent.
10865 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
10866 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
10867 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
10869 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
10871 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
10872 points for line numbers.
10874 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
10875 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
10877 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
10878 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
10879 to 2, the printing will look like:
10891 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
10892 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
10895 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
10896 zebra stripe is to be printed.
10898 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
10900 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
10901 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
10902 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
10903 3, the output will look like:
10917 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
10918 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
10920 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
10921 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10924 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
10925 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10928 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
10930 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
10931 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
10933 ** hideshow changes.
10935 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
10938 *** Support for java-mode added.
10940 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
10941 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
10943 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
10944 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
10945 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
10947 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
10948 robust and a lot faster.
10950 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
10952 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
10953 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
10954 documentation for more details.
10956 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
10958 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
10959 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
10960 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
10961 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
10962 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
10964 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
10965 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
10966 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
10967 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
10973 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
10974 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
10975 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
10976 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
10977 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
10978 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
10980 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
10982 *** Maximum decoration
10984 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
10985 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
10986 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
10987 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
10988 to get the old behavior.
10992 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
10994 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
10995 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
10997 *** Configurable support
10999 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11000 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11001 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11002 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11003 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11004 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11005 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11007 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11008 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11009 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11011 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11013 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11014 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11017 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11019 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
11025 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11026 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11027 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11028 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11030 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11032 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11033 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11034 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11036 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11038 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11039 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11040 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11041 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11042 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11043 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11044 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11046 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11047 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11048 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11049 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11050 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11051 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11053 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11055 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11056 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11057 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11058 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11060 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11063 ** Ada mode changes.
11065 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11066 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11067 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11068 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11071 *** There are two new commands:
11072 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11073 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11075 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11076 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11077 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11079 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11080 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11081 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11083 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11084 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11085 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11086 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11088 ** Scheme mode changes.
11090 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11091 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11092 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11093 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11096 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11097 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11098 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11099 variables as buffer-local variables.
11101 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11102 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11104 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11106 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11107 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11108 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11109 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11111 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11112 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11115 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11116 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11117 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11118 option takes precedence.
11120 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11121 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11122 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11124 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11125 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11128 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11129 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11131 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11132 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11135 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11136 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11137 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11138 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11139 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11140 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11142 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11143 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11144 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11145 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11147 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11148 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11149 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11150 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11151 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11153 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11154 since it applies only to the current frame.
11156 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11157 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11158 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11160 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11161 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11162 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11163 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11164 instead of just the file you are editing.
11168 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11169 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11170 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11171 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11172 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11175 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11176 knows which kind of label is needed.
11178 C-c ) reftex-reference
11179 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11180 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11182 C-c [ reftex-citation
11183 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11184 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11186 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11187 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11190 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11191 can quickly jump to every section.
11193 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11194 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11195 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11196 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11197 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11199 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11201 *** Info documentation is now available.
11203 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11204 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11206 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11207 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11209 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11210 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11212 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11213 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11214 appropriate functions.
11216 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11217 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11219 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11222 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11223 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11225 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11226 shall be delimited.
11228 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11229 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11230 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11232 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11233 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11234 prefixed with `ALT'.
11236 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11237 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11238 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11241 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11242 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11243 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11245 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11246 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11248 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11249 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11250 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11252 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11254 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11256 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11257 from alien sources.
11259 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11260 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11263 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11266 *** Added support for imenu.
11268 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11269 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11270 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11271 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11273 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11274 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11276 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11278 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11280 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11281 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11282 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11285 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11286 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11288 ** browse-url changes
11290 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11291 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11292 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11293 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11294 customization variables.
11296 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11298 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11299 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11300 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11302 ** Changes in Ediff
11304 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11305 pops up the Info file for this command.
11307 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11308 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11309 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11312 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11313 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11314 files in the same directory.
11316 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11317 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11318 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11320 ** Changes in Viper
11322 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11323 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11325 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11326 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11327 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11328 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11329 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11330 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11331 color when Viper is in insert state.
11332 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11333 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11334 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11338 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11339 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11340 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11341 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11342 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11344 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11346 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11347 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11349 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11350 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11351 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11353 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11354 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11355 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11356 methods and protocols.
11358 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11359 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11360 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11363 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11364 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11365 at least M times and as many as N times.
11367 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11368 in files has changed slightly.
11370 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11371 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11372 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11373 with old time-stamp-format values.
11375 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11376 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11377 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11380 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11381 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11382 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11383 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11384 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11385 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11387 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11388 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11389 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11391 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11392 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11393 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11394 recommended now will continue to work then.
