1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
12 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
18 ** A Bulgarian translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
20 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
21 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
22 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
25 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
27 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
30 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
31 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
35 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
36 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
37 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
38 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
39 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
40 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
41 in each user's home directory.
44 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
45 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
49 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
51 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
52 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
53 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
54 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
57 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
60 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
61 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
62 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
63 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
65 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
68 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
71 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
74 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
75 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
78 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
81 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
84 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
87 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
89 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
90 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
91 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
92 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
93 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
95 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
96 revert to the old behaviour of continuing such lines.
98 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may now
99 be marked with bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and down
100 arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the right fringe
101 if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
103 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
104 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. If value is t, both
105 boundaries and scrolling arrows are shown; any other non-nil value
106 shows only the buffer boundaries. The default value of this variable
107 is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
109 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
110 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
111 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
112 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
113 keyboard oriented alternative.
115 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
116 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
117 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
118 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
119 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
121 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
122 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
123 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
124 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
127 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
128 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
129 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
130 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
131 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
132 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
133 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
135 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
136 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
139 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
140 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
141 an interactively callable function.
146 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
147 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
148 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
149 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
150 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
152 The following values are supported:
154 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
168 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
171 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
172 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
173 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
175 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
176 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
177 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
178 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
180 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
181 '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
183 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
184 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
185 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
187 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
188 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
189 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
190 osql flushes it's error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
191 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
194 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
195 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
196 credentials to authenticate the user.
198 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
199 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
202 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
203 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
206 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
207 with special modes such as Tar mode.
209 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
211 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
212 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
213 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
216 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
217 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
218 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
219 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
220 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
224 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
225 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
226 the operating system or your X server.
228 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
229 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
230 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
232 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
233 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
236 ** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
237 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
238 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
240 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
244 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
245 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
246 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
247 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
248 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
249 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
250 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
252 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
253 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
255 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
256 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
258 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
259 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
261 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
262 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
264 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
265 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
267 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
268 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
270 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
271 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
272 at the edges of the window.
274 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
275 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
277 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
278 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
279 or when the frame is resized.
281 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
283 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
284 horisontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
286 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
288 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
289 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
291 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
292 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
294 ** `describe-char' can show data from the Unicode database file. See
295 user option `unicode-data'.
297 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
299 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
300 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
302 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
303 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
305 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
307 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
308 and other common debugger commands.
312 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
313 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
316 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
317 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
318 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
319 recent list with different symbolic links.
321 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
322 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
323 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
324 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
325 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
327 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
332 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
333 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
335 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
337 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
338 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
339 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
340 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
341 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
342 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
346 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
347 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
350 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
351 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
352 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
354 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
357 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
358 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
359 appears between the position information and the major mode.
361 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
362 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
365 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
366 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
367 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
368 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
372 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
373 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
374 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
378 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
379 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
380 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
383 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
384 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
386 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
390 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
392 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
393 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
394 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
397 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
398 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
399 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
401 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
402 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
403 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
404 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
405 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
407 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
408 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
409 t, and the status is shown.
411 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
412 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
415 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
416 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
417 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
420 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
421 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
422 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
423 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
424 automatically according to the locale.)
426 ** Indian support has been updated.
427 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
428 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
429 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
433 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
434 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
435 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
436 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
437 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
441 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
442 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
443 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
446 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
447 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
448 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
449 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
450 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
451 latter is used by GNU locales.
453 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
454 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
455 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
456 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
457 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
458 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
459 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
460 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
461 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
462 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
463 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
465 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
466 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
467 fontset appropriately.
469 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
473 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
474 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
475 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
476 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
477 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
478 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
479 mule-unicode-... ones.
481 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
482 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
483 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
486 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
487 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
488 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
489 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
490 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
492 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
493 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
494 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
495 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
497 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
498 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
499 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
503 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
504 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
505 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
508 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
509 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+ and W32).
512 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif pops down when pressing ESC.
515 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
516 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
519 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
520 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
521 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
525 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
526 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
528 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
529 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
530 program files that include other program files.
532 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
533 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
537 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
538 when Emacs visits them.
541 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
543 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
544 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
545 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
547 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
548 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
549 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
550 and use the more appropriately result.
553 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
554 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
555 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
556 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
558 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
559 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
560 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
561 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
562 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
563 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
565 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
566 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
569 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
571 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
572 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
573 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
574 TeX commands to use at startup.
575 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
576 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
578 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
581 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
582 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
583 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
584 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
585 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
586 feature is not enabled.
589 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
590 description various information about a character, including its
591 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
592 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
593 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
596 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
597 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
598 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
599 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
600 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
603 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
604 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
605 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
606 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
607 also disable mouse highlighting.
610 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
611 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
612 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
613 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
614 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
617 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
618 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
619 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
623 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
624 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
625 the mode line of the currently selected window.
627 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
628 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
631 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
632 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
633 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
634 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
635 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
636 current date and time, current line and column number in the
640 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
643 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
644 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
645 `display-time-mail-directory'.
648 ** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
651 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
654 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
655 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
656 argument it toggles the mode.
658 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
659 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
662 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
663 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
664 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
665 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
666 `inhibit-splash-screen').
668 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
671 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
672 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
673 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
674 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
675 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
676 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
677 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
678 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
679 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
682 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
683 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
684 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
685 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
689 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
692 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
694 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
695 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
696 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
697 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
700 ** Info-index offers completion.
703 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
707 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
708 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
709 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
710 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
713 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
715 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
717 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
720 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
721 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
723 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
724 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
726 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
728 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
729 run by the key sequence.
