1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
118 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
119 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
122 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
125 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
128 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
129 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
130 the fancy startup screen.
133 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
134 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
138 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
139 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
142 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
143 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
144 can start with this line:
146 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
149 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
150 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
151 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
153 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
155 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
156 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
159 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
160 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
163 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
164 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
165 an interactively callable function.
168 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
169 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
170 affects the initial frame.
173 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
174 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
175 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
176 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
177 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
180 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
181 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
182 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
183 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
184 `inhibit-splash-screen').
187 ** The default is now to use a bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
188 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
192 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
193 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
194 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
198 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
199 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
200 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
203 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
204 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
205 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
206 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
207 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
209 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
212 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
213 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
214 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
215 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
218 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
219 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
221 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
222 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
225 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
226 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
227 the operating system or your X server.
230 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
233 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
234 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
238 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
239 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
242 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
243 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
244 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
245 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
248 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
249 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
252 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
254 See below under "incremental search changes".
257 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
259 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
260 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
261 directory with Dired.
263 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
264 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
267 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
268 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
269 it remains unchanged.
272 ** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
273 This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
274 need to quote the space with a C-q. The underlying changes in the
275 keymaps that are active in the minibuffer are described below under
276 "New keymaps for typing file names".
279 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
280 M-o M-o requests refontification.
283 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
285 See below for more details.
288 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
289 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
290 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
291 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
292 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
293 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
295 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
298 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
299 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
300 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
301 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
302 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
306 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
307 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
310 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left
311 (previous-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and
312 C-x right can be used as well. The functions keep a different buffer
313 cycle for each frame, using the frame-local buffer list.
316 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
319 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
320 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
323 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
324 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
327 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
328 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
331 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
332 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
333 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
334 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
337 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
338 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
339 in Indented-Text mode.
342 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
344 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
345 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
346 in the value, use `$$'.
349 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
350 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
354 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
357 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
358 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
359 only faces matching this regexp.
361 ** Mark command changes:
364 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
365 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
366 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
369 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
371 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
372 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
373 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
374 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
375 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
376 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
377 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
378 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
379 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
382 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
384 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
385 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
389 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
390 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
391 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
392 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
393 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
396 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
397 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
398 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
401 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
402 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
403 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
407 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
408 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
409 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
411 ** Help command changes:
414 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
416 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
418 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
420 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
423 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
424 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
426 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
427 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
429 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
430 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
431 run by the key sequence.
432 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
433 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
436 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
437 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
438 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
439 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
440 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
441 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
442 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
443 new-kill-line is on C-k
446 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
447 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
448 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
449 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
452 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
453 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
456 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
457 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
458 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
459 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
460 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
461 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
462 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
463 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
464 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
467 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
468 description various information about a character, including its
469 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
470 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
471 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
474 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
475 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
478 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
479 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
480 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
481 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
482 keyboard oriented alternative.
485 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
486 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
487 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
488 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
489 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
492 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
493 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
494 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
498 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
499 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
500 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
501 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
502 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
505 ** Incremental Search changes:
508 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
509 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
510 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
511 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
515 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
516 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
517 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
518 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
521 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
522 at the end of a line.
525 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
526 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
527 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
530 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
531 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
532 search string used as the string to replace.
535 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
536 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
537 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
539 ** Replace command changes:
542 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
543 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
544 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
547 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
548 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
549 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
550 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
551 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
552 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
553 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
554 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
555 can be edited for each replacement.
558 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
559 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
562 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
563 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
565 ** File operation changes:
568 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
569 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
570 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
571 is only rarely needed.
574 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
575 suffix from every line before processing all the lines.
578 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
579 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
582 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
583 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
586 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
589 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
591 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
592 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
593 directory with Dired.
596 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
597 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
598 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
602 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
603 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
606 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
607 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
608 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
609 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
610 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
611 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
614 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
615 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
616 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
619 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
620 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
621 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
624 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
625 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
626 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
627 in data loss, use with care.
630 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
631 Emacs asks for confirmation.
634 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
636 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
637 when visiting the file.
639 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
640 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
641 when saving the file.
644 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
645 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
646 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
647 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
648 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
651 ** Minibuffer changes:
654 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
655 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
658 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
659 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
660 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
664 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
666 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
667 have in common and where they begin to differ.
669 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
670 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
671 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
672 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
673 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
674 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
675 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
676 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
678 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
679 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
680 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
681 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
685 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
686 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
687 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
688 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
689 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
690 candidate is a directory.
693 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
694 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
695 it remains unchanged.
698 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
699 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
700 elements are deleted.
702 ** Redisplay changes:
705 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
706 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
707 appears between the position information and the major mode.
710 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
713 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
714 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
715 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
718 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
719 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
720 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
721 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
723 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
724 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
725 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
726 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
727 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
728 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
730 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
731 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
734 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller than
735 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
739 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
740 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
741 the mode line of the currently selected window.
743 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
744 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
747 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
748 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
749 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
750 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
754 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
755 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
756 the window can be scrolled.
758 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
759 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
760 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
762 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
763 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
765 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
766 position of each bitmap individually.
768 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
769 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
770 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
771 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
774 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
775 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
776 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
777 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
778 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
780 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
781 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
784 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
785 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
786 outside those margins.
789 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
790 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
792 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
793 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
794 or when the frame is resized.
796 ** Cursor display changes:
799 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
800 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
803 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
806 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
807 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
808 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
812 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
813 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
817 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
818 of the recognized cursor types.
821 *** On text terminals, the variable `visible-cursor' controls whether Emacs
822 uses the "very visible" cursor (the default) or the normal cursor.
827 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
828 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
831 *** `mode-line-buffer-id' is the standard face for buffer identification
832 parts of the mode line.
835 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
836 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
837 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
838 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
839 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
840 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
843 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
845 ** Font-Lock changes:
848 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
849 M-o M-o requests refontification.
852 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
853 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
854 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
856 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
857 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
861 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
862 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
863 The default value is 1.
866 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
867 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
868 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
869 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
870 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
873 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
876 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
879 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
880 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
881 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
882 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
885 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
886 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
887 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
888 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
889 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
892 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
894 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
895 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
896 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
897 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
900 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
902 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
903 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
904 refontification takes place.
909 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
910 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
911 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
912 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
913 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
914 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
917 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
920 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
923 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
924 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
925 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
928 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
929 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
932 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
933 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
936 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
937 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
938 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
941 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
942 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
945 *** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
946 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
952 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
953 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
954 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
955 can be selected only when it is active.
958 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
959 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
960 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
961 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
962 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
966 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
968 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
969 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
970 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
971 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
972 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
973 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
975 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
976 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
977 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
978 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
979 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
980 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
981 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
982 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
983 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
985 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
986 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
987 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
990 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
991 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
993 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
994 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
997 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
998 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
999 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1000 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1001 also disable mouse highlighting.
1004 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1005 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1006 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1009 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1010 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1013 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1015 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1016 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1017 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1018 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1021 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1023 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1026 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1027 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1028 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1029 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1030 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1033 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1034 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1035 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1036 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1037 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1038 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1039 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1040 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1043 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1044 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1047 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1051 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1055 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1059 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1060 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1061 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1065 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1066 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1069 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1070 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1071 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1072 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1073 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1074 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1075 mule-unicode-... ones.
1077 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1078 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1079 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1082 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1083 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1084 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1085 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1086 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1089 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1090 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1091 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1092 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1095 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1096 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1097 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1098 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1099 automatically according to the locale.)
1102 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1103 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1104 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1105 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1106 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1110 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1114 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1115 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1116 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1117 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1121 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1122 M-t (transpose-words)
1123 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1126 *** Indian support has been updated.
1127 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1128 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1129 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1133 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1136 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1137 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1138 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1139 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1140 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1141 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1142 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1143 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1144 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1145 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1146 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1147 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1150 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1151 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1152 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1155 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1156 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1157 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1158 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1159 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1162 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1163 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1166 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1167 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1168 fontset appropriately.
1170 ** Customize changes:
1173 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1174 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1175 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1176 enable-theme to renable a disabled theme.
1179 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1180 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1181 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1185 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1186 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1187 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1188 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1189 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1190 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1191 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1194 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1195 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1196 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1197 under the "[State]" button.
1199 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1202 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1203 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to T in Buffer Menu
1207 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1208 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1209 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1212 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1213 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1214 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1216 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1217 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1218 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1219 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1220 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1222 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1223 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1224 t, and the status is shown.
1226 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1227 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1232 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1233 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1234 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1237 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1238 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1241 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1242 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1245 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1246 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1247 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1248 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1249 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1250 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1253 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1254 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1257 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1259 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1260 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1261 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1265 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1266 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1267 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1268 directory listing into a buffer.
1273 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1274 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1275 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1276 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1277 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1279 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1280 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1282 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1283 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1284 lines, including any prompts.
1286 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1287 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1288 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1289 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1290 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1291 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1292 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1295 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1296 modes (shell-mode, etc.) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1297 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1298 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1301 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1302 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1303 but declared obsolete.
1305 ** M-x Compile changes:
1308 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1310 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1311 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1312 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1313 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1315 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1316 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1317 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1319 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1320 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1321 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1322 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1323 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1325 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1328 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1329 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1330 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1331 subprocesses inherit.
1334 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1335 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1338 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1339 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1340 in new face `next-error'.
1343 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1344 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1345 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1346 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1347 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1351 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1352 the compilation buffer.
1355 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1356 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1357 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1358 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1361 ** Occur mode changes:
1364 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1365 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1369 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1370 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1373 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1374 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1375 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1376 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1377 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1382 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1384 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1385 customization group.
1388 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1390 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1391 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1394 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1395 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1398 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1399 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1400 settings, for grep commands only.
1403 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1404 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1405 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1406 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1407 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1408 source line is highlighted.
1411 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1412 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1413 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1414 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1415 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1416 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1420 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1421 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1422 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1423 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1424 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1425 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1427 ** X Windows Support:
1430 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1431 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1432 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1435 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1436 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1437 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1438 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1440 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1441 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1444 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1445 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1447 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1448 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1451 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1452 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1453 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1454 and use the more appropriately result.
1457 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1458 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1459 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1464 *** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
1465 display margin, when run in an xterm.
1468 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1469 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1470 following should work:
1471 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1472 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1473 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1475 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1478 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1479 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1480 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1481 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1482 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1483 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1484 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1485 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1486 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1489 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1490 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1491 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1492 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1493 all of these colors.
1496 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1497 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1498 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1499 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1503 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1505 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1507 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1509 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1510 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1511 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1512 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1513 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1516 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1517 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1520 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1522 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1523 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1524 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1528 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1529 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1532 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1533 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1534 program files that include other program files.
1536 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1537 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1541 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1543 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1544 Emacs Lisp. The prefix for Calc has been changed to `C-x *' and Calc
1545 can be started with `C-x * *'. The Calc manual is separate from the
1546 Emacs manual; within Emacs, type "C-h i m calc RET" to read the
1547 manual. A reference card is available in `etc/calccard.tex' and
1551 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1552 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1555 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1557 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1558 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1559 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1560 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1563 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1564 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1567 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1569 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1570 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1571 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1572 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1573 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1574 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1576 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1577 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1578 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1579 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1581 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1582 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1583 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1584 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1585 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1586 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1587 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1589 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1590 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1591 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1593 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1594 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1596 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1597 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1598 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1599 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1601 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1602 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1603 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1604 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1606 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1607 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1608 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1609 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1612 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1614 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1615 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1616 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1619 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1620 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1622 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1623 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1624 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1627 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1628 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1629 to increment the SOA serial.
1632 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1633 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1634 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1635 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1636 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1637 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1640 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1641 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1644 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1645 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1646 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1647 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1648 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1650 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1651 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1652 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1653 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1654 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1655 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1657 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1658 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1659 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1660 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1661 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1662 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1663 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1664 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1665 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1669 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1670 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1672 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1673 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1674 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1675 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1677 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1680 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1681 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1682 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1683 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1684 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1687 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1688 the keyboard macro ring.
1690 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1691 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1693 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1694 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1695 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1696 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1698 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1699 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1700 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1703 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1704 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1705 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1708 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1709 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1712 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1713 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1714 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1715 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1716 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1717 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1718 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1719 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1720 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1723 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1725 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1726 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1727 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1728 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1729 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1730 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1733 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1734 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1735 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1736 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1738 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1741 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1742 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1743 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1747 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1748 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1749 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1750 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1753 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1754 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1757 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1758 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1759 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1760 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1761 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1762 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1764 ** The tumme.el package allows you to easily view, tag and in other ways
1765 manipulate image files and their thumbnails, using dired as the main interface.
1766 Tumme provides functionality to generate simple image galleries.
1769 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1771 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1772 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1773 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1774 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1775 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1776 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1777 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1778 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1779 `rsync' to do the copying).
1781 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1782 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1784 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1786 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1789 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1792 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1793 configuration files.
1796 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1797 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1798 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1799 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1800 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1804 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1807 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1810 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1811 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1813 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1814 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1815 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1816 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1817 boundaries during scrolling.
1819 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1821 ** Changes in Hi Lock:
1824 *** hi-lock-mode now only affects a single buffer, and a new function
1825 `global-hi-lock-mode' enables Hi Lock in all buffers. By default, if
1826 hi-lock-mode is used in what appears to be the initialization file, a
1827 warning message suggests to use global-hi-lock-mode instead. However,
1828 if the new variable `hi-lock-archaic-interface-deduce' is non-nil,
1829 using hi-lock-mode in an initialization file will turn on Hi Lock in all
1830 buffers and no warning will be issued (for compatibility with the
1831 behavior in older versions of Emacs).
1833 ** Changes in Allout
1835 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
1836 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
1837 clear-text within a single file to your hearts content, using symmetric
1838 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
1839 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
1840 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
1843 *** many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
1845 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
1846 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
1847 - prevent "containment discontinuities" where a topic is shifted deeper
1848 than the offspring-depth of its container
1849 - easy to adopt the distinctive bullet of a topic in a topic created
1850 relative to it, or select a new one, or use the common topic bullet
1851 - plain bullets, by default, now alternate between only two characters
1852 ('.' and ','), yielding less cluttered outlines
1853 - many internal fixes
1854 - version number incremented to 2.1
1856 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1857 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1858 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1859 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1860 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1863 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1865 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1866 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1868 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1869 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1870 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1872 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1873 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1874 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1875 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1876 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1879 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp, BSD make and imake.
1881 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter three
1882 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1886 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1887 of the file that precede the first header line.
1890 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1893 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1894 run most curses applications now.
1897 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1900 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1901 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1902 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1904 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1905 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1906 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1909 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1910 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1913 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1914 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1915 incompatible change.
1918 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1921 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1922 resync points in both windows.
1925 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1927 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1928 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1931 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1932 when Emacs visits them.
1934 ** Info mode changes:
1937 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1938 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1941 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1943 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1944 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1945 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1946 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1947 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1948 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1952 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1953 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1954 search without prompting for a new search string.