11396 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11399 ** There are some additional major modes:
11401 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11402 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11403 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11405 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11406 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11409 ** New Lisp packages include:
11411 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11413 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11414 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11416 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11418 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11421 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11422 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11425 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11426 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11427 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11428 strings or comments.
11430 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11431 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11432 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11433 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11436 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11437 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11439 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11440 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11442 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11444 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11445 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11447 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11449 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11451 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11453 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11454 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11456 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11457 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11458 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11459 original place after inserting the copy.
11461 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11464 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11465 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11466 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11468 Enable mouse-drag with:
11469 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11471 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11473 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11474 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11476 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11477 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11481 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11482 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11483 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11484 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11485 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11486 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11487 instance) and vice versa.
11489 To use this package load it using
11490 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11491 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11492 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11493 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11494 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11495 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11497 *** Interface to ph.
11499 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11501 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11502 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11505 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11507 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11508 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11509 while the real cursor does not move.
11511 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11512 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11514 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11515 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11519 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11520 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11521 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11522 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11524 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11526 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11528 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11530 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11531 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11532 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11533 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11534 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11536 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11537 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11538 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11539 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11540 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11541 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11543 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
11545 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
11546 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
11547 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
11548 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
11550 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
11551 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
11553 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
11554 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
11557 ** Basic Lisp changes
11559 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
11560 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
11562 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
11563 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
11566 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
11568 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
11570 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
11571 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
11573 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
11574 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
11577 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
11579 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
11581 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
11583 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
11584 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
11585 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
11588 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
11589 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
11590 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
11592 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
11593 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
11594 adding one of these suffixes.
11596 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
11597 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
11598 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
11600 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
11601 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
11603 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
11605 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
11606 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
11608 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
11609 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
11611 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
11613 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
11614 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
11616 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
11617 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
11618 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
11619 works using `save-current-buffer'.
11621 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
11622 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
11625 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
11626 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
11627 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
11630 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
11631 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
11634 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
11636 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
11637 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
11638 Then it returns that string.
11640 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
11642 (with-output-to-string
11643 (princ "The buffer is ")
11644 (princ (buffer-name)))
11646 returns "The buffer is foo".
11648 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
11651 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
11652 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
11653 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
11655 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
11656 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
11658 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
11659 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
11660 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
11661 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
11662 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
11663 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
11665 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
11666 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
11667 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
11670 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
11671 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
11672 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
11673 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
11674 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
11676 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
11677 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
11678 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
11679 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
11681 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
11682 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
11684 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
11686 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
11687 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
11688 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
11689 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
11692 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
11693 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
11696 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
11698 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
11699 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
11700 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
11701 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
11702 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
11704 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
11706 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
11707 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
11708 more than the number of characters.
11710 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
11711 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
11712 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
11713 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
11714 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
11715 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
11717 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
11718 and returns a string containing those characters.
11720 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
11721 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
11722 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
11723 character, sref signals an error.
11725 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
11726 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
11727 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11729 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
11730 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
11731 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11733 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
11734 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
11735 to a vector of the characters in it.
11737 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
11738 of a string. You call it as follows:
11740 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
11742 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
11743 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
11744 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
11745 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
11746 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
11748 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
11749 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11751 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
11752 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11754 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
11755 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
11756 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
11757 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
11759 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
11761 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
11763 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
11764 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
11765 are not included in the resulting value.
11767 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
11768 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
11769 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
11770 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
11772 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
11773 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
11774 character extends across that column), then the padding character
11775 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
11776 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
11777 column START-COLUMN.
11779 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
11780 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
11781 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
11782 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
11783 changed text, before the change.
11785 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
11786 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
11787 one character set for each script, not for each language.
11789 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
11791 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
11793 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
11794 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
11796 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
11797 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
11798 which identify the character within that character set.
11800 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
11801 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
11802 opposite of split-char.
11804 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
11805 of all the characters between BEG and END.
11807 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
11808 of all the characters in a string.
11810 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
11811 and specifying coding systems.
11813 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
11814 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
11815 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
11816 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
11817 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
11818 as what to do about code conversion.)
11820 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
11821 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
11823 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11824 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11825 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
11827 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11828 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
11829 to match against a file name.
11831 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11832 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11833 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11834 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11835 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11836 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11838 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11839 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11841 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
11842 the coding system to use for network sockets.
11844 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11845 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
11846 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
11849 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11850 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11851 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11852 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11853 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11854 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11856 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11857 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11859 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11860 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11861 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
11862 start the subprocess.
11864 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
11865 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
11866 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
11867 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
11868 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
11870 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
11871 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
11874 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
11875 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
11876 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
11877 connection permanently or until overridden.