731 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
732 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
735 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
736 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
738 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
739 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
741 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
742 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
744 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
745 new-kill-line is on C-k
748 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
749 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
750 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
751 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
754 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
755 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
756 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
757 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
760 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
761 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
762 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
763 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
766 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
767 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
768 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
769 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
770 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
771 command lines to be used than was possible before.
774 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
775 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
776 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
777 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
778 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
779 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
780 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
783 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
784 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
785 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
786 under the "[State]" button.
788 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
789 point (no integers are allowed).
792 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
793 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
796 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
798 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
799 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
800 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
801 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
802 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
804 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
805 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
806 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
809 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
812 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
813 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
814 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
816 Added Customization Variables
818 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
820 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
821 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
822 java sources (previous method).
824 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
825 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
830 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
833 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
834 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
835 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
838 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
839 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
840 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
841 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
842 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
843 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
846 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
847 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
848 what external viewers to use and when.
851 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
852 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
853 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
854 is only rarely needed.
857 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
859 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
860 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
861 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
862 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
865 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
866 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
867 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
868 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
869 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
873 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
874 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
875 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
876 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
877 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
880 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
881 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
882 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
885 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
886 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
887 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
891 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
892 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
893 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
896 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
897 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
901 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
902 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
903 affects the initial frame.
906 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
907 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
908 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
911 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
915 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
916 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
917 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
918 directory listing into a buffer.
921 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
922 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
924 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
925 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
926 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
927 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
930 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
931 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
932 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
933 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
934 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
935 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
936 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
937 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
940 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
941 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
942 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
943 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
944 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
947 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
948 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
951 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
952 of the recognized cursor types.
955 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
956 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
957 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
960 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
961 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
962 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
963 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
964 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
965 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
966 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
967 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
968 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
971 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
972 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
973 count backward from the end of the year.
975 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
976 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
977 and `diary-header-line-format'.
980 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
981 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
982 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
983 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
987 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
988 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
989 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
990 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
991 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
993 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
995 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
998 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
999 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1000 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1001 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1002 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1005 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1010 *** When comparing directories.
1011 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1012 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1013 from one directory to another.
1016 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1017 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1018 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1019 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1022 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1023 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1024 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1029 *** New regular expressions features
1031 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1032 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1033 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1034 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1035 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1036 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1037 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1038 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1039 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1040 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1041 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1043 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1044 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1045 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1048 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1049 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1050 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1051 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1053 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1054 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1055 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1057 *** New language parsing features
1059 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1060 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1062 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1063 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1064 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1067 **** New language PHP.
1068 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1069 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1071 **** New language HTML.
1072 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1073 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1075 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1076 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1079 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1080 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1081 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1083 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1085 *** Honour #line directives.
1086 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1087 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1088 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1089 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1090 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1092 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1093 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1094 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1095 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1101 *** Font lock support.
1102 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1103 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1104 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1105 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1106 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1107 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1109 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1110 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1111 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1112 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1113 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1114 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1115 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1116 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1117 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1119 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1120 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1121 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1122 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1123 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1124 take the better part of a minute.
1126 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1127 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1128 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1129 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1130 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1131 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1133 **** Support for documentation comments.
1134 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1135 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1136 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1137 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1139 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1140 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1141 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1142 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1144 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1145 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1146 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1147 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1150 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1151 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1152 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1153 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1154 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1156 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1157 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1158 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1159 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1160 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1162 *** Support for the AWK language.
1163 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1164 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1165 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1168 **** Indentation Engine
1169 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1171 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1172 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1173 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1174 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1175 definition, or structured statement.
1177 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1178 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1179 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1181 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1182 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1183 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1184 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1187 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1188 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1189 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1190 the AWK language itself.
1192 **** Comment Commands
1193 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1194 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1196 **** Movement Commands
1197 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1198 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1199 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1201 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1202 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1203 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1206 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1207 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1208 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1209 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1211 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1212 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1213 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1214 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1215 composition-close, and incomposition.
1217 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1218 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1219 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1220 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1222 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1223 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1224 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1225 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1226 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1227 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1229 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1230 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1231 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1232 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1233 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1235 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1239 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1241 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1244 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1245 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1246 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1247 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1249 *** API changes for derived modes.
1250 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1251 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1252 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1253 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1254 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1256 **** New language variable system.
1257 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1259 **** New initialization functions.
1260 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1261 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1262 c-init-language-vars.
1264 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1265 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1266 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1267 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1269 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1270 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1271 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1272 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1273 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1275 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1276 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1277 its substatement. E.g:
1283 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1285 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1286 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1287 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1288 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1289 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1292 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1293 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1294 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1295 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1296 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1297 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1298 empty lines within the macro better.
1300 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1301 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1302 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1304 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1305 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1306 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1307 backslashes can be moved.
1309 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1310 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1311 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1312 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1314 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1315 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1316 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1317 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1318 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1319 backslash) in the macro.
1321 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1322 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1323 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1324 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1325 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1326 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1328 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1329 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1331 *** New lineup functions
1333 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1334 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1337 result = prefix + "A message "
1338 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1340 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1341 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1343 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1344 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1345 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1347 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1348 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1351 **** c-lineup-argcont
1352 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1353 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1355 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1356 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1357 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1358 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1359 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1360 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1362 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1363 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1364 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1365 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1368 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1369 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1370 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1371 happen when macros are involved.
1373 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1374 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1375 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1376 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1377 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1378 line is left untouched.
1380 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1381 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1382 syntactic indentation.
1384 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1385 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1388 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1389 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1392 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1393 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1394 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1397 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1398 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1399 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1402 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1403 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1404 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1407 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1408 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1409 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1410 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1411 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1412 from the file name or buffer contents.
1415 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1418 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1419 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1420 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1423 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1426 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1429 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1430 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1431 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1434 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1435 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1438 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1439 to support use of font-lock.