1957 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1958 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1959 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1962 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
1965 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
1966 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
1969 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
1970 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
1974 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
1975 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
1976 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
1979 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
1980 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
1983 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
1984 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
1987 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
1989 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
1990 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
1993 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
1995 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
1996 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
1997 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2000 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2003 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2005 ** Lisp mode changes:
2008 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2011 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2013 *** New features in evaluation commands
2016 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2017 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2020 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2021 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2022 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2023 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2024 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2029 *** The CC Mode manual has been extensively revised.
2030 The information about using CC Mode has been separated from the larger
2031 and more difficult chapters about configuration.
2033 *** Changes in Key Sequences
2034 **** c-toggle-auto-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-t.
2036 **** c-toggle-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-d.
2037 This binding has been taken over by c-hungry-delete-forwards.
2039 **** c-toggle-auto-state (C-c C-t) has been renamed to c-toggle-auto-newline.
2040 c-toggle-auto-state remains as an alias.
2042 **** The new commands c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forwards
2043 have key bindings C-c C-DEL (or C-c DEL, for the benefit of TTYs) and
2044 C-c C-d (or C-c C-<delete> or C-c <delete>) respectively. These
2045 commands delete entire blocks of whitespace with a single
2046 key-sequence. [N.B. "DEL" is the <backspace> key.]
2048 **** The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l.
2050 **** The new command c-subword-mode is bound to C-c C-w.
2052 *** C-c C-s (`c-show-syntactic-information') now highlights the anchor
2056 **** Electric Minor Mode toggles the electric action of non-alphabetic keys.
2057 The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l. Turning the
2058 mode off can be helpful for editing chaotically indented code and for
2059 users new to CC Mode, who sometimes find electric indentation
2060 disconcerting. Its current state is displayed in the mode line with an
2063 **** Subword Minor Mode makes Emacs recognize word boundaries at upper case
2064 letters in StudlyCapsIdentifiers. You enable this feature by C-c C-w. It can
2065 also be used in non-CC Mode buffers. :-) Contributed by Masatake YAMATO.
2069 **** `comment-close-slash'.
2070 With this clean-up, a block (i.e. c-style) comment can be terminated by
2071 typing a slash at the start of a line.
2073 **** `c-one-liner-defun'
2074 This clean-up compresses a short enough defun (for example, an AWK
2075 pattern/action pair) onto a single line. "Short enough" is configurable.
2077 *** Font lock support.
2078 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2079 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2080 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2081 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2082 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2083 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2085 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2086 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2087 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2088 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2089 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2090 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2091 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2092 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2093 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2095 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2096 fontification in mind; Just-In-Time-Lock mode should be enabled for
2097 the highest font lock level (by default, it is). Fontifying a file
2098 with several thousand lines in one go can take the better part of a
2101 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2102 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2103 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2104 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2105 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2106 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2108 **** Support for documentation comments.
2109 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2110 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2111 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2112 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2114 Currently three kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Sun's
2115 Javadoc, Autodoc (which is used in Pike) and GtkDoc (used in C). (The
2116 last was contributed by Masatake YAMATO). This is by no means a
2117 complete list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor
2118 of choice is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2120 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2121 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2122 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2123 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2126 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2127 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2128 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2129 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2130 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2132 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2133 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2134 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2135 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2136 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2138 *** Support for the AWK language.
2139 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2140 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2141 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2144 **** Indentation Engine
2145 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2147 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2148 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2149 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2150 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2151 definition, or structured statement.
2153 The predefined line-up functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2154 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't
2155 be any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2158 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2159 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2160 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2161 the AWK language itself.
2163 **** Comment and Movement Commands
2164 These commands all work for AWK buffers. The notion of "defun" has
2165 been augmented to include AWK pattern-action pairs - the standard
2166 "defun" commands on key sequences C-M-a, C-M-e, and C-M-h use this
2167 extended definition.
2169 **** "awk" style, Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2170 A new style, "awk" has been introduced, and this is now the default
2171 style for AWK code. With auto-newline enabled, the clean-up
2172 c-one-liner-defun (see above) is useful.
2174 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2175 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2176 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2177 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2178 composition-close, and incomposition.
2180 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2181 The new functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward'
2182 provide hungry deletion without having to toggle a mode. They are
2183 bound to C-c C-DEL and C-c C-d (and several variants, for the benefit
2184 of different keyboard setups. See "Changes in key sequences" above).
2186 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2188 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2189 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2190 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2191 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2193 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2194 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2196 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2198 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2199 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2200 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2201 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2203 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2207 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2209 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2212 This change might affect code that calls `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2213 directly, and custom lineup functions if they use
2214 `c-syntactic-context'. However, the argument given to lineup
2215 functions is still a single cons cell with nil or an integer in the
2218 *** API changes for derived modes.
2220 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2221 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2222 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2223 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2224 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2226 **** New language variable system.
2227 These are variables whose values vary between CC Mode's different
2228 languages. See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2230 **** New initialization functions.
2231 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2232 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2233 `c-init-language-vars'.
2235 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2236 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2237 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2238 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2240 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2241 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2242 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2243 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2244 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2246 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2247 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2248 its substatement. E.g:
2254 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2256 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2257 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2258 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2259 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2260 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2263 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2265 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2266 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2267 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2268 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2269 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2270 empty lines within the macro better.
2272 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2273 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2274 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2276 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2277 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2278 variable `c-backslash-max-column' puts a limit on how far out
2279 backslashes can be moved.
2281 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2282 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2283 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2284 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2286 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2287 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2288 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2289 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2290 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2291 backslash) in the macro.
2293 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2294 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2295 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior is
2296 based on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after
2297 #else and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other
2298 cases (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2300 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2301 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2303 *** New lineup functions
2305 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2306 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2309 result = prefix + "A message "
2310 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2312 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2313 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2315 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2316 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2317 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2319 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2320 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2322 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2323 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2325 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2326 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2327 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2328 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2329 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2330 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2332 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2333 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2334 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2335 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2338 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2339 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2340 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2341 happen when macros are involved.
2343 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2344 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2345 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2346 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2347 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2348 line is left untouched.
2350 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2351 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2352 syntactic indentation.
2354 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2355 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2358 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2361 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2362 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2363 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2364 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2366 ** Fortran mode changes:
2369 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2370 highlighting for the old default.
2373 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2374 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2375 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2378 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2379 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2380 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2381 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2384 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2385 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2389 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2390 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2393 ** Reftex mode changes
2396 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2398 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2399 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2400 support for multifile documents.
2402 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2403 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2404 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2405 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2406 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2407 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2408 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2411 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2412 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2414 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2417 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2421 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2423 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2424 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2425 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2427 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2428 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2429 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2430 citation selection buffer.
2432 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2433 cursor as a default search string.
2435 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2436 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2438 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2439 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2441 Support for jurabib has been added.
2444 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2446 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2447 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2450 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2452 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2453 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2454 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2455 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2456 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2457 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2460 *** Miscellaneous changes
2462 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2463 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2465 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2468 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2469 to support use of font-lock.
2471 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2474 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2478 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2479 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2480 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2481 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2482 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2483 from the file name or buffer contents.
2486 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2491 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2494 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2495 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2496 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2497 TeX commands to use at startup.
2500 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2501 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2504 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2508 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2509 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2511 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2512 an existing BibTeX entry by inserting fields that may occur but are not
2515 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2517 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2518 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2519 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2520 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2521 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2522 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2524 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2525 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2527 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2528 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2530 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2531 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2533 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2534 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2536 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2537 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2538 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2540 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2541 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2543 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2544 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2546 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2547 in multiple BibTeX files.
2549 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2550 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2552 *** The new variables bibtex-expand-strings and
2553 bibtex-autokey-expand-strings control the expansion of strings when
2554 extracting the content of a BibTeX field.
2557 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2558 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2564 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2565 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2568 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2569 and other common debugger commands.
2572 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2573 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2574 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2575 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2576 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2577 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2580 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2582 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2583 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2587 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2588 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2592 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2594 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class information.
2595 Fast startup since there is no need to scan all source files up front.
2596 There is also no need to create and maintain lists of source
2597 directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath' and
2598 `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2600 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2601 set/clear operations from Java source files under the classpath, stack
2602 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2605 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2608 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2609 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2610 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2612 *** Added Customization Variables
2614 **** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2616 **** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2617 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2618 java sources (previous method).
2620 **** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for Java
2621 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2624 *** Minor Improvements
2626 **** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2627 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2628 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2629 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2632 **** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2634 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2637 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2639 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2640 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2641 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2642 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2643 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2644 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2647 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2648 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2649 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2653 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2654 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2655 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2656 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2657 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2658 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2659 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2660 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2661 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2664 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2665 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2666 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2667 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2668 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2673 The recent file list is now automatically cleaned up when recentf mode is
2674 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2677 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2678 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2679 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2681 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2682 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2683 keep in the recent list.
2685 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2686 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2687 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2688 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2689 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2691 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2692 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2693 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2699 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2702 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2704 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2707 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2711 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2712 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2717 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2718 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2719 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2721 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2722 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2725 *** New customizable variables:
2726 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2728 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2729 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2730 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2731 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2732 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2734 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2735 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2736 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2737 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2740 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2744 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2745 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2748 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2750 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2751 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2752 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2753 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2754 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2760 *** When comparing directories.
2761 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2762 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2763 from one directory to another.
2766 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2767 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2768 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2769 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2773 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2774 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2775 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2780 *** New regular expressions features
2782 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2784 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2785 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2786 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2787 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2788 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2789 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2790 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2791 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2792 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2793 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2795 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2797 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2798 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2801 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2803 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2804 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2805 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2807 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2809 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2810 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2812 *** New language parsing features
2814 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2816 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2818 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2820 **** New language HTML.
2822 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2823 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2825 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2827 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2828 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2830 **** New language Lua.
2832 All functions are tagged.
2834 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2836 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2837 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2840 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2842 **** New language PHP.
2844 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2845 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2847 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2849 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2852 *** Honour #line directives.
2854 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2855 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2856 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2857 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2858 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2860 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2862 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2863 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2864 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2870 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2871 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2873 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2874 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2875 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2878 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2880 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2883 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2884 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2886 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2887 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2888 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2891 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2894 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2896 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2897 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2898 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2900 P: annotates the previous revision
2901 N: annotates the next revision
2902 J: annotates the revision at line
2903 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2904 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2905 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2906 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2911 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2912 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2916 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2917 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2918 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2922 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2923 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2924 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2927 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2929 See the documentation of the user option
2930 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2935 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2937 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2938 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2939 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2942 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2944 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2945 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2946 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2947 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2948 used instead of the native one.
2953 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2955 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2959 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2961 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
2966 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.85. There have been major changes since
2967 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
2969 ** Calendar changes:
2972 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
2973 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
2976 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
2977 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
2980 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
2981 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
2982 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
2983 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
2984 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
2985 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
2986 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
2987 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
2988 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
2991 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
2992 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
2993 count backward from the end of the year.
2996 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
2997 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
2998 day of that ISO week.
3001 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
3002 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
3005 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
3006 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
3007 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
3008 `christian-holidays' simpler.
3011 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
3012 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
3013 and `diary-header-line-format'.
3016 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
3017 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
3018 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
3019 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
3022 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
3023 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
3024 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
3025 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
3029 ** Speedbar changes:
3031 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
3032 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
3034 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
3037 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
3038 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
3040 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
3042 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
3043 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3044 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3047 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3048 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3049 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3050 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3053 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3054 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3055 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3056 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3057 that number to `other-frame'.
3059 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3060 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3062 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3063 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3064 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3065 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3066 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3067 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3068 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3069 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3070 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3075 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
3076 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3077 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3078 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3079 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3081 The following values are supported:
3083 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3097 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3100 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3101 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3102 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3104 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3106 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3107 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3108 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3109 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3111 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3112 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3114 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3116 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3117 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3119 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3121 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3122 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3123 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3124 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3127 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3128 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3129 credentials to authenticate the user.
3131 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3132 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3133 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3135 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3136 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3138 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3139 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3142 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3143 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3147 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3152 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3154 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3155 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3156 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3157 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3160 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3162 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3163 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3166 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3168 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3169 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3170 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3171 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3172 with other details of skeleton construction.
3175 ** Hideshow mode changes
3177 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3178 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3179 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3180 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3182 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3183 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3184 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3187 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3188 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3189 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3192 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3195 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3196 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3197 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3198 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3201 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3203 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3204 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3205 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3208 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3209 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3210 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3211 using strokes as an input method.
3213 ** Emacs server changes:
3216 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3218 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3219 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3220 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3221 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3224 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3225 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3226 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3229 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3232 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3235 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3237 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3238 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3239 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3242 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3243 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3246 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3248 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3249 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3253 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3255 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3256 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3257 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3259 ** battery.el changes:
3262 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3265 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3268 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3270 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3271 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3272 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3273 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3276 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3279 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3282 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3284 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3287 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3289 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3290 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3291 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3292 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3293 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3294 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3295 where USERNAME is your user name.
3297 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3298 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3299 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3302 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3304 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3305 existing values. For example:
3307 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3309 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3310 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3313 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3315 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3316 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3319 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3321 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3324 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3326 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3327 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3328 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3329 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3330 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3331 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3334 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3336 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3337 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3338 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3339 sound support for those formats.
3342 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3344 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3347 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3349 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3350 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3351 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3354 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3356 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3357 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3358 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3359 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3360 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3361 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3362 you wish to use them in other faces.
3365 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3367 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3368 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3369 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3370 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3374 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3376 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3377 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3378 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3379 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3380 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3381 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3382 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3383 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3384 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3385 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3388 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3391 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3392 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3393 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3395 ** The variable `mac-command-key-is-meta' is obsolete. Use
3396 `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' instead.
3398 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3401 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3402 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3405 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3406 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3407 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3411 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3412 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3413 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3416 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3419 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3420 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3422 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3424 ** General Lisp changes:
3426 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3427 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3428 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3431 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3434 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3437 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3439 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3440 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3441 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3444 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3445 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3448 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3450 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3453 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3455 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3456 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3460 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3462 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3463 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3466 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3468 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3469 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3470 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3474 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3476 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3479 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3481 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3485 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3487 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3491 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3493 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3494 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3497 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3499 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3500 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3501 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3503 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3504 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3507 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3509 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3510 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3511 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3514 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3516 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3517 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3518 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3521 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3523 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3524 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3525 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3526 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3529 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3531 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3532 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3533 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3535 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3536 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3539 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3541 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3544 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3546 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3547 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3548 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc.).
3551 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3552 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3553 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3555 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3557 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3559 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3561 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3564 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3566 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3567 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3569 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3571 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3572 possible declaration specifiers are:
3575 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3578 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3579 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3580 but this is cleaner.)
3583 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3585 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3588 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3590 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3591 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3592 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3596 ** Variable aliases:
3598 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3600 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3601 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3602 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3603 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3605 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3606 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3608 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3610 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3611 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3612 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3614 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3615 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3618 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3619 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3621 ** defcustom changes:
3624 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3629 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3631 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3632 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3633 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3636 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3639 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3642 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3643 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3644 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3645 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3646 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3649 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3650 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3653 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3657 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3658 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3659 been declared obsolete.