11879 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
11880 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
11881 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
11882 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
11883 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
11884 system for one operation at a time.
11886 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
11887 files, subprocesses or network connections.
11889 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
11890 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
11891 The value is a cons cell,
11892 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
11893 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
11894 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
11895 input to the subprocess.
11897 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
11898 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
11900 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
11901 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
11902 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
11904 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
11905 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
11906 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
11907 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
11910 Thus, instead of writing
11912 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
11913 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
11915 you would now write this:
11917 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
11918 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
11922 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
11923 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
11924 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
11925 for a description of them.
11927 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
11928 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
11930 (defgroup ispell nil
11931 "Spell checking using Ispell."
11934 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
11935 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
11936 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
11937 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
11938 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
11940 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
11941 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
11942 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
11943 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
11944 first-level subgroups.
11946 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
11948 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
11949 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
11953 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
11954 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
11955 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
11956 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
11957 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
11958 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
11960 ** Text property changes
11962 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
11965 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
11966 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
11967 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
11968 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
11969 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
11971 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
11972 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
11973 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
11974 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
11976 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
11977 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
11978 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
11980 ** Changes in invisibility features
11982 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
11983 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
11984 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
11985 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
11986 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
11987 make the overlay visible.
11989 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
11990 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
11991 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
11992 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
11993 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
11994 t when it should hide it.
11996 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
11998 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
11999 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12000 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12001 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12002 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12003 Here is an example of how to do this:
12005 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12006 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12007 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12008 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12011 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12014 ;; When done with the overlays:
12015 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12016 ;; Or respectively:
12017 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12019 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
12021 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12022 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12023 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12024 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12026 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12027 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12028 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12030 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12031 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12033 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12034 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12036 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12037 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12038 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12040 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12041 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12042 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12043 determine the syntax type of the character.
12045 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12046 of the current buffer.
12048 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12049 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12050 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12052 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12053 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12054 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12055 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12056 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12058 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12061 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12062 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12063 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12065 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12066 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12067 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12068 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12069 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12071 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12072 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12073 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12075 ** Changes in face features
12077 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12078 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12080 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12081 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12083 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12084 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12086 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12087 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12089 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12090 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12091 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12092 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12095 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12096 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12098 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12100 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12101 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12102 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12103 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12105 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12108 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12109 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12111 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12112 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12114 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12115 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12117 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12118 character code conversion as well as other things.
12120 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12121 (formerly it did not).
12123 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12124 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12126 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12127 instead of constant strings.
12129 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12130 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12131 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12133 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12134 in the same way as before.
12136 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12137 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12138 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12140 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12141 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12142 else, and returns nil.
12144 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12145 directory cannot be listed.
12147 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12149 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12150 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12151 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12152 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12155 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12156 It is available through the history command M-n.
12158 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12159 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12160 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12161 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12162 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12164 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12165 argument in this way.
12167 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12168 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12169 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12171 ** Echo area features
12173 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12174 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12175 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12176 after the echo area is cleared.
12178 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12179 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12181 ** Keyboard input features
12183 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12184 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12186 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12187 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12188 by keyboard macros.
12190 ** Frame-related changes
12192 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12193 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12194 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12196 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12197 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12198 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12200 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12201 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12202 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12203 in the selected frame.
12205 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12206 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12207 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12209 ** X Windows features
12211 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12212 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12213 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12215 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12216 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12218 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12219 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12220 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12222 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12223 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12225 ** Subprocess features
12227 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12228 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12231 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12232 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12234 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12235 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12237 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12238 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12240 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12241 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12242 goes after the other menu items.
12244 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12245 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12246 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12249 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12250 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12252 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12253 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12256 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12257 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12258 but its hook is still run.
12260 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12261 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12263 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12264 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12265 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12267 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12268 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12269 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12272 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12273 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12275 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12276 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12277 functions like display-time.
12279 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12280 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12282 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12283 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12284 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12286 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12287 if there is an error in compilation.
12289 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
12290 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12291 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12292 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12294 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12295 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12296 the *scratch* buffer.
12298 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12299 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12300 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12301 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12303 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12304 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12305 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12307 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12308 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12309 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12310 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12312 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12313 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12314 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12316 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12317 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12318 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12319 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12320 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12323 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12324 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12325 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12326 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12328 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12329 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12330 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12331 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12333 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12335 ** imenu.el changes.
12337 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12338 item from menu created by imenu.
12340 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12341 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12342 select one of those items.
12344 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12346 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12347 Copyright information:
12349 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12351 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12352 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12353 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12354 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12356 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12357 of this document, or of portions of it,
12358 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12359 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12363 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
12366 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793