1442 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1443 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1447 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1448 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1449 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1452 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1453 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1454 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1455 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1456 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1457 candidate is a directory.
1460 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1461 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1462 it remains unchanged.
1465 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1466 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1467 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1469 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1471 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1472 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1473 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1474 subprocesses inherit.
1476 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1478 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1480 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1482 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1483 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1484 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1486 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1488 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1489 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1490 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1491 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1492 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1493 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1497 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1500 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1501 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1502 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1505 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1506 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1509 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1510 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1511 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1512 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1513 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1514 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1518 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1519 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1520 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1521 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1522 sound support for those formats.
1525 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1526 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1529 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1530 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1531 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1532 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1535 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1536 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1537 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1538 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1539 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1540 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1541 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1542 wish to use them in other faces.
1545 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1546 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1547 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1548 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1550 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1551 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1554 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
1556 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
1557 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
1558 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
1560 P: annotates the previous revision
1561 N: annotates the next revision
1562 J: annotates the revision at line
1563 A: annotates the revision previous to line
1564 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
1565 L: shows the log of the revision at line
1566 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
1568 * New modes and packages in 21.4
1571 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1572 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1574 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1577 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1579 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1580 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1581 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1582 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1585 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1587 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1588 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1589 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1590 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1591 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1592 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1594 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1595 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1596 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1597 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1599 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1600 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1601 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1602 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1603 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1604 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1605 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1607 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1608 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1609 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1611 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1612 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1614 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1615 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1616 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1617 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1619 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1620 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1621 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1622 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1624 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1625 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1626 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1627 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1629 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1630 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1631 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1632 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1633 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1635 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1636 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1637 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1638 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1639 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1640 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1642 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1643 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1644 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1645 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1646 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1647 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1648 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1649 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1650 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1653 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1654 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1656 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1657 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1658 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1659 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1661 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1664 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1665 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1666 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1667 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1668 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1671 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1672 the keyboard macro ring.
1674 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1675 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1677 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1678 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1679 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1680 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1682 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1683 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1684 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1687 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1688 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1689 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1690 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1692 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1694 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1695 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1696 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1697 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1698 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1699 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1702 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1704 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1705 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1706 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1707 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1710 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1712 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1713 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1714 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1715 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1716 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1717 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1718 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1719 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1720 `rsync' to do the copying).
1722 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1726 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1727 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1728 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1729 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1730 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1731 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1734 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1735 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1736 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1740 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1741 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1742 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1743 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1745 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1748 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1749 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1751 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1752 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1753 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1754 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1755 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1756 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1759 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1760 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1761 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1762 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1765 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1766 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1767 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1768 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1771 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1773 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1774 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1776 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1777 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1778 in Indented-Text mode.
1780 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1781 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1782 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1784 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1786 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1787 configuration files.
1789 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1791 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
1792 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
1793 the last one is kept.
1796 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
1797 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
1799 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
1800 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
1801 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
1802 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
1804 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
1805 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
1806 string. The old behavior is available if you call
1807 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
1809 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
1810 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
1811 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
1812 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
1813 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
1815 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
1816 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
1817 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
1818 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
1819 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
1821 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
1822 :pointer image property.
1824 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
1825 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
1827 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
1829 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
1830 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
1831 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
1832 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
1833 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
1834 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
1835 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
1836 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
1838 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
1839 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
1840 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
1841 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
1842 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
1843 for possible pointer shapes.
1845 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
1846 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
1847 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
1849 ** Mouse event enhancements:
1851 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
1852 events, rather than a text area click event.
1854 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
1855 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
1856 corresponding text row.
1858 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
1861 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
1864 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
1867 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
1871 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
1874 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
1877 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
1880 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
1881 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
1884 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
1885 (image or character) clicked on.
1888 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
1889 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
1890 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
1891 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
1893 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
1894 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
1895 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
1896 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
1897 forcing an explicit window update.
1899 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
1900 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
1903 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
1904 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
1905 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
1906 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
1907 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
1910 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
1913 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
1914 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
1915 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
1918 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
1919 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
1923 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
1924 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
1928 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
1929 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
1932 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
1933 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
1934 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
1936 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
1937 does that, this value may not be accurate.
1940 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
1941 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
1942 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
1946 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
1947 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
1950 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
1953 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
1957 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
1958 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
1961 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
1962 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
1963 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
1966 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
1970 ** VC changes for backends:
1971 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
1972 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
1973 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
1974 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
1975 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
1978 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
1979 as a dynamic completion table.
1981 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
1983 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
1984 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
1985 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
1986 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
1987 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
1988 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
1991 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
1992 as a lazy completion table.
1994 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
1996 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
1997 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
1998 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
1999 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
2000 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
2001 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
2004 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
2007 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
2008 for all (existing and future) frames.
2011 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
2014 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
2017 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
2020 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
2021 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
2022 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
2023 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
2024 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
2027 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
2028 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
2029 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
2030 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
2033 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
2034 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
2035 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
2036 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
2039 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
2040 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
2043 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
2044 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
2045 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
2046 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
2049 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
2050 of a string given to a process's filter.
2053 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2054 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2057 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2058 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2059 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2060 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2063 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2064 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2065 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2066 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2067 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2070 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2071 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2074 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2075 on garbage collection.
2078 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2079 it is read from a file without decoding.
2082 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2085 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2086 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2087 by calling `select-window'.
2090 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2091 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2092 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2093 need to have a name.
2095 ** Byte compiler changes:
2098 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2099 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2100 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2101 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2102 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2106 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2107 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2108 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2109 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2112 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2113 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2115 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2116 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2117 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2118 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2119 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2120 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2123 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2124 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2127 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2128 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2129 be inserted is translated through it.