3662 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3664 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3665 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3666 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3667 warnings in a separate window.
3670 ** Progress reporters.
3672 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3673 progress messages for the user.
3675 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3676 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3677 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3679 ** Buffer positions:
3682 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3683 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3684 the usable window height and width is used.
3687 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3688 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3689 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3690 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3691 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3694 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3699 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3704 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' tests if a position is in a clickable link.
3706 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3710 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3712 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3715 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3717 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3718 give up and return LIMIT.
3721 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3722 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3726 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3727 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3728 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3730 ** Text modification:
3733 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3734 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3735 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3738 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3739 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3740 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3743 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3744 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3748 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3749 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3750 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3751 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3752 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3754 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3755 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3756 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3760 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3764 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3765 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3766 be inserted is translated through it.
3771 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3772 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3776 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3781 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3782 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3783 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3786 ** Atomic change groups.
3788 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3789 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3790 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3792 (atomic-change-group
3794 (delete-region x y))
3796 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3797 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3798 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3799 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3801 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3802 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3804 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3805 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3806 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3807 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3809 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3810 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3813 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3814 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3815 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3816 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3818 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3819 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3820 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3821 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3822 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3823 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3826 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3827 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3828 returned values, like this:
3830 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3831 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3833 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3834 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3835 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3837 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3838 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3839 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3840 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3843 ** Buffer-related changes:
3846 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3848 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3851 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3854 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3855 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3856 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3857 value of VARIABLE instead.
3859 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3860 various status records in parallel.
3862 It takes a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3863 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3864 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3865 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3866 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3867 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3870 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3871 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3872 vector into the variable and returns t.
3874 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3875 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3879 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3880 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3881 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3882 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3884 ** Local variables lists:
3887 *** Text properties in local variables.
3889 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3890 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3893 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3894 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3895 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3896 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3900 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3901 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3902 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3903 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3904 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3905 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3907 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3908 confirmation as before.
3910 ** Searching and matching changes:
3913 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3914 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3915 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3918 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3919 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3920 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3921 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3923 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3924 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3927 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3929 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3930 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3931 specified by the syntax table.
3934 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3937 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3938 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3939 characters and ranges.
3942 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3943 properties from surrounding text.
3946 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3947 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3948 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3951 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3952 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3953 passed to these functions will be reseated to point to nowhere.
3956 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3957 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3958 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3960 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3961 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3962 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3963 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3964 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3969 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
3971 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
3972 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
3973 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
3975 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
3976 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
3977 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
3980 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
3981 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
3982 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
3985 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
3986 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
3988 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
3989 elements with the following format:
3990 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3992 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3993 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3994 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
3995 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3997 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3998 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3999 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
4000 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
4001 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
4003 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
4004 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
4005 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
4006 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
4007 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
4008 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
4009 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
4010 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
4012 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
4013 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
4016 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4017 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
4018 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
4019 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4020 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
4022 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
4023 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
4024 string. The old behavior is available if you call
4025 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
4027 ** Syntax table changes:
4030 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
4033 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
4034 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
4035 of text properties as well as the character code.
4038 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
4042 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
4043 current syntactic context at point.
4045 ** File operation changes:
4048 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4049 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4052 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4053 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4057 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4058 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4059 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4060 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4063 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4064 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4067 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4068 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4069 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4072 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4074 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4077 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4078 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4081 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4082 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4083 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4084 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4087 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4088 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4089 tasks. For example, it can be used by the copyright package to make
4090 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4093 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4094 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4098 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4099 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4100 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4101 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4102 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4103 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4104 further filter candidate files.
4106 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4107 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4108 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependencies.
4111 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4113 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4114 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4115 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4116 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4117 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4120 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4122 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4123 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4124 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4127 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4128 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4131 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4132 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4137 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4138 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4139 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4142 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4143 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4144 it returns just the directory name.
4147 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4148 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4149 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4152 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4153 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4154 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4155 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4156 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4158 ** Minibuffer changes:
4161 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4162 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4163 defaults to the current buffer.
4166 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4167 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4170 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4171 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4174 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4175 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
4176 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4177 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4178 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4181 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4182 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4185 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4186 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4187 `read-file-name' function.
4190 *** The new function `read-directory-name' is for reading a directory name.
4192 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4193 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4195 ** Completion changes:
4198 *** The new function `minibuffer-completion-contents' returns the contents
4199 of the minibuffer just before point. That is what completion commands
4203 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4204 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4205 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4206 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4207 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4210 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4211 as a dynamic completion table.
4213 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4215 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4216 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4217 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4218 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4219 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4220 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4223 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4224 as a lazy completion table.
4226 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN)
4228 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4229 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with no
4230 arguments. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR.
4231 If completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4232 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4233 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4236 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4238 *** New keymaps for typing file names
4240 Two new keymaps, `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map' and
4241 `minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map', apply whenever
4242 Emacs reads a file name in the minibuffer. These key maps override
4243 the usual binding of SPC to `minibuffer-complete-word' (so that file
4244 names with embedded spaces could be typed without the need to quote
4247 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4249 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4250 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4253 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4255 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4257 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4258 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4259 binding and lookup functionality.
4261 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4262 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4266 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4267 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4268 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4269 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4272 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4273 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4274 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4276 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4277 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4279 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4280 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4282 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4283 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4284 runs `my-kill-line'.
4286 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4288 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4289 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4290 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4291 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4293 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4294 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4296 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4297 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4299 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4300 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4301 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4302 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4303 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4304 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4306 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4307 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4308 command was not remapped.
4310 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4311 over minor mode keymaps.
4313 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4314 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4315 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4317 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4319 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4320 bindings of the parent keymap.
4322 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4324 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4327 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4328 defined keys and their definitions.
4330 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4332 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4335 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4337 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4338 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4339 keymap alist to this list.
4344 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4346 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4349 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4351 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4352 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4353 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4357 ** Enhancements to process support
4359 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4360 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4362 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4364 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4365 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4368 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4369 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4371 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4372 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4374 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4375 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4376 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4377 entire property list of a process.
4379 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4380 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4381 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4382 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4383 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4386 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4388 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4389 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4390 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4391 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4392 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4393 from such processes, allowing them to produce more output before
4394 emacs tries to read it.
4396 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4398 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4400 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4401 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4402 `default-directory'.
4404 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4405 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4407 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4408 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4409 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4411 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4412 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4414 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4415 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4417 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4418 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4419 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4420 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4421 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4424 ** Enhanced networking support.
4426 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4427 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4428 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4430 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4431 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4432 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4433 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4434 - IPv6 is supported (when available). You may explicitly select IPv6
4435 using :family 'ipv6 arg.
4436 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4437 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4438 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4439 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4441 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4442 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4443 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:family ipv6))
4445 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4447 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4449 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4450 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4452 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4454 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4455 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4456 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4457 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4458 string for other formatting options.
4460 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4462 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4463 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4464 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4466 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4467 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4469 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4471 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4472 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4473 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4476 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4478 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4479 current network addresses.
4481 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4483 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4484 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4486 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4488 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4489 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4490 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4491 "connection broken by remote peer".
4493 ** Using window objects:
4496 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4498 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4502 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4504 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4508 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4510 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4511 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4512 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4513 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4514 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4517 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4518 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4519 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4523 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4524 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4527 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4528 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4529 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4532 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4534 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4537 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4538 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4539 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4543 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4545 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4546 and scroll-bar settings.
4549 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4552 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4553 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4557 *** The new function `adjust-window-trailing-edge' moves the right
4558 or bottom edge of a window. It does not move other window edges.
4561 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4563 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4564 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4566 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4567 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation' or `continued-line'.
4569 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4570 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4572 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4573 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4574 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4575 foreground color of the bitmap.
4577 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4578 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4579 bitmap of the display line.
4581 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4582 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4583 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4584 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4585 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4587 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4588 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4590 ** Other window fringe features:
4593 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4595 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4596 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4597 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4598 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4600 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4601 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4602 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4603 between the left and right fringe. To force a specific fringe width,
4604 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4605 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4607 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4608 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4609 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4610 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4613 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4615 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4618 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4619 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4620 `set-window-fringes'.
4622 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4623 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4624 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4625 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4627 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4628 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4629 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4630 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4631 an update of the display margins.
4633 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4634 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4636 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4637 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4638 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4639 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4640 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4641 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4642 of the display margins.
4644 ** Redisplay features:
4647 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4650 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4651 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4652 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4653 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4654 forcing an explicit window update.
4657 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4658 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4659 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4661 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4662 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4665 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4666 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4668 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4669 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4671 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4672 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4673 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4674 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4675 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4676 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4679 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4681 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4682 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4684 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4685 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4686 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4687 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4688 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4690 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4691 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4692 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4694 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4695 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4698 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4699 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4700 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4702 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4703 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4705 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4706 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4707 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4708 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4709 exactly that many pixels high.
4711 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4712 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4713 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4714 the `line-spacing' variable.
4716 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4717 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4720 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4721 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4724 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4726 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4727 PROPS is a property list, now allows pixel based width and height
4728 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4730 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4731 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4734 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4735 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4736 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4737 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4739 POS ::= left | center | right
4740 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4743 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4744 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4745 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4746 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4747 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4748 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4749 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4752 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4753 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4754 corresponding area of the window.
4756 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4757 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4758 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4759 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4760 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4761 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4762 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4763 the width of the area.
4765 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4766 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4768 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4769 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4770 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4772 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4773 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4774 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4775 height) of the specified image.
4777 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4778 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4781 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4782 text property string that may be present at the current window
4783 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4784 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4787 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4788 supported on text terminals.
4791 *** Support for displaying image slices
4793 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4794 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4796 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4797 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4799 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4800 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4803 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4805 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4806 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4807 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4808 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4809 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4810 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4811 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4812 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4814 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4815 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4816 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4817 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4818 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4819 for possible pointer shapes.
4821 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4822 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4823 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4826 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4827 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4828 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4829 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4830 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4831 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4832 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4834 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4837 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
4838 images that Emacs will load and display.
4840 ** Mouse pointer features:
4844 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4845 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4846 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4847 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4848 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4851 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4852 :pointer image property.
4855 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4856 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4858 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4861 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4862 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4865 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4866 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4867 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4870 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4873 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4876 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4880 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4884 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4885 of the mouse event position.
4888 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4891 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4892 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4895 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4896 (image or character) clicked on.
4899 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4901 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4902 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4903 the total width and height of that object.
4905 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4908 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4909 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4912 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4914 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4915 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4916 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4917 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4920 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4921 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4922 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4923 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4924 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4927 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4929 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4930 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4935 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4936 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4937 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4938 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4939 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4940 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4943 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4944 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4946 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4947 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4948 defined with `defface'.
4951 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4952 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4953 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4954 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4955 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4958 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4959 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4960 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
4964 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
4965 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
4966 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
4967 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
4968 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
4971 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
4972 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
4973 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
4976 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
4978 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
4979 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
4983 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
4984 help with handling relative face attributes.
4987 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
4989 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4990 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
4991 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
4992 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
4996 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
4997 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
4998 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
4999 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
5000 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
5003 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
5004 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
5006 ** Font-Lock changes:
5009 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
5011 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
5012 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
5013 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
5014 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5017 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
5019 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
5020 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
5021 properties than `face'.
5023 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
5024 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
5027 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
5029 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
5030 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
5031 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
5032 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
5033 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
5041 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
5042 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
5043 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
5044 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
5046 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
5049 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
5050 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
5051 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
5052 variable `magic-mode-alist'.
5055 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
5058 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
5059 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
5060 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5063 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5064 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5068 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5069 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5073 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5074 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5077 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5078 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5079 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5081 ** Minor mode changes:
5084 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5085 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5088 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5091 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5093 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5094 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5096 ** Command loop changes:
5099 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5100 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5101 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5103 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5104 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5107 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5109 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5110 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5114 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5115 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5116 covered by an image or composition property.
5118 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5119 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5120 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5121 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5122 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5125 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5126 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5127 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5128 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5129 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5132 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5133 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5134 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5137 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5138 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5140 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5143 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5144 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5145 current file redefined it).
5148 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5149 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5152 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5153 variable or face definitions.
5156 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5157 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5158 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5161 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5162 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5163 than 3 levels of nesting.
5166 ** Byte compiler changes:
5168 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5169 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5170 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5171 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5172 compilation output buffer.
5174 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5175 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5177 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5178 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5179 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5180 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5183 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5184 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5186 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5187 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5188 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5189 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5190 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5191 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5193 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5194 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5195 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5196 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5197 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5200 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5203 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5204 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5205 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5207 ** Frame operations:
5210 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5212 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5213 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5216 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5217 for all (existing and future) frames.
5220 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5221 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5222 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5223 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5226 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5227 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5232 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5234 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5235 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5236 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5239 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5241 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5242 the time it takes to convert the format.
5244 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5248 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5249 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5252 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5253 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5254 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5255 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5258 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5259 of one coding system from another coding system.
5262 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5263 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5267 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5268 it is read from a file without decoding.
5271 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5272 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5275 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5276 current input method to input a character.
5278 ** Mode line changes:
5281 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5283 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5284 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5287 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5288 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5291 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5292 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5296 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5298 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5301 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5302 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5303 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5304 several versions ago.
5307 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5308 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5309 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5311 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5312 made with easy-menu.
5315 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5316 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5317 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5318 need to have a name.
5320 ** Operating system access:
5323 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5324 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5327 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5328 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5329 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5332 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5335 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5336 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5337 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5340 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5341 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5346 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5348 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5349 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5350 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5351 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5352 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5353 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5354 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5356 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5359 *** Variable `local-write-file-hooks' is marked obsolete.
5361 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5364 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5370 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5371 as the heap size increases.
5374 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5375 on garbage collection.
5378 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5380 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5382 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5385 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5386 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5387 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5388 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5389 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5392 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5393 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5394 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5397 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5398 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5402 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5403 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5405 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5406 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5407 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5410 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5411 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5414 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5415 (function (lambda ()
5417 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5418 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5419 (function (lambda ()
5420 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5423 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5425 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5428 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5430 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5431 code. It works with edebug.
5433 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5434 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5435 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5436 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5437 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5439 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5440 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5441 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5442 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5443 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5444 value, such as (setq x 14).
5446 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5447 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5448 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5449 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5450 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5451 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5453 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5455 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5459 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5461 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5464 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5467 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5470 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5471 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5472 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5473 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5474 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5475 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5476 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5477 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5478 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5479 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5481 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5482 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5484 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5485 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5486 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5487 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5488 contrary to the compound text specification.
5491 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5493 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5495 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5498 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5500 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5502 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5503 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5504 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5505 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5506 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5508 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5511 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5512 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5514 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5515 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5516 instead of using default-major-mode.
5518 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5519 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5520 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5521 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5522 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5523 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5524 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5526 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5530 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5532 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5533 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5534 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5536 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5537 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5540 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5542 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5543 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5544 charsets in this release.