2132 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2133 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2134 current file redefined it).
2137 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2138 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2139 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2140 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2141 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2142 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2144 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2145 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2146 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2147 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2148 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2150 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2151 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2152 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2153 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2154 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2155 returns differing values.
2158 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2159 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2160 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2163 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2164 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2165 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2166 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2168 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2169 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2172 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2173 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2176 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2177 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2180 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2181 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2182 can start with this line:
2184 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2187 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2188 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2191 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2192 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2195 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2196 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2200 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2201 and `display-warning'.
2204 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2205 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2206 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2210 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2211 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2214 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2215 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2216 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2217 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2220 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2221 of one coding system from another coding system.
2224 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2225 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2226 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2227 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2231 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2232 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2233 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2234 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2235 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2236 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2238 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2239 confirmation as before.
2242 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2244 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2245 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2246 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2247 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2249 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2250 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2251 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2252 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2253 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2254 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2256 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2257 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2258 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2259 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2262 ** Per-window fringes settings
2264 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2267 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2268 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2269 `set-window-fringes'.
2271 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2272 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2273 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2274 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2276 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2277 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2278 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2279 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2280 an update of the display margins.
2283 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2285 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2286 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2288 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2289 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2290 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2291 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2292 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2293 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2294 of the display margins.
2297 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2298 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2299 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2302 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2303 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2304 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2305 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2306 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2307 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2310 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2311 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2312 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2315 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2316 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2317 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2318 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2319 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2322 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2323 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2326 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2327 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2328 will only show directories.
2331 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2332 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2333 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2336 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2337 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2338 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2341 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2342 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2343 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2345 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2347 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2348 declaration specifiers supported are:
2351 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2354 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2355 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2358 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2360 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2361 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2362 binding and lookup functionality.
2364 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2365 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2369 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2370 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2371 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2372 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2375 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2376 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2377 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2378 map using define-key:
2380 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2381 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2383 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2384 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2386 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2387 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2388 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2390 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2392 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2393 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2394 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2395 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2397 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2398 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2400 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2401 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2403 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2404 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2405 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2406 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2407 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2408 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2410 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2411 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2412 command was not remapped.
2415 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2417 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2418 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2422 ** Atomic change groups.
2424 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2425 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2426 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2428 (atomic-change-group
2430 (delete-region x y))
2432 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2433 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2434 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2435 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2437 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2438 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2440 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2441 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2442 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2443 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2445 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2446 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2449 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2450 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2451 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2452 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2454 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2455 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2456 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2457 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2458 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2459 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2462 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2463 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2464 returned values, like this:
2466 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2467 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2469 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2470 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2471 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2473 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2474 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2475 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2476 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2480 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2482 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2483 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2484 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2485 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2488 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2490 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2491 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2492 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2493 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2496 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2498 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2499 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2500 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2503 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2505 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2506 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2507 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2508 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2509 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2512 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2514 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2515 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2518 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2520 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2521 text properties from the inserted substring.
2524 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2525 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2527 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
2528 elements with the following format:
2529 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2531 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2532 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2533 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2534 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2536 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2537 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2538 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2539 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2540 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2542 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2543 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2544 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2545 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2546 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2547 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2548 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2549 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2551 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
2552 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
2555 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2556 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2557 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2558 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2559 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2562 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2563 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2565 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2566 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2567 defined with defface.
2570 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2571 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2572 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2575 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2576 help with handling relative face attributes.
2579 ** Enhancements to process support
2581 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2582 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2584 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2585 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2586 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2588 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2589 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2591 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2592 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2594 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2595 and modify elements on this property list.
2597 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2598 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
2601 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
2603 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
2604 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
2605 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
2606 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
2607 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
2608 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
2609 emacs tries to read it.
2612 ** Enhanced networking support.
2614 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
2615 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
2616 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
2618 - A server is started using :server t arg.
2619 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
2620 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
2621 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
2622 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
2623 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
2624 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
2625 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
2627 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
2628 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
2630 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
2632 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
2634 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
2635 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
2636 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
2637 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
2638 matching "open" or "failed".
2640 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
2642 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
2643 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
2644 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
2645 is called for the new process.
2647 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
2649 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
2650 and set the current address of the remote partner.
2652 *** New function format-network-address.
2654 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
2655 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
2656 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
2657 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
2658 string for other formatting options.
2660 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
2661 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
2662 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
2664 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
2665 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
2666 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
2667 the fifth is the port number.
2669 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
2670 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
2671 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
2672 no input is received in the stopped state.
2674 *** New function network-interface-list.
2676 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
2677 current network addresses.
2679 *** New function network-interface-info.
2681 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
2682 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
2685 ** New function copy-tree.
2688 ** New function substring-no-properties.
2691 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
2694 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
2697 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
2698 are now always lower case. If you specify the
2699 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
2700 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
2702 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
2703 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
2706 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
2707 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
2708 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
2709 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
2712 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
2713 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
2715 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
2716 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
2717 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
2720 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
2721 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
2724 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
2725 (function (lambda ()
2727 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2728 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
2729 (function (lambda ()
2730 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2733 ** File local variables.
2735 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
2736 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
2739 ** New function window-body-height.
2741 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
2745 ** New function format-mode-line.
2747 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
2748 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
2751 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
2753 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
2754 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
2757 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
2759 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
2760 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
2761 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
2762 you specify the map to use as an argument.
2765 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
2767 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
2768 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
2769 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
2772 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
2774 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
2775 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
2776 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
2777 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
2778 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
2781 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
2782 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
2783 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
2784 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
2787 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
2788 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
2791 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
2792 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
2793 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
2796 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
2797 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
2801 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
2802 cl-indent package. The new user options
2803 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
2804 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
2805 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
2808 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
2809 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
2812 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
2814 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
2815 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
2816 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
2819 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
2821 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
2822 the time it takes to convert the format.
2824 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
2828 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
2829 over minor mode keymaps.
2832 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
2833 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
2836 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
2837 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
2838 image or composition property.
2840 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
2841 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
2842 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
2843 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
2844 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
2847 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
2851 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
2852 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
2853 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
2854 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
2858 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
2861 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
2864 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
2865 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
2866 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
2867 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
2868 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
2869 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
2872 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
2873 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
2874 bindings of the parent keymap.
2877 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
2878 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
2879 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
2880 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
2881 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
2882 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
2890 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
2891 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
2892 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
2893 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
2896 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
2897 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
2899 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
2900 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
2903 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
2904 it receives a request from emacsclient.
2907 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
2908 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
2909 than 3 levels of nesting.
2912 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
2913 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
2917 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
2918 properties from surrounding text.
2921 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
2923 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
2924 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
2925 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
2928 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
2929 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
2933 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
2934 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
2935 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
2936 other properties than `face'.
2937 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
2938 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
2941 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
2942 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
2943 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
2944 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
2945 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
2948 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
2949 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
2950 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
2953 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
2954 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
2957 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
2958 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
2961 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
2962 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
2963 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
2966 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
2967 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
2968 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
2971 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
2972 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
2973 accepts a float as UID parameter.
2976 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
2979 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
2982 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
2983 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
2984 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
2985 the output of other GNU tools.
2988 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
2991 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
2994 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
2995 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
2998 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
3000 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3002 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3003 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3004 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3005 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3007 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3008 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3010 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
3012 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3013 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3014 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3016 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3017 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3020 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
3021 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
3024 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
3025 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
3028 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
3029 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3032 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
3033 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
3034 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
3036 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
3037 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3038 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3040 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
3045 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
3046 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
3047 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
3048 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
3049 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
3050 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
3052 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3054 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3055 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3057 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3058 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3061 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3062 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3064 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3065 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3066 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3067 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3068 as help and apropos buffers.
3071 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
3073 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3077 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3079 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3082 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3083 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
3084 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
3085 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
3086 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
3088 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3091 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3092 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3093 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3094 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3095 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3096 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3097 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3098 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3099 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3100 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3102 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3103 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3105 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3106 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3107 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3108 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3109 contrary to the compound text specification.
3112 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3114 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3116 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3119 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3121 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3123 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3124 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3125 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3126 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3127 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3129 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3132 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3133 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3135 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3136 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3137 instead of using default-major-mode.
3139 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3140 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3141 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3142 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3143 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3144 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3145 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3147 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3151 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3153 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3154 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3155 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3157 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3158 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3161 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3163 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3164 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3165 charsets in this release.
3167 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3169 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3171 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3172 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3175 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3176 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3177 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3178 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3179 necessary changes to unexec.
3181 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3182 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3184 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3185 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3187 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3188 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3190 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3191 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3192 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3193 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3194 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3196 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3197 new display features described below.
3200 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3202 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3204 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3205 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3206 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3207 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3210 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3212 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3213 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3214 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3215 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3218 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3219 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3220 under Lisp changes, below.
3222 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3224 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3225 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3226 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3227 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3228 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3229 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3232 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3233 supported on character terminals.
3235 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3236 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3237 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3238 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3240 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3244 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3245 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3246 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3247 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3250 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3252 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3253 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3254 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3255 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3257 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3259 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3260 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3261 specifies a number of lines.
3265 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3267 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3268 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3269 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3272 Default is `grow-only'.
3276 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3277 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3279 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3281 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3282 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3285 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3287 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3288 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3289 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3291 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3293 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3294 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3295 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3296 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3297 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3300 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3301 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3302 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3303 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3304 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3305 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3307 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3308 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3309 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3310 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3311 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3312 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3314 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3315 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3316 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3317 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3318 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3320 ** Tool bar support.
3322 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3323 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3324 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3325 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3326 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3329 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3330 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3334 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3335 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3336 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3338 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3339 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3340 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3341 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3343 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3345 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3346 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3349 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3350 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3351 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3352 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3353 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3355 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3356 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3357 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3358 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3359 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3360 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3362 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3363 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3364 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3365 customizing face `fringe'.
3367 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3368 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3369 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3370 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3371 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3372 the window to be partially obscured.)
3374 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3375 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3376 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3377 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3379 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3381 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3382 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3383 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3384 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3385 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3388 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3390 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3392 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3394 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3395 `*') toggles the status.
3397 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3399 ** Hourglass pointer
3401 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3402 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3406 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3407 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3408 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3411 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3413 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3414 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3415 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3418 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3419 have to do anything to activate it.
3421 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3423 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3424 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3426 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3427 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3428 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3429 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3430 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3431 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3432 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3433 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3435 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3436 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3437 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3438 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3439 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3440 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3442 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3443 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3445 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3446 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3449 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3450 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3451 beginning and end of the buffer.
3453 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3454 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3457 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3458 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3460 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3461 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3464 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3465 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3468 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3470 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3471 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3472 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3474 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3475 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3476 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3478 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3481 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3483 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3484 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3485 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3486 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3487 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3490 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3491 all frames except the selected one.
3493 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3494 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3496 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3497 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3498 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3499 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3500 `Info-use-header-line'.
3502 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3503 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3504 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3506 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3508 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3509 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3512 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3513 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3514 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3515 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3517 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3519 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3520 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3521 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3522 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3524 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3525 point in a pop-up window.