5546 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5548 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5550 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5551 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5554 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5555 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5556 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5557 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5558 necessary changes to unexec.
5560 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5561 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5563 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5564 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5566 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5567 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5569 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5570 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5571 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5572 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5573 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5575 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5576 new display features described below.
5579 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5581 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5583 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5584 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5585 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5586 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5589 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5591 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5592 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5593 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5594 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5597 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5598 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5599 under Lisp changes, below.
5601 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5603 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5604 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5605 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5606 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5607 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5608 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5611 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5612 supported on character terminals.
5614 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5615 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5616 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5617 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5619 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5623 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5624 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5625 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5626 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5629 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5631 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5632 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5633 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5634 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5636 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5638 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5639 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5640 specifies a number of lines.
5644 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5646 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5647 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5648 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5651 Default is `grow-only'.
5655 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5656 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5658 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5660 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5661 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5664 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5666 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5667 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5668 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5670 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5672 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5673 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5674 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5675 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5676 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5679 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5680 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5681 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5682 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5683 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5684 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5686 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5687 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5688 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5689 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5690 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5691 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5693 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5694 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5695 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5696 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5697 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5699 ** Tool bar support.
5701 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5702 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5703 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5704 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5705 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5708 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5709 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5713 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5714 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5715 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5717 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5718 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5719 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5720 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5722 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5724 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5725 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5728 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5729 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5730 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5731 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5732 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5734 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5735 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5736 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5737 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5738 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5739 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5741 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5742 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5743 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5744 customizing face `fringe'.
5746 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5747 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5748 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5749 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5750 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5751 the window to be partially obscured.)
5753 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5754 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5755 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5756 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5758 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5760 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5761 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5762 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5763 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5764 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5767 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5769 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5771 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5773 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5774 `*') toggles the status.
5776 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5778 ** Hourglass pointer
5780 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5781 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5785 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5786 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5787 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5790 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5792 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5793 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5794 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5797 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5798 have to do anything to activate it.
5800 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5802 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5803 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5805 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5806 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5807 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5808 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5809 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5810 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5811 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5812 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5814 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5815 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5816 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5817 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5818 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5819 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5821 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5822 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5824 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5825 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5828 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5829 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5830 beginning and end of the buffer.
5832 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5833 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5836 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5837 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5839 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5840 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5843 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5844 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5847 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5849 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5850 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5851 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5853 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5854 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5855 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5857 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5860 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5862 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5863 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5864 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5865 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5866 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5869 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5870 all frames except the selected one.
5872 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5873 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5875 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5876 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5877 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5878 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5879 `Info-use-header-line'.
5881 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5882 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5883 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5885 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5887 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5888 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5891 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5892 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5893 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5894 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5896 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5898 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5899 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5900 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5901 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5903 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5904 point in a pop-up window.
5906 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5907 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5908 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5910 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5911 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5913 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5914 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5915 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5916 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5918 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5920 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5921 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5923 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5924 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5925 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5927 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5928 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5931 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5932 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5933 file that is already visited under a different name.
5935 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5936 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5938 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5939 and displays information about that.
5941 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5942 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5944 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5945 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5946 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5947 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5948 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5949 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5951 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5952 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5954 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5955 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5956 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5957 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5958 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5959 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5960 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5962 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5963 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5965 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5966 system for keyboard input.
5968 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5969 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5970 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5971 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5972 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5973 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5974 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5975 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5976 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5978 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5979 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5981 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5982 displays all characters in that character set.
5984 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5985 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5987 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5988 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5989 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5991 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5992 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5993 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5994 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5995 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5996 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5999 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
6000 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
6003 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
6004 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
6005 Lisp Coding Convention".
6007 new command old-binding
6008 --- ------- -----------
6009 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
6010 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
6011 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
6013 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
6014 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
6015 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
6017 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
6018 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
6019 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
6020 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
6021 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
6022 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
6024 ** There are new Leim input methods.
6025 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
6026 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
6029 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
6030 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
6031 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
6032 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
6033 "`", you must type "=q".
6035 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
6036 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
6037 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
6038 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
6039 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
6042 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
6043 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
6044 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
6045 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
6047 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
6048 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
6049 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
6050 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
6052 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
6053 on the display using several methods
6055 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
6056 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
6057 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
6059 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
6060 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
6062 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6064 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6065 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6067 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6068 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6069 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6070 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6072 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6073 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6074 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6076 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6077 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6079 ** New X resources recognized
6081 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6082 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6083 is useful for debugging X problems.
6087 emacs.synchronous: true
6089 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6090 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6091 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6092 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6093 visual class names are
6102 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6103 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6106 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6107 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6108 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6113 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6115 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6116 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6117 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6118 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6122 emacs.privateColormap: true
6124 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6126 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6127 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6128 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6129 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6130 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6131 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6132 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6134 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6135 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6136 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6137 `default' face and vice versa.
6141 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6143 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6145 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6146 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6147 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6148 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6150 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6151 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6152 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6154 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6157 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6159 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6160 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6161 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6162 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6164 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6166 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6168 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6170 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6173 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6176 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6178 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6179 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6180 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6182 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6183 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6185 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6186 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6187 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6189 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6191 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6192 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6193 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6194 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6196 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6197 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6198 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6199 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6201 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6202 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6203 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6206 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6208 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6209 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6210 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6212 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6213 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6214 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6215 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6216 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6217 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6219 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6221 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6222 notably at the end of lines.
6224 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6225 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6227 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6229 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6230 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6232 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6233 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6234 after each match to get the replacement text.
6236 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6237 you edit the replacement string.
6239 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6240 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6241 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6243 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6245 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6246 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6248 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6249 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6250 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6251 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6254 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6255 read mail from the menu etc.
6257 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6258 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6259 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6260 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6262 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6263 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6265 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6266 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6267 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6268 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6269 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6272 ** Customize changes
6274 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6275 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6276 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6277 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6278 earlier versions of Emacs.
6280 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6281 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6284 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6285 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6286 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6287 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6290 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6291 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6292 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6293 already in your init file.
6295 ** New features in evaluation commands
6297 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6298 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6299 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6300 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6301 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6303 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6304 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6305 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6306 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6309 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6310 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6312 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6313 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6315 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6316 code when called with a prefix argument.
6320 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6321 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6322 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6323 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6324 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6325 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6328 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6329 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6330 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6333 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6334 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6335 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6336 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6338 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6339 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6341 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6342 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6344 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6345 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6346 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6347 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6349 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6350 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6351 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6352 earlier statement. An example:
6354 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6356 res += a[i]->offset;
6359 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6360 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6361 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6362 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6365 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6368 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6369 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6370 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6371 documentation or other natural language text.
6373 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6374 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6375 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6376 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6377 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6378 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6379 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6381 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6382 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6383 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6384 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6386 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6387 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6388 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6389 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6392 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6393 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6394 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6395 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6396 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6397 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6398 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6399 is reported afterwards.
6401 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6402 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6403 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6405 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6406 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6407 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6408 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6409 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6410 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6413 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6414 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6415 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6416 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6417 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6420 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6421 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6422 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6423 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6424 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6425 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6427 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6428 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6429 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6430 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6431 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6432 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6433 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6434 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6436 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6437 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6438 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6439 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6442 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6443 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6444 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6445 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6446 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6447 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6448 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6449 function documentation for more info.
6451 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6452 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6453 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6454 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6455 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6456 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6457 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6458 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6460 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6462 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6463 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6465 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6466 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6467 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6468 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6469 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6472 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6473 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6474 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6477 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6478 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6479 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6480 chapter about this in the manual.
6482 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6483 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6484 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6485 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6486 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6488 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6489 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6490 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6492 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6493 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6495 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6496 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6497 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6500 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6501 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6502 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6503 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6506 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6507 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6508 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6509 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6510 they were before the filling.
6512 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6513 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6514 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6517 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6518 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6519 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6520 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6523 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6524 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6525 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6526 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6527 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6529 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6530 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6531 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6533 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6535 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6536 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6537 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6538 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6540 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6541 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6542 the column specified by comment-column.
6544 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6545 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6546 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6547 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6548 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6549 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6551 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6552 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6555 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6557 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6558 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6559 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6560 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6563 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6567 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6568 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6569 is, delete only empty directories.
6571 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6572 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6573 copy directories recursively.
6575 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6576 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6577 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6579 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6580 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6583 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6584 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6585 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6586 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6587 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6589 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6592 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6593 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6594 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6595 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6599 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6600 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6601 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6603 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6604 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6606 If you used procmail like in
6608 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6609 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6610 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6611 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6613 this now has changed to
6616 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6619 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6620 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6622 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6623 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6624 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6625 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6627 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6628 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6629 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6631 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6632 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6633 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6634 now just a compatibility layer.
6636 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6639 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6640 called to position point.
6642 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6643 summary buffers and NOV files.
6645 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6646 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6648 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6649 subtly different manner.
6651 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6652 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6653 ever-changing layouts.
6655 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6657 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6659 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6661 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6665 -------------------------
6669 C-c C-c q @quotation
6671 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6674 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6676 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6678 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6679 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6680 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6682 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6684 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6685 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6686 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6687 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6688 buffers to kill, as before.
6690 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6691 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6694 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6695 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6697 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6699 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6700 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6701 use. Default is 1000.
6703 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6704 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6706 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6708 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6710 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6711 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6712 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6713 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6715 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6716 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6717 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6720 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6721 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6722 the normal block-hiding function.
6724 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6726 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6727 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6728 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6729 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6731 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6732 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6734 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6736 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6737 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6738 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6740 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6743 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6746 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6747 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6748 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6749 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6750 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6751 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6753 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6755 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6757 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6758 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6760 ** Changes in Font Lock
6762 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6763 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6765 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6766 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6768 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6769 the face used for each string/comment.
6771 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6772 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6774 ** Changes to Shell mode
6776 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6777 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6778 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6779 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6781 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6783 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6784 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6786 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6787 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6788 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6789 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6790 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6791 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6793 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6794 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6795 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6796 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6797 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6798 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6799 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6800 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6802 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6803 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6805 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6806 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6807 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6809 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6810 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6811 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6813 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6814 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6815 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6817 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6818 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6819 argument, it appends to the file.
6821 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6822 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6825 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6828 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6829 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6830 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6832 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6834 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6835 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6836 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6837 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6838 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6841 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6842 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6843 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6845 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6846 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6847 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6848 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6849 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6851 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6854 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6855 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6858 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6859 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6861 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6862 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6863 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6865 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6866 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6868 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6869 use the -f option when sending mail.
6871 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6872 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6873 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6874 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6875 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6876 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6878 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6879 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6880 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6882 ** Changes to TeX mode
6884 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6887 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6889 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6891 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6893 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6895 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6896 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6897 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6898 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6899 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6900 can be edited from that buffer.
6902 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6903 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6904 `A' to use all marked entries).
6906 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6907 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6909 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6910 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6911 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6914 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6915 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6916 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6917 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6919 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6920 has the following new features:
6922 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6923 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6924 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6925 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6927 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6928 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6929 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6930 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6931 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6934 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6939 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6940 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6941 spell-checks the current buffer.
6943 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6946 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6947 correction is made and re-checked.
6949 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6951 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6954 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6957 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6960 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6962 ** Makefile mode changes
6964 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6966 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6967 Fontlock mode is active.
6971 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6972 so that searches can be resumed.
6974 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6975 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6976 that started the search.
6978 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6979 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6981 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6983 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6984 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6985 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6986 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6987 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6988 `secondary-selection'.
6990 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6991 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6992 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6993 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6994 usual snappy response.
6996 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6997 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6998 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6999 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
7003 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
7004 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
7005 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
7006 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
7007 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
7008 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
7009 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
7010 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
7011 file is registered in that backend.
7013 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
7014 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
7015 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
7016 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
7017 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
7018 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
7020 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
7021 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
7022 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
7023 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
7024 where it doesn't make sense.)
7026 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
7027 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
7028 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
7032 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
7033 checks are always done now.
7035 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
7038 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
7039 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
7040 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
7042 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
7043 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
7044 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
7045 the working file (``merge news'').
7047 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7048 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
7051 *** Multiple Backends
7053 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
7054 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
7055 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
7056 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
7059 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
7060 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
7061 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
7062 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7064 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7065 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7066 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7067 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7068 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7070 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7071 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7072 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7073 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7075 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7076 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7077 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7078 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7082 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7083 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7084 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7085 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7086 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7087 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7088 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7090 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7091 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7092 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7093 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7094 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7095 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7096 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7097 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7098 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7099 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7100 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7103 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7104 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7105 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7106 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7107 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7108 entire directory tree.
7110 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7111 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7112 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7113 "watched" by other developers.)
7115 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7116 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7117 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7118 starting at the given directory.
7120 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7122 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7123 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7124 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7125 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7126 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7127 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7128 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7129 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7130 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7132 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7133 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7134 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7135 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7137 ** New modes and packages
7139 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7140 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7141 the default is not applicable.
7143 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7144 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7145 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7149 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7150 drawn, like this: | \ /
7154 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7155 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7156 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7157 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7158 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7161 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7162 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7164 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7167 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7168 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7169 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7170 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7172 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7173 also do without the mouse.
7175 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7176 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7177 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7178 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7179 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7181 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7183 lines straight-lines
7185 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7187 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7188 spray-can setting size for spraying
7189 vaporize line vaporize lines
7190 erase characters erase rectangles
7192 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7193 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7194 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7197 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7198 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7199 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7200 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7202 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7205 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7206 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7207 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7208 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7209 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7210 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7211 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7212 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7213 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7215 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7216 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7217 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7218 on certain projects.
7220 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7221 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7223 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7225 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7226 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7227 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7228 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7229 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7230 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7231 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7232 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7234 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7237 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7238 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7240 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7241 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7243 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7244 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7245 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7246 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7247 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7249 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7250 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7251 separate Texinfo file.
7253 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7254 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7255 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7256 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7257 enter check-in log messages.
7259 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7260 without invoking external programs.
7262 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7263 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7264 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7265 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7266 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7268 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7269 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7271 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7272 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7274 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7275 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7276 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7277 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7278 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7281 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7282 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7283 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7284 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7286 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7287 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7288 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7290 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7293 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7295 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7297 ; comment (until end of line)
7301 $A default non-terminal
7302 $"C" default terminal
7303 $?C? default special
7304 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7305 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7306 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7307 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7308 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7309 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7310 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7311 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7312 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7313 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7314 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7315 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7316 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7317 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7318 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7320 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7322 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7323 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7324 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7325 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7326 equal signs of assignments.
7328 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7329 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7331 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7332 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7333 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7335 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7337 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7338 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7339 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7340 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7341 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7342 which answers different needs.
7344 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7345 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7346 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7347 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7348 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7351 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7352 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7354 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7356 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7357 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7358 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7360 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7362 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7363 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7364 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7365 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7366 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7367 and background colors.
7369 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7372 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7375 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7377 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7379 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7380 whitespace in a file.