3527 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3528 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3529 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3531 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3532 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3534 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3535 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3536 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3537 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3539 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3541 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3542 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3544 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3545 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3546 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3548 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3549 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3552 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3553 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3554 file that is already visited under a different name.
3556 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3557 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3559 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3560 and displays information about that.
3562 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3563 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3565 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3566 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3567 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3568 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3569 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3570 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3572 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3573 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3575 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3576 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3577 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3578 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3579 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3580 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3581 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3583 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3584 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3586 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3587 system for keyboard input.
3589 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3590 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3591 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3592 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3593 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3594 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3595 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3596 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3597 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
3599 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
3600 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
3602 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
3603 displays all characters in that character set.
3605 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
3606 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
3608 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
3609 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
3610 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
3612 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
3613 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
3614 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
3615 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
3616 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
3617 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
3620 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
3621 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
3624 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
3625 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
3626 Lisp Coding Convention".
3628 new command old-binding
3629 --- ------- -----------
3630 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
3631 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
3632 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
3634 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
3635 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
3636 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
3638 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
3639 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
3640 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
3641 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
3642 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
3643 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
3645 ** There are new Leim input methods.
3646 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
3647 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
3650 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
3651 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
3652 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
3653 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
3654 "`", you must type "=q".
3656 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
3657 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
3658 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
3659 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
3660 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
3663 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
3664 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
3665 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
3666 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
3668 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
3669 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
3670 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
3671 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
3673 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
3674 on the display using several methods
3676 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
3677 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
3678 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
3680 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
3681 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
3683 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
3685 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
3686 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
3688 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
3689 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
3690 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
3691 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
3693 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
3694 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
3695 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
3697 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
3698 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
3700 ** New X resources recognized
3702 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
3703 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
3704 is useful for debugging X problems.
3708 emacs.synchronous: true
3710 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
3711 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
3712 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
3713 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
3714 visual class names are
3723 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
3724 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
3727 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
3728 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
3729 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
3734 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
3736 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
3737 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
3738 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
3739 resource values are `true' or `on'.
3743 emacs.privateColormap: true
3745 ** Faces and frame parameters.
3747 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
3748 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3749 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
3750 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
3751 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
3752 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
3753 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
3755 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
3756 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
3757 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
3758 `default' face and vice versa.
3762 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
3764 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
3766 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
3767 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
3768 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
3769 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
3771 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
3772 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
3773 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
3775 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
3778 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
3780 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
3781 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
3782 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
3783 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
3785 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
3787 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
3789 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
3791 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
3794 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
3797 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
3799 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
3800 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
3801 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
3803 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
3804 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
3806 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
3807 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
3808 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
3810 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
3812 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
3813 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
3814 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3815 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
3817 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
3818 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
3819 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3820 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
3822 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
3823 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
3824 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
3827 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
3829 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
3830 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
3831 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
3833 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
3834 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
3835 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
3836 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
3837 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
3838 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
3840 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
3842 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
3843 notably at the end of lines.
3845 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
3846 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
3848 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
3850 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
3851 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
3853 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
3854 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
3855 after each match to get the replacement text.
3857 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
3858 you edit the replacement string.
3860 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
3861 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
3862 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
3864 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
3866 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
3867 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
3869 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
3870 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
3871 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
3872 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
3875 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
3876 read mail from the menu etc.
3878 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
3879 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
3880 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
3881 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
3883 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
3884 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3886 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
3887 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
3888 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
3889 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
3890 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
3893 ** Customize changes
3895 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
3896 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
3897 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
3898 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
3899 earlier versions of Emacs.
3901 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
3902 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
3905 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3906 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
3907 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
3908 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
3911 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3912 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
3913 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
3914 already in your init file.
3916 ** New features in evaluation commands
3918 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
3919 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
3920 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
3921 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
3922 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
3924 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
3925 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
3926 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
3927 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
3930 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
3931 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
3933 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
3934 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
3936 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
3937 code when called with a prefix argument.
3941 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
3942 current user setups (although it's believed that these
3943 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
3944 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
3945 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
3946 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
3949 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
3950 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
3951 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
3954 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
3955 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
3956 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
3957 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
3959 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
3960 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
3962 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
3963 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
3965 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
3966 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
3967 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
3968 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
3970 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
3971 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
3972 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
3973 earlier statement. An example:
3975 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
3977 res += a[i]->offset;
3980 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
3981 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
3982 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
3983 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
3986 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
3989 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
3990 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
3991 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
3992 documentation or other natural language text.
3994 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
3995 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
3996 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
3997 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
3998 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
3999 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
4000 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
4002 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
4003 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
4004 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
4005 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
4007 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
4008 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
4009 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
4010 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
4013 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
4014 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
4015 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
4016 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
4017 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
4018 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
4019 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
4020 is reported afterwards.
4022 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
4023 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
4024 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
4026 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
4027 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
4028 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
4029 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
4030 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
4031 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
4034 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
4035 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
4036 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
4037 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
4038 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
4041 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
4042 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
4043 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
4044 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
4045 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
4046 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
4048 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
4049 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
4050 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
4051 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
4052 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4053 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4054 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4055 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4057 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4058 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4059 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4060 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4063 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4064 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4065 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4066 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4067 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4068 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4069 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4070 function documentation for more info.
4072 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4073 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4074 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4075 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4076 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4077 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4078 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4079 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4081 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4083 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4084 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4086 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4087 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4088 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4089 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4090 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4093 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4094 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4095 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4098 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4099 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4100 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4101 chapter about this in the manual.
4103 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4104 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4105 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4106 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4107 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4109 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4110 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4111 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4113 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4114 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4116 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4117 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4118 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4121 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4122 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4123 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4124 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4127 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4128 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4129 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4130 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4131 they were before the filling.