7382 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7383 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7384 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7385 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7386 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7387 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7388 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7390 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7392 Here is an example of columns:
7395 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7396 porcupine strawberry airplane
7398 Doing the following settings:
7400 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7401 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7402 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7403 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7406 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7408 M-x delimit-columns-region
7412 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7413 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7414 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7416 delim-col has the following options:
7418 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7421 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7422 between each column.
7424 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7427 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7430 delim-col has the following commands:
7432 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7433 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7435 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7436 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7437 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7438 recent file list can be displayed:
7440 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7441 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7442 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7444 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7445 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7447 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7450 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7451 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7452 specific to Message mode.
7454 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7455 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7456 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7458 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7459 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7460 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7462 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7463 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7465 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7467 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7468 minibuffer with completion.
7470 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7471 with the diary features.
7473 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7474 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7476 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7479 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7480 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7481 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7482 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7484 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7485 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7488 ** Changes in sort.el
7490 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7491 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7492 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7495 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7497 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7498 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7499 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7501 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7502 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7504 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7505 output ^M at the end of lines.
7507 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7508 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7510 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7511 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7514 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7517 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7518 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7521 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7522 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7523 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7524 nil -- just delete one character.
7526 Default value is `untabify'.
7528 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7530 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7531 symbol, not double-quoted.
7533 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7534 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7535 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7536 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7538 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7539 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7540 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7542 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7543 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7544 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7546 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7547 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7549 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7550 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7552 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7553 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7555 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7556 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7557 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7558 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7559 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7560 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7562 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7563 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7565 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7567 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7568 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7570 ** Shell script mode changes.
7572 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7573 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7574 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7578 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7580 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7581 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7582 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7583 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7584 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7586 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7587 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7589 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7590 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7592 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7593 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7594 `template' keywords.
7596 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7597 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7599 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7602 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7604 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7606 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7609 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7611 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7612 variables are tagged.
7614 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7616 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7619 ** Changes in etags.el
7621 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7622 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7623 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7625 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7626 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7628 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7629 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7630 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7631 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7633 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7635 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7636 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7638 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7640 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7641 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7642 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7644 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7645 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7647 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7648 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7650 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7651 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7652 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7653 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7654 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7656 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7657 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7658 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7660 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7661 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7662 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7664 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7665 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7666 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7668 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7670 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7672 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7673 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7674 expression from that list, are not checked.
7676 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7677 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7678 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7679 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7681 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7683 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7684 displays local abbrevs, only.
7686 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7687 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7689 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7690 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7691 is measured in pixels.
7693 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7694 to be visited as images.
7696 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7697 were added to compile.el.
7699 ** Withdrawn packages
7701 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7702 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7704 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7706 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7709 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7711 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7712 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7713 See the sections below for details.
7715 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7716 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7717 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7718 to remove the properties of the copy.
7720 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7721 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7722 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7723 these properties are active.
7725 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7726 ranges may affect some code.
7728 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7729 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7730 make a difference to some code.
7732 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7733 operates on the minibuffer.
7735 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7736 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7737 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7738 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7739 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7740 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7741 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7742 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7743 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7744 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7745 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7746 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7748 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7749 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7750 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7752 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7753 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7754 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7756 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7757 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7758 such as `mapconcat'.
7760 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7763 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7764 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7765 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7766 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7767 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7768 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7769 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7770 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7772 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7773 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7774 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7775 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7776 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7777 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7778 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7779 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7780 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7781 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7784 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7785 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7787 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7789 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7790 allows the animated display of strings.
7792 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7793 interactive form of a function.
7795 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7796 between custom options. Example:
7798 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7799 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7800 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7801 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7803 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7804 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7806 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7807 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7808 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7810 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7811 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7812 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7813 (signal or normal termination).
7815 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7816 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7818 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7819 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7821 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7822 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7824 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7826 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7827 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7830 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7832 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7833 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7834 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7835 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7836 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7839 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7840 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7843 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7844 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7846 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7847 with the more general `:mask' property.
7849 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7851 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7854 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7855 is running in batch mode. For example,
7857 (message "%s" (read t))
7859 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7862 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7863 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7865 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7866 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7869 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7872 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7874 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7875 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7877 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7879 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7880 comparison is done with `eq'.
7882 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7884 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7885 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7886 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7888 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7889 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7890 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7892 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7893 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7895 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7896 function was declared obsolete.
7898 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7899 retained as an alias).
7901 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7902 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7904 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7906 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7908 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7909 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7910 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7911 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7912 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7913 means never include the minibuffer window.
7915 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7917 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7919 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7921 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7922 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7923 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7924 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7927 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7928 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7929 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7930 minibuffer even if it is active.
7932 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7933 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7934 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7935 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7936 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7937 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7939 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7940 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7941 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7942 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7943 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7944 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7945 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7947 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7948 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7949 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7951 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7952 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7953 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7954 Default value is nil.
7956 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7959 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7960 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7961 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7963 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7964 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7965 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7967 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7968 list of a primitive.
7970 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7972 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7973 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7974 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7975 than replacing the local map.
7977 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7978 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7979 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7982 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7984 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7985 as promised long ago.
7987 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7989 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7990 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7991 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7994 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7996 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7997 regular expressions.
7999 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
8001 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8005 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8007 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
8011 matches string STRING literally.
8014 matches character CHAR literally.
8017 matches any character except a newline.
8020 matches any character
8023 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
8024 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
8030 matches any character not in SET
8033 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
8034 in the text being matched
8037 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
8040 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8041 string being matched against.
8044 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8045 string being matched against.
8048 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8049 buffer being matched against.
8052 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8053 buffer being matched against.
8056 matches the empty string, but only at point.
8059 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8063 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8066 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8069 `(not word-boundary)'
8070 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8074 matches 0 through 9.
8077 matches ASCII control characters.
8080 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8083 matches space and tab only.
8086 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8090 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8094 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8095 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8098 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8099 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8102 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8105 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8108 matches anything lower-case.
8111 matches anything upper-case.
8114 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8115 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8118 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8121 matches anything that has word syntax.
8124 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8125 of the following symbols.
8127 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8128 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8131 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8132 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8133 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8134 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8135 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8137 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8138 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8139 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8141 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8142 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8144 `(category CATEGORY)'
8145 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8146 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8148 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8150 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8151 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8155 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8157 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8158 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8159 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8160 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8161 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8162 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8163 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8164 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8165 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8166 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8167 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8176 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8180 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8187 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8188 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8190 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8191 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8193 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8194 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8195 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8197 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8198 another name for `submatch'.
8200 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8201 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8202 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8205 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8206 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8207 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8208 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8209 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8211 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8212 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8214 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8215 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8218 like `zero-or-more'.
8221 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8224 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8226 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8227 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8233 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8236 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8238 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8239 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8245 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8248 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8251 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8254 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8257 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8261 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8263 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8265 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8266 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8267 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8268 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8270 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8271 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8272 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8273 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8275 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8276 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8277 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8279 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8280 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8281 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8282 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8283 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8284 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8285 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8288 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8290 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8291 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8292 character set as previously.
8294 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8295 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8296 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8298 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8299 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8300 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8301 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8303 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8304 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8306 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8307 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8310 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8311 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8313 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8314 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8315 buffers and strings.
8317 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8318 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8319 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8320 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8321 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8322 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8323 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8326 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8327 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8328 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8330 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8331 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8332 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8333 may differ between buffer and string text.
8335 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8336 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8338 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8339 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8340 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8341 `composition' from STRING.
8343 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8344 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8346 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8349 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8350 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8352 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8353 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8354 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8355 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8357 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8358 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8359 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8360 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8361 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8362 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8364 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8365 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8366 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8368 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8369 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8370 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8372 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8373 have been introduced.
8375 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8376 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8377 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8378 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8379 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8380 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8381 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8382 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8383 their multibyte equivalent.
8385 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8386 that offset in the file before writing.
8388 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8389 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8391 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8392 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8393 from which the command was issued.
8395 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8396 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8397 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8398 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8401 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8402 to `window-buffer-height'.
8404 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8406 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8407 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8408 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8410 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8413 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8414 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8416 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8417 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8418 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8420 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8421 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8422 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8423 is currently displayed in some window.
8425 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8426 argument function's results.
8428 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8429 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8430 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8431 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8434 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8435 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8437 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8438 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8440 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8441 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8444 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8445 nil don't display a cursor
8446 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8447 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8448 others display a box cursor.
8450 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8451 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8452 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8453 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8455 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8456 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8457 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8458 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8462 (string-to-syntax "()")
8465 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8468 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8469 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8476 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8481 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8486 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8493 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8494 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8497 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8498 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8499 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8500 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8502 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8504 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8505 for a regexp in a string.
8507 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8508 `mouse-position-function'.
8510 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8511 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8513 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8514 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8516 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8519 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8520 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8522 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8523 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8524 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8525 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8528 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8529 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8531 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8532 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8533 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8534 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8537 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8538 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8539 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8540 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8542 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8543 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8544 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8546 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8547 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8550 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8552 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8553 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8554 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8557 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8558 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8559 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8560 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8561 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8563 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8564 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8566 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8567 instead of being optional.
8569 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8570 modify read-only text.
8572 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8574 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8575 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8576 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8577 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8578 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8580 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8581 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8582 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8583 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8584 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8585 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8586 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8588 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8589 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8590 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8593 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8594 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8596 ** New function `propertize'
8598 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8599 strings with text properties.
8601 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8603 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8604 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8605 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8606 specified value of that property. Example:
8608 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8610 ** push and pop macros.
8612 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8613 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8614 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8616 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8617 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8618 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8620 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8622 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8623 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8625 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8626 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8627 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8628 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8630 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8631 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8632 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8633 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8635 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8636 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8637 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8640 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8641 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8642 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8643 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8644 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8646 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8648 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8649 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8650 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8651 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8652 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8653 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8654 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8655 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8656 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8657 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8658 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8659 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8660 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8661 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8662 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8664 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8666 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8668 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8670 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8671 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8675 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8676 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8677 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8681 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8682 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8684 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8686 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8687 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8688 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8689 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8690 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8692 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8694 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8695 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8696 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8700 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8701 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8702 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8703 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8704 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8706 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8708 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8710 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8712 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8714 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8716 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8719 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8721 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8723 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8725 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8727 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8729 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8731 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8733 Returns the size of TABLE.
8735 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8737 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8739 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8741 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8743 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8747 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8749 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8752 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8754 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8755 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8757 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8759 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8761 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8763 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8764 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8766 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8768 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8770 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8772 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8773 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8774 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8775 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8776 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8778 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8780 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8781 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8782 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8784 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8785 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8787 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8788 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8790 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8791 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8793 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8794 'case-fold-string-hash))
8796 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8798 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8800 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8801 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8802 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8804 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8806 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8807 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8809 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8810 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8811 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8812 is too short to reach that column.
8814 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8815 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8816 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8817 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8819 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8820 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8821 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8823 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8824 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8826 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8827 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8829 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8830 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8831 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8832 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8833 temporary-file-directory instead.
8835 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8836 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8837 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8838 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8840 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8841 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8843 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8845 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8846 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8847 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8849 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8851 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8852 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8853 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8854 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8855 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8856 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8858 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8859 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8860 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8861 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8863 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8865 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8866 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8867 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8870 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8871 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8875 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8877 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8878 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8881 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8883 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8885 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8886 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8889 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8891 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8892 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8897 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8898 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8900 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8901 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8902 to enable sound support.
8904 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8905 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8906 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8907 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8908 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8910 The following sound properties are supported:
8914 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8915 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8919 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8920 may be present, but not both.
8924 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8925 0..1. This property is optional.
8929 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8930 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8932 Other properties are ignored.
8934 An alternative interface is called as
8935 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8937 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8939 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8942 ** Changes to garbage collection
8944 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8945 of live and free strings.
8947 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8948 strings that have been consed so far.
8951 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8954 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8957 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8958 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8959 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8961 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8963 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8965 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8968 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8970 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8972 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8973 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8974 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8975 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8976 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8978 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8981 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8983 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8984 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8985 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8987 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8988 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8990 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8993 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8997 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8999 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
9000 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
9002 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
9003 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
9004 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
9005 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
9006 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
9007 just display it black instead.
9009 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
9012 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
9016 ** New face implementation.
9018 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
9019 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
9023 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
9025 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
9027 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
9028 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
9030 3. Font height in 1/10pt
9032 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
9034 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
9036 6. Foreground color.
9038 7. Background color.
9040 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
9042 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
9044 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
9046 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
9048 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
9051 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
9052 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
9054 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
9055 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
9056 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
9057 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
9058 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
9059 attributes mentioned above.
9061 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
9062 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9065 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9066 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9071 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9072 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9073 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9074 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9075 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9076 results in a fully-specified face.
9078 *** Face realization.
9080 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9081 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9082 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9083 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9084 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9085 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9087 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9088 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9089 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9090 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9092 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9093 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9094 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9095 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9096 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9098 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9099 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9100 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9101 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9102 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9105 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9106 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9107 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9108 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9110 **** Clearing face caches.
9112 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9113 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9118 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9119 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9120 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9122 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9123 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9124 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9125 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9126 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9128 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9129 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9130 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9132 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9134 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9135 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9136 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9137 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9138 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9139 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9140 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9142 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9143 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9146 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9147 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9150 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9153 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9158 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9159 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9162 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9163 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9164 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9165 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9166 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9169 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9171 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9173 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9175 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9177 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9178 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9179 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9181 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9182 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9183 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9184 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9185 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9186 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9187 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9188 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9189 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9190 of the face font sort order.
9192 - Function: x-font-family-list
9194 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9195 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9196 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9197 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9199 - Variable: font-list-limit
9201 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9202 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9203 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9205 *** Setting face attributes.
9207 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9208 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9209 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9212 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9213 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9215 The following attributes are recognized:
9219 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9220 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9221 and `?' are allowed.
9225 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9226 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9227 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9228 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9232 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9233 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9234 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9235 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9239 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9240 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9241 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9245 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9246 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9249 `:foreground', `:background'
9251 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9255 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9256 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9257 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9262 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9263 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9264 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9269 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9270 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9271 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9272 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9276 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9277 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9278 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9279 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9280 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9281 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9282 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9283 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9284 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9285 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9286 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9287 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9288 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9289 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9290 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9291 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9296 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9297 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9301 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9302 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9303 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9304 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9305 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9306 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9308 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9309 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9313 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9314 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9315 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9318 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9319 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9320 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9322 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9327 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9328 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9329 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9331 *** Face attributes and X resources
9333 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9336 Face attribute X resource class
9337 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9338 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9339 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9340 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9341 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9342 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9343 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9344 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9345 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9346 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9347 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9348 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9349 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9350 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9351 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9352 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9353 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9354 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9355 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9356 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9358 *** Text property `face'.
9360 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9361 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9362 specification can be
9364 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9366 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9367 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9368 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9369 for face attribute names.
9371 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9372 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9373 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9375 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9377 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9378 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9379 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9380 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9381 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9382 used to clear the mapping table.