4133 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4134 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4135 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4138 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4139 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4140 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4141 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4144 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4145 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4146 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4147 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4148 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4150 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4151 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4152 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4154 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4156 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4157 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4158 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4159 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4161 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4162 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4163 the column specified by comment-column.
4165 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4166 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4167 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4168 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4169 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4170 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4172 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4173 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4176 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4178 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4179 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4180 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4181 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4184 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4188 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4189 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4190 is, delete only empty directories.
4192 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4193 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4194 copy directories recursively.
4196 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4197 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4198 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4200 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4201 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4204 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4205 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4206 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4207 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4208 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4210 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4213 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4214 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4215 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4216 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4220 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4221 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4222 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4224 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4225 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4227 If you used procmail like in
4229 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4230 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4231 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4232 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4234 this now has changed to
4237 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4240 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4241 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4243 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4244 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4245 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4246 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4248 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4249 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4250 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4252 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4253 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4254 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4255 now just a compatibility layer.
4257 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4260 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4261 called to position point.
4263 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4264 summary buffers and NOV files.
4266 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4267 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4269 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4270 subtly different manner.
4272 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4273 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4274 ever-changing layouts.
4276 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4278 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4280 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4282 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4286 -------------------------
4290 C-c C-c q @quotation
4292 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4295 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4297 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4299 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4300 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4301 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4303 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4305 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4306 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4307 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4308 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4309 buffers to kill, as before.
4311 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4312 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4315 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4316 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4318 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4320 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4321 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4322 use. Default is 1000.
4324 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4325 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4327 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4329 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4331 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4332 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4333 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4334 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4336 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4337 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4338 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4341 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
4342 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4343 the normal block-hiding function.
4345 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4347 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4348 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4349 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4350 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4352 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4353 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4355 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4357 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4358 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4359 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4361 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4364 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4367 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4368 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4369 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4370 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4371 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4372 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4374 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4376 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4378 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4379 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4381 ** Changes in Font Lock
4383 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4384 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4386 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4387 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4389 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4390 the face used for each string/comment.
4392 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4393 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4395 ** Changes to Shell mode
4397 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4398 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4399 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4400 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4402 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4404 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4405 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4407 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4408 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4409 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4410 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4411 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4412 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4414 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4415 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4416 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4417 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4418 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4419 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4420 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4421 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4423 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4424 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4426 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4427 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4428 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4430 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4431 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4432 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4434 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4435 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4436 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4438 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4439 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4440 argument, it appends to the file.
4442 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4443 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4446 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4449 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4450 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4451 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4453 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4455 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4456 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4457 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4458 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4459 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4462 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4463 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4464 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4466 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4467 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4468 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4469 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4470 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4472 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4475 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4476 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4479 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4480 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4482 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4483 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4484 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4486 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4487 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4489 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4490 use the -f option when sending mail.
4492 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4493 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4494 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4495 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4496 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4497 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4499 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4500 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4501 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4503 ** Changes to TeX mode
4505 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4508 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4510 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4512 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4514 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4516 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4517 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4518 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4519 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4520 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4521 can be edited from that buffer.
4523 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4524 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4525 `A' to use all marked entries).
4527 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4528 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4530 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4531 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4532 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4535 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4536 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4537 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4538 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4540 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4541 has the following new features:
4543 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4544 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4545 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4546 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4548 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4549 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4550 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4551 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4552 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4555 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4560 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4561 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4562 spell-checks the current buffer.
4564 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4567 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4568 correction is made and re-checked.
4570 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4572 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4575 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4578 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4581 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4583 ** Makefile mode changes
4585 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4587 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4588 Fontlock mode is active.
4592 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4593 so that searches can be resumed.
4595 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4596 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4597 that started the search.
4599 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
4600 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
4602 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
4604 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
4605 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
4606 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
4607 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
4608 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
4609 `secondary-selection'.
4611 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
4612 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
4613 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
4614 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
4615 usual snappy response.
4617 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
4618 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
4619 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
4620 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
4624 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
4625 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
4626 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
4627 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
4628 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
4629 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
4630 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
4631 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
4632 file is registered in that backend.
4634 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
4635 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
4636 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
4637 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
4638 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
4639 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
4641 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
4642 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
4643 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
4644 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
4645 where it doesn't make sense.)
4647 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
4648 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
4649 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
4653 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
4654 checks are always done now.
4656 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
4659 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
4660 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
4661 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
4663 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
4664 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
4665 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
4666 the working file (``merge news'').
4668 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4669 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
4672 *** Multiple Backends
4674 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
4675 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
4676 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
4677 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
4680 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
4681 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
4682 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
4683 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
4685 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
4686 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
4687 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
4688 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
4689 current revision number from the more remote backend.
4691 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
4692 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
4693 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
4694 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
4696 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
4697 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
4698 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
4699 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
4703 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
4704 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
4705 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
4706 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
4707 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
4708 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
4709 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
4711 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
4712 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
4713 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
4714 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
4715 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
4716 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
4717 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
4718 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
4719 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
4720 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
4721 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
4724 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
4725 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
4726 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
4727 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
4728 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
4729 entire directory tree.
4731 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
4732 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
4733 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
4734 "watched" by other developers.)
4736 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4737 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
4738 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
4739 starting at the given directory.
4741 *** Lisp Changes in VC
4743 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
4744 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
4745 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
4746 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
4747 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
4748 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
4749 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
4750 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
4751 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
4753 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
4754 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
4755 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
4756 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
4758 ** New modes and packages
4760 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
4761 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
4762 the default is not applicable.