9384 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9386 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9387 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9388 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9389 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9390 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9391 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9392 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9393 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9394 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9395 modify their color-related behavior.
9397 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9400 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9402 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9403 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9404 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9405 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9406 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9407 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9408 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9409 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9410 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9412 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9413 display can display image files.
9415 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9417 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9418 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9419 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9420 `Inviolable' option.
9422 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9423 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9424 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9426 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9428 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9429 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9430 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9432 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9433 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9434 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9435 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9436 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9437 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9438 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9441 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9442 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9443 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9445 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9447 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9449 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9451 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9452 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9453 constrained position if that is different.
9455 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9456 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9457 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9458 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9459 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9460 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9461 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9462 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9463 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9465 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9466 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9467 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9468 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9469 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9471 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9472 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9474 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9476 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9478 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9479 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9480 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9482 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9484 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9485 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9486 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9487 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9488 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9490 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9492 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9493 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9494 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9495 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9496 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9498 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9500 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9501 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9502 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9504 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9506 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9507 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9508 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9512 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9513 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9514 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9515 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9517 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9518 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9519 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9520 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9523 IMAGE is an image specification.
9525 *** Image specifications
9527 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9528 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9529 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9530 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9531 described below are ignored.
9533 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9537 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9538 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9539 to use for its ascent.
9541 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9542 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9544 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9545 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9546 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9547 overlays that apply to the image.
9551 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9552 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9553 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9557 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9562 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9564 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9565 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9567 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9568 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9569 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9570 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9571 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9572 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9573 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9574 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9577 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9579 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9581 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9582 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9583 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9584 of the factors' absolute values.
9586 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9592 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9598 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9603 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9604 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9605 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9606 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9607 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9608 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9609 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9612 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9613 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9618 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9619 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9620 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9621 may be present in the image specification.
9625 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9626 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9627 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9628 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9630 *** Supported image types
9632 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9634 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9635 properties supported are:
9639 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9640 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9644 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9645 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9647 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9648 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9649 instead of a `:file' property.
9653 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9657 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9663 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9664 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9666 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9668 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9671 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9672 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9675 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9677 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9678 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9679 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9680 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9682 Additional image properties supported are:
9684 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9686 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9687 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9690 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9691 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9693 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9694 to display compressed images.
9696 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9698 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9699 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9704 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9705 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9709 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9710 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9712 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9714 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9715 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9718 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9720 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9721 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9724 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9726 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9727 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9729 Additional image properties supported are:
9733 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9734 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9737 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9738 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9739 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9742 (defun show-anim (file max)
9743 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9744 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9746 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9749 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9752 (goto-char (point-min))
9753 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9754 (insert-image img "x"))
9755 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9757 **** PNG, image type `png'
9759 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9760 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9763 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9765 Additional image properties supported are:
9769 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9770 integer. This is a required property.
9774 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9775 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9779 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9780 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9781 files. This is an required property.
9783 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9788 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9789 which are supported in the current configuration.
9791 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9792 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9793 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9794 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9795 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9797 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9799 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9800 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9801 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9802 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9803 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9808 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9811 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9812 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9813 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9814 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9815 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9816 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9817 of the display margins.
9819 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9820 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9821 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9822 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9827 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9828 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9829 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9830 that have a `help-echo' property.
9832 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9833 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9834 the window in which the help was found.
9836 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9837 `help-echo' text property was found.
9839 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9840 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9842 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9843 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9846 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9847 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9849 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9850 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9851 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9852 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9853 used as help string.
9855 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9856 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9857 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9859 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9861 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9862 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9864 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9865 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9866 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9867 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9870 (global-set-key [A-down]
9873 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9874 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9875 (global-set-key [A-up]
9878 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9879 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9881 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9883 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9884 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9885 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9886 is called with one argument, POS.
9888 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9889 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9890 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9891 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9892 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9894 ** Tool bar support.
9896 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9897 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9898 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9899 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9900 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9901 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9903 *** Tool bar item definitions
9905 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9906 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9907 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9909 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9910 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9911 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9912 property (see below).
9914 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9915 binding are currently ignored.
9917 The following properties are recognized:
9921 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9926 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9930 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9931 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9932 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9934 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9936 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9937 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9941 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9942 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9943 meaning of each of the four elements:
9945 Index Use when item is
9946 ----------------------------------------
9947 0 enabled and selected
9948 1 enabled and deselected
9949 2 disabled and selected
9950 3 disabled and deselected
9952 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9953 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9955 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9957 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9958 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9960 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9961 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9962 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9965 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9966 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9967 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9969 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9971 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9972 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9973 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9975 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9976 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9978 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9979 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9980 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9981 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9983 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9984 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9986 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9988 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9991 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9992 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9993 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9995 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9997 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9999 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
10002 ** Mode line changes.
10004 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
10006 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
10007 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
10008 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
10010 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
10011 a `local-map' text property.
10013 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
10014 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
10016 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
10017 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
10018 `local-map' property.
10020 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
10021 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
10024 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
10025 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
10027 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
10028 variable mode-line-format to nil.
10030 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
10032 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
10033 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
10034 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
10035 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
10038 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
10041 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
10042 position in the header-line.
10044 ** Text property `display'
10046 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
10047 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
10048 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
10049 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
10050 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
10052 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
10054 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
10055 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
10057 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
10058 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
10059 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
10060 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10061 simpler form STRING as property value.
10063 *** Variable width and height spaces
10065 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10066 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10067 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10068 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10069 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10070 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10071 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10073 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10074 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10075 properties described below.
10077 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10078 characters having the `display' property.
10082 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10083 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10085 - :relative-width FACTOR
10087 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10088 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10089 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10090 width of that character by FACTOR.
10094 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10095 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10097 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10101 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10102 normal line height.
10104 - :relative-height FACTOR
10106 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10107 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10111 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10112 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10113 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10116 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10120 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10121 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10122 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10123 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10124 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10125 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10126 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10127 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10128 as display specification.
10130 *** Other display properties
10132 - (space-width FACTOR)
10134 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10135 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10140 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10142 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10143 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10144 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10145 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10146 a font is available counts as a step.
10148 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10149 as tall as the frame's default font.
10151 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10152 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10154 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10155 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10159 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10160 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10161 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10162 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10163 `height' subproperty.
10165 *** Conditional display properties
10167 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10168 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10169 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10170 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10171 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10172 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10173 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10174 different when object is a string.
10176 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10179 ** New menu separator types.
10181 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10182 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10183 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10184 to specify other menu separator types.
10186 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10188 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10191 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10193 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10195 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10197 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10199 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10201 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10203 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10205 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10207 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10209 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10210 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10212 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10214 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10216 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10218 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10220 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10222 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10224 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10226 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10228 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10230 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10232 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10234 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10236 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10238 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10240 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10241 the corresponding single-line separators.
10243 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10245 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10246 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10247 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10248 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10249 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10250 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10251 default foreground is black.
10253 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10254 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10255 `ScrollBarBackground').
10257 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10258 settings for scroll bar colors.
10260 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10261 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10263 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10264 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10265 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10266 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10267 the original window start.
10269 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10270 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10271 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10273 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10275 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10276 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10277 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10278 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10280 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10281 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10283 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10285 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10286 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10287 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10288 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10289 temporarily to nil, for example
10291 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10292 (enlarge-window 10))
10294 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10295 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10297 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10298 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10299 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10300 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10301 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10302 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10306 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10308 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10311 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10313 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10315 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10316 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10317 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10318 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10319 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10321 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10325 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10327 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10331 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10333 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10334 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10336 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10338 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10340 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10341 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10342 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10344 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10345 is the one that is used.
10347 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10348 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10349 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10350 separate from the command's regular output.
10351 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10352 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10353 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10356 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10357 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10358 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10359 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10361 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10362 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10363 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10364 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10366 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10367 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10368 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10369 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10371 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10372 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10373 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10374 they never ignore case.
10376 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10377 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10378 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10379 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10380 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10381 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10382 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10384 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10385 the same format that was used in the file before.
10387 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10388 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10390 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10391 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10392 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10394 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10395 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10396 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10397 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10398 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10399 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10400 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10402 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10403 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10404 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10405 format. You can now customize these variables.
10407 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10408 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10409 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10410 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10412 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10413 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10414 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10416 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10417 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10418 doesn't have any effect.
10420 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10421 not one per buffer.
10423 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10424 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10425 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10427 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10428 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10429 `auto-show-mode' command.
10431 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10432 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10433 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10434 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10435 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10437 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10438 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10440 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10441 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10442 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10444 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10445 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10446 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10447 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10449 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10451 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10452 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10453 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10454 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10455 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10457 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10458 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10460 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10461 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10462 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10463 `?' on other systems.
10465 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10466 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10469 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10470 current codepage when it starts.
10474 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10475 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10476 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10477 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10478 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10479 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10483 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10484 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10486 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10487 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10488 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10489 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10490 buffer-file-coding-system.
10492 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10493 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10496 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10497 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10498 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10499 list of possible coding systems.
10503 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10504 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10505 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10506 docstring for details.
10508 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10509 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10510 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10511 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10512 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10514 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10515 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10517 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10518 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10520 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10521 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10522 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10523 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10526 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10527 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10529 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10530 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10531 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10532 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10534 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10535 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10536 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10537 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10538 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10540 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10542 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10544 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10545 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10547 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10549 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10550 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10551 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10552 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10553 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10557 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10558 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10559 Gnus manual for the full story.
10561 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10562 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10563 group, which is created automatically.
10565 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10568 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10570 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10571 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10573 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10576 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10578 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10579 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10581 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10583 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10584 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10586 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10587 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10589 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10590 control over simplification.
10592 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10594 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10597 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10599 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10601 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10602 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10603 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10605 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10606 `a' forces normal posting method.
10608 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10611 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10612 to a non-nil value.
10614 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10615 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10617 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10620 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10622 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10624 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10625 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10627 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10628 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10630 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10632 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10635 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10636 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10638 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10639 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10641 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10643 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10645 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10647 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10649 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10650 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10651 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10653 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10654 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10655 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10656 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10657 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10659 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10660 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10661 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10662 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10664 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10665 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10666 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10669 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10671 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10672 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10674 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10675 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10676 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10677 removed from the label.
10679 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10680 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10682 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10683 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10685 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10686 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10689 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10691 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10693 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10694 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10696 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10697 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10698 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10700 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10701 changes with a special face.
10703 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10704 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10705 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10707 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10709 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10710 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10711 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10712 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10713 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10715 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10716 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10717 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10719 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10720 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10721 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10722 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10723 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10724 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10725 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10726 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10727 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10729 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10730 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10731 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10732 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10733 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10736 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10737 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10738 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10739 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10740 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10741 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10743 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10744 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10745 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10746 was not documented clearly before.
10748 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10749 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10751 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10753 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10754 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10755 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10756 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10758 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10759 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10760 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10762 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10764 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10765 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10767 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10768 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10771 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10772 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10773 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10774 file names and attributes are returned.
10776 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10777 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10778 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10779 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10780 returns the result.
10782 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10783 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10785 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10787 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10788 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10789 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10792 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10793 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10796 The new function process-running-child-p
10797 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10798 terminal to its own child process.
10800 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10801 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10802 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10803 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10805 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10806 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10808 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10809 :included is an alias for :visible.
10811 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10812 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10813 to move or copy menu entries.
10815 ** Multibyte editing changes
10817 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10818 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10819 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10820 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10821 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10822 (setq char (sref str idx)
10823 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10824 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10826 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10827 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10828 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10830 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10831 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10832 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10834 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10836 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10837 across the boundary.
10839 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10840 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10841 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10842 contains 8-bit characters.
10843 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10844 contains invalid characters.
10846 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10847 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10848 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10849 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10852 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10853 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10854 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10855 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10857 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10858 compose Thai characters in a string.
10860 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10861 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10862 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10863 menus should always use the third argument.
10865 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10866 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10867 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10868 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10870 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10871 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10872 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10873 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10875 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10876 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10877 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10878 echo area contents.
10880 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10882 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10883 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10884 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10886 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10887 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10888 means to clear out that attribute.
10890 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10891 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10893 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10894 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10895 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10896 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10898 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10899 the gap of the current buffer.
10901 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10902 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10905 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10906 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10907 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10908 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10910 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10912 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10913 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10914 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10915 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10916 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10918 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10919 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10920 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10921 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10922 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10924 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10925 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10926 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10928 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10929 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10930 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10931 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10932 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10935 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10936 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10937 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10938 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10940 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10942 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10943 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10944 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10945 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10947 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10948 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10949 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10950 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10951 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10952 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10953 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10956 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10959 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10960 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10961 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10962 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10963 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10965 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10966 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10967 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10968 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10970 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10971 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10972 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10973 something that most users not do.
10975 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10976 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10977 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10980 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10981 pasting operations.
10983 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10984 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10985 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10986 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10989 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10990 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10991 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10992 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10993 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10996 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10997 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10998 to be confused by TeX commands.
11000 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
11001 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
11002 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
11003 of various alternative replacements and actions.
11005 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
11006 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
11007 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
11008 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
11009 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
11011 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
11012 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
11014 ** Changes in input method usage.
11016 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
11017 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
11020 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
11022 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
11023 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
11025 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
11026 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
11028 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
11030 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
11032 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
11033 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
11035 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
11036 given in the following case:
11037 o When you are using a complex input method.
11038 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
11040 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
11041 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
11042 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
11043 setting it to t is helpful.
11045 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
11047 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
11049 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
11050 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
11051 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
11052 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
11055 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
11056 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
11057 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
11060 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
11062 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11064 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11065 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11067 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11068 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11069 its owner and group.
11071 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11072 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11074 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11075 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11077 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11078 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11079 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11080 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11082 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11083 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11084 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11085 for writing keyboard macros.
11087 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11088 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11089 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11090 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11091 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11094 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11096 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11097 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11100 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11101 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11102 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11103 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11105 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11106 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11107 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11109 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11110 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11111 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11112 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11114 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11115 failure if the command produces no output.
11117 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11118 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11121 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11122 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11123 function and variable names.
11125 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11126 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11127 file-coding-system-alist.
11129 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11130 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11131 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11132 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11133 according to the current fontset.
11135 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11137 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11138 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11139 nonascii-insert-offset.
11141 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11142 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11143 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11144 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11146 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11147 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11149 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11150 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11152 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11153 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11156 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11157 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11159 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11160 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11161 all variables that have documentation.
11163 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11164 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11165 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11166 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11167 it should show; the default is 20.
11169 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11170 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11173 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11174 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11175 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11176 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11177 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11178 Newly added options are included as well.
11180 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11181 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11182 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11184 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11187 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11188 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11190 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11191 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11194 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11195 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11198 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11199 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11200 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11201 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11204 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11206 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11207 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11208 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11210 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11211 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11212 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11217 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11218 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11220 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11221 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11223 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11224 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11226 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11227 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11228 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11229 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11230 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11231 made invisible again.
11233 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11235 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11236 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11237 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11240 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11241 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11242 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11243 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11244 rmail-default-body-file.
11246 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11247 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11248 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11250 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11251 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11252 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11254 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11255 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11256 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11257 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11258 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11259 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11261 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11262 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11263 provided by feedmail are:
11265 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11266 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11267 there is also a queue for draft messages
11269 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11270 be prompted for confirmation
11272 **** does smart filling of address headers
11274 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11275 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11276 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11278 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11279 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11280 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11281 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11285 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11286 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11288 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11289 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11291 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11292 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11293 for a specified regexp.
11297 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11300 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11301 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11304 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11305 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11306 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11307 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11309 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11310 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11311 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11312 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11313 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11315 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11316 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11317 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11318 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11319 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11321 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11322 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11323 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11324 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11326 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11327 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11328 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11330 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11331 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11332 session to resolve them.
11334 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11335 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11336 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11339 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11340 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11341 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11342 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11343 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11344 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11347 ** Changes in Font Lock
11349 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11350 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11351 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11352 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11353 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11355 ** Frame name display changes
11357 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11358 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11359 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11360 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11362 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11363 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11366 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11368 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11369 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11370 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11372 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11374 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11375 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11376 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11378 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11379 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11380 the following line.
11382 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11383 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11384 previously sent input.
11386 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11387 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11388 as the search string.
11390 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11391 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11395 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11396 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11397 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11400 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11401 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11402 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11403 style is still the default however.
11405 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11407 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11408 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11409 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11411 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11412 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11414 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11415 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11417 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11418 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11420 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11421 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11423 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11424 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11425 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11426 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11428 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11430 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11431 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11432 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11434 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11435 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11436 expanding dynamically.
11438 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11439 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11441 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11442 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11443 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11444 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11446 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11448 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11450 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11451 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11452 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11453 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11454 against the first word in the title.
11456 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11457 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11458 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11459 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11460 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11461 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11463 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11464 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11465 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11466 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11468 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11470 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11471 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11472 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11473 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11474 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11475 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11477 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11478 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11480 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11481 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11482 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11484 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11485 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11489 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11490 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11491 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11493 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11494 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11495 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11496 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11499 o URLs are automatically skipped
11500 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11502 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11504 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11506 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11507 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11508 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11509 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11511 *** New recursive parser.
11513 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11514 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11515 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11517 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11519 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11520 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11521 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11523 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11525 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11527 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11529 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11531 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11533 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11534 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11536 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11538 *** References to external documents.
11540 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11541 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11542 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11543 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11544 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11545 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11546 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11548 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11550 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11551 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11553 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11554 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11556 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11558 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11559 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11561 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11563 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11564 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11565 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11566 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11567 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11568 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11571 *** Support for the varioref package
11573 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11577 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11578 and citations are created. These hooks are
11579 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11580 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11582 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11584 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11585 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11587 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11589 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11590 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11593 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11595 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11596 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11597 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11598 directories that contain the same file name.
11600 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11601 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11602 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11603 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11604 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11605 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11606 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11609 ** New modes and packages
11611 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11612 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11613 it, but some do not.
11615 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11618 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11619 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11620 around in a buffer.
11622 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11624 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11625 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11626 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11627 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11629 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11630 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11631 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11633 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11634 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11635 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc.); others are implementations of
11636 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11637 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11640 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11641 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11643 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11644 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11645 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11646 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11648 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11650 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11651 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11652 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11653 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11654 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.)
11655 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11656 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11657 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11658 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11659 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11660 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11662 Platform-specific modes:
11664 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11665 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11666 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11667 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11668 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11669 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11670 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11671 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11672 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11674 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11676 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11677 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11678 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11679 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11681 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11682 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11683 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11685 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11686 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11687 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11688 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11690 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11691 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11692 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11695 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11696 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11697 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11698 current input method for reading this one event.
11700 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11701 now control whether to output certain characters as
11702 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11703 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11704 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11705 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11707 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11709 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11710 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11712 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11713 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11714 always increases point by 1.
11716 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11717 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11719 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11721 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11722 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11723 default value changed. For example,
11725 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11730 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11733 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11734 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11735 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11736 `:version' in the top level group.
11738 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11740 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11741 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11743 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11744 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11745 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11748 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11749 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11752 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11753 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11754 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11756 ** Frame-local variables.
11758 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11759 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11760 local bindings for that variable.
11762 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11763 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11764 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11767 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11768 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11769 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11770 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11772 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11773 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11774 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11775 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11777 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11778 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11779 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11780 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11781 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11783 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11784 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11785 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11786 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11788 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11789 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11791 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11792 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11793 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11795 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11796 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11797 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11798 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11800 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11801 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11804 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11805 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11806 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11807 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11808 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11810 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11811 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11812 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11813 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11815 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11816 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11817 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11818 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11819 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11821 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11822 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11823 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11824 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11826 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11827 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11828 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11830 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11831 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11832 was directed to display this buffer.
11834 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11835 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11836 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11837 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11838 set-window-configuration.
11840 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11841 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11842 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11843 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11845 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11846 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11847 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11849 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11850 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11851 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11853 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11854 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11856 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11857 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11859 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11860 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11861 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11863 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11864 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11865 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11866 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11870 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11871 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11874 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11875 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11876 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11877 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11878 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11880 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11882 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11883 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11884 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11885 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11888 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11889 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11890 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11891 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11892 The supported properties include
11894 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11896 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11897 item should appear in the menu.
11899 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11900 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11901 It should return a binding to use instead.
11903 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11904 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11905 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11906 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11907 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11910 This means that the command normally has no
11911 keyboard equivalent.
11912 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11913 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11914 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11915 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11916 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11918 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11919 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11921 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11925 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11926 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11927 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11928 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11930 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11932 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11933 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11934 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11935 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11936 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11937 forward, away from the user.
11939 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11941 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11942 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11943 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11944 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11945 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11947 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11949 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11950 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11951 that were dragged and dropped.
11953 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11955 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11957 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11958 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11959 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11961 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11962 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11963 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11965 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11966 in Emacs 19 and before.
11968 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11969 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11971 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11972 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11973 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11974 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11976 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11977 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11978 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11979 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11980 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11982 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11983 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11984 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11985 consistent with the new representation.
11987 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11988 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11989 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11990 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11992 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11993 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11994 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11996 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11997 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11998 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12000 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
12001 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
12002 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
12004 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12005 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
12007 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12008 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
12010 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
12011 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
12012 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
12013 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
12015 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
12016 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
12018 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
12019 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
12020 buffer or string being searched.
12022 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
12023 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
12024 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
12025 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
12026 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
12027 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
12028 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
12030 *** Structure of coding system changed.
12032 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
12033 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
12034 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
12035 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
12036 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
12037 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
12038 define-coding-system-alias.
12040 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
12041 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
12042 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
12043 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
12044 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
12045 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
12046 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
12049 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
12050 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
12051 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
12052 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
12054 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
12055 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
12056 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
12057 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
12059 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
12060 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
12061 This function requires a user interaction.
12063 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12064 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12065 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12066 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12067 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12068 select-safe-coding-system.
12070 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12071 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12072 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12075 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12076 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12077 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12079 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12080 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12081 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12082 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12084 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12085 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12086 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12089 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12090 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12092 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12093 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12094 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12095 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12096 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12097 range of characters.
12099 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12100 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12102 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12103 in the current buffer at position POS.
12105 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12106 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12107 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12108 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12109 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12110 binding input-method-function to nil.
12112 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12113 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12114 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12115 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12116 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12118 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12119 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12121 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12122 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12124 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12125 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12126 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12127 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12128 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12130 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12132 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12133 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12134 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12137 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12138 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12140 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12141 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12142 in your .emacs file.)
12144 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12145 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12147 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12148 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12150 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12151 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12154 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12155 delete the character before point, as usual.
12157 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12158 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12159 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12161 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12162 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12163 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12164 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12165 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12168 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12169 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12170 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12171 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12172 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12174 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12175 and is an alias for it.
12177 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12178 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12180 ** Scrolling changes
12182 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12183 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12185 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12186 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12189 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12190 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12191 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12192 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12194 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12195 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12196 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12197 recenters the window.
12199 ** International character set support (MULE)
12201 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12202 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12203 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12204 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12205 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12206 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12208 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12209 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12210 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12211 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12212 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12214 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12215 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12216 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12217 language, to make it possible to type them.
12219 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12220 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12222 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12223 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12225 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12227 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12229 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12230 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12231 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12232 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12233 characters for their work until they want to change.
12237 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12238 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12239 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12240 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12241 support several input methods.
12243 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12244 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12247 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12248 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12249 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12250 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12251 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12254 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12255 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12256 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12257 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12258 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12260 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12261 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12262 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12263 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12265 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12266 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12267 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12268 the first guess is wrong.
12270 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12271 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12273 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12274 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12275 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12276 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12278 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12279 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12280 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12281 translate automatically to and from either one.
12283 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12285 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12286 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12287 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12290 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12291 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12292 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12293 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12295 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12296 character conversion as well.
12298 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12300 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12301 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12302 requires using many fonts.
12304 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12305 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12307 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12308 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12309 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12310 you would use a font.
12312 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12313 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12314 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12316 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12317 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12320 *** Defining fontsets.
12322 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12323 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12324 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12326 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12327 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12328 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12329 standard fontset are created automatically.
12331 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12332 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12333 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12334 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12335 name is `fontset-startup'.
12337 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12338 The resource value should have this form:
12339 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12340 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12341 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12342 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12343 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12344 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12345 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12346 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12347 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12349 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12350 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12351 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12353 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12354 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12355 following resource,
12356 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12357 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12358 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12359 Here is the substitution rule:
12360 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12361 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12362 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12363 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12364 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12366 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12367 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12368 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12370 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12371 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12372 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12373 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12376 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12377 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12379 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12380 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12381 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12382 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12383 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12384 system for new files that you create.
12386 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12387 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12388 whole Emacs session.
12390 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12391 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12392 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12394 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12395 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12396 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12397 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12398 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12400 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12401 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12402 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12403 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12404 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12406 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12407 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12409 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12410 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12412 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12413 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12415 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12416 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12417 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12418 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12421 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12422 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12423 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12424 translated into that character code.
12426 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12427 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12429 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12431 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12432 the coding system for keyboard input.
12434 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12435 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12436 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12438 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12440 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12441 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12442 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12443 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12444 designed to work with terminals.
12446 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12447 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12448 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12449 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12450 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12451 in the corresponding buffer.
12453 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12455 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12456 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12457 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12459 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12460 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12461 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12464 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12465 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12467 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12468 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12469 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12470 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12472 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12473 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12474 related information.
12476 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12477 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12480 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12481 information about the support for a particular language.
12482 You specify the language as an argument.
12484 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12485 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12488 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12489 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12490 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12491 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12493 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12495 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12496 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12497 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12498 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12499 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12500 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12501 K euc-korea (Korean)
12504 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12507 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12508 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12509 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12510 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12513 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12514 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12515 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12516 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12518 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12519 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12521 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12522 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12523 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12524 Rmail files themselves.
12526 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12527 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12529 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12532 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12533 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12534 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12535 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12536 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12538 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12539 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12540 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12543 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12544 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12545 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12546 without any conversion.
12548 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12549 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12550 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12551 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12553 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12554 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12556 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12557 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12559 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12560 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12562 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12563 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12564 in the buffer before point.
12566 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12567 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12570 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12571 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12573 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12575 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12576 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12578 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12579 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12580 can become a bottleneck.
12582 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12583 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12584 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12585 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12586 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12587 so useful that the change is worth while.
12589 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12590 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12591 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12592 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12594 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12595 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12598 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12599 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12600 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12602 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12603 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12604 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12606 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12607 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12608 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12610 ** Changes in View mode.
12612 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12613 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12615 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12616 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12618 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12621 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12622 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12624 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12625 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12626 not just the selected window.
12628 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12629 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12630 turns View mode on or off.
12632 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12633 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12634 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12636 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12637 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12639 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12640 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12641 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12642 which version to compare with.
12644 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12645 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12647 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12648 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12649 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12650 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12652 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12653 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12654 blocks, all of them or none.
12656 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12657 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12658 confirmation first.
12660 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12661 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12662 However, the mode will not be changed if
12663 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12664 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12665 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12666 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12668 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12670 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12671 these commands do not change the major mode.
12673 ** M-x occur changes.
12675 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12676 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12678 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12679 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12680 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12682 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12683 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12684 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12685 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12686 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12688 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12689 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12690 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12691 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12693 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12694 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12695 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12697 ** Outline mode changes.
12699 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12701 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12703 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12704 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12705 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12706 was already active.
12708 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12709 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12710 get confused by it.
12712 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12713 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12715 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12717 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12718 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12719 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12720 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12722 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12723 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12724 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12726 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12727 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12730 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12731 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12732 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12733 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12735 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12736 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12737 can be. The default value is 30.
12739 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12741 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12742 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12743 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12744 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12745 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12748 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12749 compose-mail-other-frame.
12751 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12752 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12753 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12754 buffer that shows the original message.
12756 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12757 with separator lines around the contents.
12759 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12760 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12761 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12762 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12764 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12766 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12767 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12768 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12769 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12771 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12772 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12775 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12776 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12779 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12780 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12781 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12782 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12784 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12785 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12786 be taken to be magic.
12788 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12789 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12790 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12792 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12793 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12795 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12796 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12798 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12800 new key dired.el binding old key
12801 ------- ---------------- -------
12802 * c dired-change-marks c
12804 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12805 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12806 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12808 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12809 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12810 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12811 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12812 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12813 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12817 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12818 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12819 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12820 each time you run it.
12822 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12823 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12825 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12826 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12827 means to move in the opposite direction.
12829 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12830 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12832 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12833 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12834 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12835 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12840 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12842 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12845 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12846 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12848 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12851 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12853 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12855 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12857 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12858 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12859 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12861 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12863 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12865 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12866 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12868 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12869 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12870 used to pick articles.
12872 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12873 another have been added.
12875 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12877 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12878 generating lines in buffers.
12880 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12883 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12885 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12887 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12889 *** Scores can be decayed.
12891 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12893 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12894 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12896 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12899 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12901 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12902 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12904 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12906 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12907 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12909 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12910 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12912 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12915 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12916 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12918 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12920 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12922 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12924 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12926 Use the `Y c' command.
12928 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12930 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12932 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12934 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12935 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12937 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12939 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12941 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12942 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12944 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12946 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12947 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12948 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12949 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12952 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12953 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12954 particular news group. This can be done by:
12956 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12958 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12959 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12960 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12961 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12962 for reading and posting).
12964 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12965 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12966 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12967 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12970 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12971 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12973 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12974 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12975 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12976 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12977 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12979 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12980 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12982 ** CC mode changes.
12984 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12985 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12986 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12987 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12988 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12991 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12992 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12993 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12994 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12995 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12996 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12998 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12999 of the current buffer.
13001 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
13002 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
13003 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
13005 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
13006 style that the Python developers like.
13008 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
13009 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
13010 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
13012 ** VC Changes [new]
13014 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
13015 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
13016 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
13018 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
13019 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
13022 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
13023 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
13025 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
13026 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
13027 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
13028 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
13030 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
13031 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
13033 ** Calendar changes.
13035 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
13036 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
13037 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
13038 following/previous years.
13040 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
13041 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
13042 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
13043 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
13044 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
13045 supposed attribute of God.
13047 ** ps-print changes
13049 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
13052 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
13054 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
13055 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
13056 printer system has this behavior, set variable
13057 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
13059 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
13060 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
13061 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13063 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13064 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13066 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13067 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13068 printing for your printer.
13070 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13071 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13073 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13074 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13076 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13077 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13078 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13079 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13080 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13081 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13082 The default value is nil.
13084 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13085 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13087 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13088 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13089 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13090 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13091 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13092 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13093 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13095 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13096 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13098 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13099 The default is 0 ("black").
13101 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13102 The default is 0 ("black").
13104 border-width Specify the border width.
13105 The default is 0.4.
13107 Any other property is ignored.
13109 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13110 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13113 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13114 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13115 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13116 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13117 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13118 controlling headers.
13120 *** Color management (subgroup)
13122 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13125 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13127 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13128 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13129 background should be used. Valid values are:
13131 t always use face background color.
13132 nil never use face background color.
13133 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13135 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13137 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13140 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13141 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13143 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13146 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13147 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13148 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13150 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13154 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13158 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13162 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13166 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13168 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13170 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13173 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13174 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13175 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13177 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13178 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13179 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13180 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13181 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13185 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13186 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13187 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13190 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13191 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13192 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13193 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13194 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13195 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13196 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13197 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13198 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13199 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13200 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13203 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13205 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13208 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13210 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13211 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13212 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13213 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13216 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13217 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13218 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13220 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13221 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13224 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13226 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13227 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13228 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13229 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13230 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13231 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13234 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13235 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13236 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13238 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13239 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13240 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13241 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13242 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13243 its TO, are ignored.
13245 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13246 pages. Valid values are:
13248 nil print all pages.
13250 `even-page' print only even pages.
13252 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13254 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13255 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13256 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13257 print only the even sheet of paper.
13259 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13260 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13261 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13262 only the odd sheet of paper.
13264 Any other value is treated as nil.
13266 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13267 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13268 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13270 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13272 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13273 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13275 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13276 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13277 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13278 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13279 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13280 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13281 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13283 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13284 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13285 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13286 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13287 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13288 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13289 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13291 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13293 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13294 messages should be sent.
13296 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13297 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13298 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13300 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13302 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13303 points for line numbers.
13305 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13306 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13308 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13309 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13310 to 2, the printing will look like:
13322 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13323 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13326 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13327 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13329 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13331 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13332 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13333 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13334 3, the output will look like:
13348 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13349 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13351 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13352 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13355 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13356 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13359 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13361 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13362 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13364 ** hideshow changes.
13366 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13369 *** Support for java-mode added.
13371 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13372 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13374 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13375 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13376 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13378 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13379 robust and a lot faster.
13381 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13383 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13384 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13385 documentation for more details.
13387 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13389 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13390 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13391 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13392 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13393 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13395 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13396 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13397 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13398 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13404 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13405 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13406 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13407 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13408 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13409 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13411 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13413 *** Maximum decoration
13415 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13416 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13417 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13418 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13419 to get the old behavior.
13423 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13425 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13426 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13428 *** Configurable support
13430 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13431 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13432 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13433 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13434 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13435 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13436 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13438 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13439 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13440 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13442 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13444 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13445 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13448 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13450 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13456 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13457 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13458 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13459 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13461 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13463 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13464 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13465 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13467 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13469 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13470 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13471 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13472 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13473 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13474 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13475 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13477 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13478 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13479 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13480 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13481 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13482 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13484 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13486 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13487 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13488 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13489 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13491 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13494 ** Ada mode changes.
13496 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13497 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13498 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13499 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13502 *** There are two new commands:
13503 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13504 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13506 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13507 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13508 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13510 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13511 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13512 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13514 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13515 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13516 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13517 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13519 ** Scheme mode changes.
13521 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13522 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13523 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13524 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13527 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13528 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13529 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13530 variables as buffer-local variables.
13532 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13533 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13535 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13537 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13538 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13539 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13540 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13542 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13543 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13546 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13547 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13548 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13549 option takes precedence.
13551 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13552 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13553 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13555 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13556 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13559 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13560 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13562 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13563 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13566 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13567 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13568 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13569 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13570 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13571 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13573 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13574 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13575 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13576 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13578 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13579 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13580 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13581 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13582 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13584 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13585 since it applies only to the current frame.
13587 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13588 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13589 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13591 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13592 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13593 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13594 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13595 instead of just the file you are editing.
13599 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13600 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13601 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13602 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13603 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13606 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13607 knows which kind of label is needed.
13609 C-c ) reftex-reference
13610 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13611 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13613 C-c [ reftex-citation
13614 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13615 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13617 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13618 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13621 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13622 can quickly jump to every section.
13624 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13625 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13626 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13627 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13628 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13630 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13632 *** Info documentation is now available.
13634 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13635 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13637 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13638 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13640 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13641 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13643 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13644 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13645 appropriate functions.
13647 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13648 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13650 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13653 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13654 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13656 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13657 shall be delimited.
13659 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13660 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13661 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13663 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13664 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13665 prefixed with `ALT'.
13667 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13668 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13669 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13672 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13673 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13674 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13676 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13677 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13679 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13680 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13681 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13683 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13685 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13687 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13688 from alien sources.
13690 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13691 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13694 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13697 *** Added support for imenu.
13699 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13700 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13701 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13702 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13704 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13705 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13707 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13709 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13711 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13712 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13713 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13716 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13717 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13719 ** browse-url changes
13721 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13722 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13723 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13724 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13725 customization variables.
13727 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13729 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13730 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13731 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13733 ** Changes in Ediff
13735 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13736 pops up the Info file for this command.
13738 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13739 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13740 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13743 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13744 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13745 files in the same directory.
13747 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13748 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13749 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13751 ** Changes in Viper
13753 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13754 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13756 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13757 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13758 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13759 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13760 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13761 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13762 color when Viper is in insert state.
13763 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13764 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13765 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13769 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13770 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13771 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13772 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13773 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13775 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13777 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13778 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13780 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13781 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13782 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13784 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13785 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13786 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13787 methods and protocols.
13789 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13790 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13791 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13794 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13795 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13796 at least M times and as many as N times.
13798 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13799 in files has changed slightly.
13801 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13802 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13803 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13804 with old time-stamp-format values.
13806 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13807 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13808 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13811 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13812 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13813 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13814 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13815 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13816 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13818 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13819 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13820 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13822 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13823 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13824 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13825 recommended now will continue to work then.
13827 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13830 ** There are some additional major modes:
13832 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13833 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13834 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13836 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13837 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13840 ** New Lisp packages include:
13842 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13844 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13845 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13847 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13849 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13852 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13853 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13856 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13857 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13858 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13859 strings or comments.
13861 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13862 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13863 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13864 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13867 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13868 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13870 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13871 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13873 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13875 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13876 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13878 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13880 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13882 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13884 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13885 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13887 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13888 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13889 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13890 original place after inserting the copy.
13892 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13895 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13896 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13897 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13899 Enable mouse-drag with:
13900 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13902 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13904 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13905 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13907 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13908 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13912 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13913 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13914 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13915 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13916 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13917 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13918 instance) and vice versa.
13920 To use this package load it using
13921 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13922 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13923 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13924 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13925 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13926 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13928 *** Interface to ph.
13930 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13932 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13933 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13936 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13938 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13939 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13940 while the real cursor does not move.
13942 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13943 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13945 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13946 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13950 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13951 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13952 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13953 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13955 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13957 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13959 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13961 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13962 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13963 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13964 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13965 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13967 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13968 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13969 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13970 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13971 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13972 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13974 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13976 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13977 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13978 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13979 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13981 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13982 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13984 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13985 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13988 ** Basic Lisp changes
13990 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13991 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13993 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13994 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13997 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13999 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
14001 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
14002 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
14004 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
14005 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
14008 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
14010 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
14012 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
14014 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
14015 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
14016 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
14019 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
14020 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
14021 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
14023 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
14024 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
14025 adding one of these suffixes.
14027 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
14028 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
14029 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
14031 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
14032 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
14034 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
14036 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
14037 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
14039 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
14040 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
14042 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
14044 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
14045 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
14047 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
14048 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
14049 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
14050 works using `save-current-buffer'.
14052 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
14053 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
14056 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
14057 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
14058 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
14061 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
14062 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14065 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14067 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14068 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14069 Then it returns that string.
14071 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14073 (with-output-to-string
14074 (princ "The buffer is ")
14075 (princ (buffer-name)))
14077 returns "The buffer is foo".
14079 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14082 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14083 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14084 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14086 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14087 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14089 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14090 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14091 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14092 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14093 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14094 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14096 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14097 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14098 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14101 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14102 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14103 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14104 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14105 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14107 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14108 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14109 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14110 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14112 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14113 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14115 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14117 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14118 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14119 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14120 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14123 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14124 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14127 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14129 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14130 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14131 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14132 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14133 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14135 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14137 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14138 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14139 more than the number of characters.
14141 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14142 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14143 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14144 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14145 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14146 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14148 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14149 and returns a string containing those characters.
14151 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14152 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14153 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14154 character, sref signals an error.
14156 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14157 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14158 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14160 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14161 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14162 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14164 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14165 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14166 to a vector of the characters in it.
14168 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14169 of a string. You call it as follows:
14171 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14173 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14174 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14175 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14176 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14177 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14179 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14180 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14182 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14183 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14185 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14186 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14187 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14188 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14190 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14192 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14194 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14195 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14196 are not included in the resulting value.
14198 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14199 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14200 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14201 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14203 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14204 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14205 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14206 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14207 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14208 column START-COLUMN.
14210 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14211 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14212 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14213 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14214 changed text, before the change.
14216 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14217 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14218 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14220 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14222 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14224 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14225 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14227 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14228 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14229 which identify the character within that character set.
14231 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14232 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14233 opposite of split-char.
14235 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14236 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14238 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14239 of all the characters in a string.
14241 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14242 and specifying coding systems.
14244 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14245 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14246 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14247 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14248 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14249 as what to do about code conversion.)
14251 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14252 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14254 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14255 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14256 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14258 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14259 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14260 to match against a file name.
14262 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14263 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14264 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14265 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14266 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14267 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14269 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14270 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14272 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14273 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14275 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14276 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14277 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14280 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14281 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14282 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14283 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14284 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14285 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14287 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14288 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14290 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14291 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14292 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14293 start the subprocess.
14295 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14296 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14297 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14298 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14299 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14301 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14302 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14305 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14306 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14307 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14308 connection permanently or until overridden.
14310 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14311 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14312 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14313 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14314 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14315 system for one operation at a time.
14317 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14318 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14320 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14321 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14322 The value is a cons cell,
14323 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14324 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14325 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14326 input to the subprocess.
14328 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14329 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14331 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14332 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14333 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14335 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14336 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14337 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14338 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14341 Thus, instead of writing
14343 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14344 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14346 you would now write this:
14348 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14349 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14353 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14354 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14355 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14356 for a description of them.
14358 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14359 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14361 (defgroup ispell nil
14362 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14365 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14366 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14367 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14368 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14369 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14371 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14372 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14373 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14374 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14375 first-level subgroups.
14377 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14379 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14380 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14384 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14385 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14386 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14387 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14388 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14389 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14391 ** Text property changes
14393 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14396 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14397 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14398 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14399 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14400 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14402 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14403 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14404 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14405 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14407 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14408 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14409 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14411 ** Changes in invisibility features
14413 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14414 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14415 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14416 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14417 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14418 make the overlay visible.
14420 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14421 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14422 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14423 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14424 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14425 t when it should hide it.
14427 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14429 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14430 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14431 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14432 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14433 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14434 Here is an example of how to do this:
14436 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14437 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14438 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14439 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14442 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14445 ;; When done with the overlays:
14446 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14447 ;; Or respectively:
14448 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14450 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14452 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14453 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14454 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14455 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14457 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14458 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14459 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14461 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14462 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14464 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14465 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14467 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14468 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14469 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14471 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14472 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14473 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14474 determine the syntax type of the character.
14476 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14477 of the current buffer.
14479 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14480 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14481 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14483 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14484 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14485 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14486 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14487 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14489 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14492 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14493 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14494 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14496 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14497 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14498 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14499 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14500 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14502 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14503 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14504 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14506 ** Changes in face features
14508 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14509 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14511 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14512 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14514 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14515 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14517 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14518 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14520 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14521 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14522 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14523 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14526 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14527 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14529 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14531 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14532 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14533 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14534 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14536 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14539 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14540 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14542 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14543 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14545 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14546 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14548 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14549 character code conversion as well as other things.
14551 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14552 (formerly it did not).
14554 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14555 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14557 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14558 instead of constant strings.
14560 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14561 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14562 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14564 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14565 in the same way as before.
14567 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14568 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14569 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14571 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14572 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14573 else, and returns nil.
14575 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14576 directory cannot be listed.
14578 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14580 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14581 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14582 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14583 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14586 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14587 It is available through the history command M-n.
14589 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14590 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14591 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14592 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14593 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14595 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14596 argument in this way.
14598 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14599 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14600 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14602 ** Echo area features
14604 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14605 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14606 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14607 after the echo area is cleared.
14609 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14610 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14612 ** Keyboard input features
14614 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14615 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14617 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14618 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14619 by keyboard macros.
14621 ** Frame-related changes
14623 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14624 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14625 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14627 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14628 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14629 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14631 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14632 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14633 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14634 in the selected frame.
14636 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14637 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14638 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14640 ** X Windows features
14642 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14643 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14644 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14646 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14647 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14649 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14650 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14651 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14653 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14654 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14656 ** Subprocess features
14658 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14659 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14662 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14663 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14665 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14666 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14668 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14669 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14671 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14672 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14673 goes after the other menu items.
14675 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14676 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14677 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14680 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14681 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14683 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14684 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14687 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14688 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14689 but its hook is still run.
14691 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14692 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14694 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14695 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14696 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14698 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14699 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14700 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14703 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14704 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14706 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14707 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14708 functions like display-time.
14710 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14711 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14713 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14714 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14715 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14717 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14718 if there is an error in compilation.
14720 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14721 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14722 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14723 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14725 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14726 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14727 the *scratch* buffer.
14729 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14730 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14731 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14732 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14734 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14735 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14736 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14738 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14739 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14740 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14741 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14743 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14744 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14745 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14747 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14748 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14749 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14750 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14751 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14754 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14755 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14756 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14757 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14759 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14760 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14761 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14762 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14764 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14766 ** imenu.el changes.
14768 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14769 item from menu created by imenu.
14771 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14772 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14773 select one of those items.
14775 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14777 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14778 Copyright information:
14780 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14781 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14783 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14784 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14785 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14786 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14788 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14789 of this document, or of portions of it,
14790 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14791 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14795 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14798 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793