4764 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
4765 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
4766 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
4770 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
4771 drawn, like this: | \ /
4775 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
4776 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
4777 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
4778 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
4779 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
4782 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
4783 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
4785 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
4788 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
4789 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
4790 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
4791 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
4793 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
4794 also do without the mouse.
4796 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
4797 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
4798 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
4799 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
4800 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
4802 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
4804 lines straight-lines
4806 poly-lines straight poly-lines
4808 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
4809 spray-can setting size for spraying
4810 vaporize line vaporize lines
4811 erase characters erase rectangles
4813 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
4814 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
4815 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
4818 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
4819 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
4820 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
4821 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
4823 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
4826 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
4827 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
4828 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
4829 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
4830 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
4831 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
4832 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
4833 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
4834 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
4836 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
4837 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
4838 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
4839 on certain projects.
4841 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
4842 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
4844 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
4846 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
4847 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
4848 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
4849 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
4850 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
4851 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
4852 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
4853 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
4855 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
4858 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
4859 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
4861 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
4862 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
4864 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
4865 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
4866 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
4867 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
4868 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
4870 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
4871 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
4872 separate Texinfo file.
4874 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
4875 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
4876 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
4877 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
4878 enter check-in log messages.
4880 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
4881 without invoking external programs.
4883 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
4884 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
4885 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
4886 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
4887 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
4889 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
4890 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
4892 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
4893 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
4895 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
4896 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
4897 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
4898 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
4899 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
4902 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
4903 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
4904 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
4905 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
4907 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
4908 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
4909 actually modifying content of a buffer.
4911 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
4914 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
4916 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
4918 ; comment (until end of line)
4922 $A default non-terminal
4923 $"C" default terminal
4924 $?C? default special
4925 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
4926 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
4927 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
4928 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
4929 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
4930 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
4931 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
4932 C+ one or more occurrences of C
4933 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
4934 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
4935 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
4936 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
4937 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
4938 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4939 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4941 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
4943 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
4944 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
4945 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
4946 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
4947 equal signs of assignments.
4949 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
4950 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
4952 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
4953 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
4954 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
4956 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
4958 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
4959 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
4960 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
4961 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
4962 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
4963 which answers different needs.
4965 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
4966 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
4967 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
4968 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
4969 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
4972 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
4973 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
4975 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
4977 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
4978 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
4979 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
4981 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
4983 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
4984 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
4985 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
4986 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
4987 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
4988 and background colors.
4990 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
4993 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
4996 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
4998 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
5000 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
5001 whitespace in a file.
5003 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
5004 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
5005 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
5006 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
5007 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
5008 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
5009 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
5011 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
5013 Here is an example of columns:
5016 dog pineapple car EXTRA
5017 porcupine strawberry airplane
5019 Doing the following settings:
5021 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
5022 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
5023 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
5024 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
5027 Selecting the lines above and typing:
5029 M-x delimit-columns-region
5033 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
5034 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
5035 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
5037 delim-col has the following options:
5039 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
5042 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
5043 between each column.
5045 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
5048 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
5051 delim-col has the following commands:
5053 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5054 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5056 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5057 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5058 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5059 recent file list can be displayed:
5061 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5062 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5063 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5065 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5066 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5068 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5071 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5072 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5073 specific to Message mode.
5075 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5076 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5077 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5079 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5080 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5081 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5083 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5084 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5086 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5088 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5089 minibuffer with completion.
5091 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5092 with the diary features.
5094 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5095 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5097 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5100 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5101 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5102 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5103 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5105 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5106 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5109 ** Changes in sort.el
5111 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5112 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5113 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5116 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5118 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5119 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5120 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5122 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5123 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5125 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5126 output ^M at the end of lines.
5128 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5129 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5131 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5132 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5135 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5138 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5139 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5142 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5143 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5144 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5145 nil -- just delete one character.
5147 Default value is `untabify'.
5149 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5151 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5152 symbol, not double-quoted.
5154 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5155 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5156 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5157 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5159 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5160 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5161 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5163 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5164 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5165 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5167 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5168 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5170 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5171 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5173 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5174 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5176 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5177 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5178 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5179 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5180 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5181 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5183 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5184 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5186 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5188 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5189 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5191 ** Shell script mode changes.
5193 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5194 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5195 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5199 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5201 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5202 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5203 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5204 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5205 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5207 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5208 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5210 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5211 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5213 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5214 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5215 `template' keywords.
5217 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5218 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5220 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5223 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5225 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5227 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5230 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5232 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5233 variables are tagged.
5235 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5237 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5240 ** Changes in etags.el
5242 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5243 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5244 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5246 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5247 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5249 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5250 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5251 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5252 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5254 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5256 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5257 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5259 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5261 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5262 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5263 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5265 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5266 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5268 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5269 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5271 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5272 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5273 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5274 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5275 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5277 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5278 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5279 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5281 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5282 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5283 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5285 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5286 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5287 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5289 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5291 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5293 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5294 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5295 expression from that list, are not checked.
5297 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5298 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5299 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5300 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5302 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5304 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5305 displays local abbrevs, only.
5307 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5308 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5310 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5311 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5312 is measured in pixels.
5314 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5315 to be visited as images.
5317 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5318 were added to compile.el.
5320 ** Withdrawn packages
5322 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5323 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5325 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5327 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5330 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5332 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5333 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5334 See the sections below for details.
5336 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5337 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5338 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5339 to remove the properties of the copy.
5341 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
5342 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5343 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5344 these properties are active.
5346 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5347 ranges may affect some code.
5349 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5350 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5351 make a difference to some code.
5353 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5354 operates on the minibuffer.
5356 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5357 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5358 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5359 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5360 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5361 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5362 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5363 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5364 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5365 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5366 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5367 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5369 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5370 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5371 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5373 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5374 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5375 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5377 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5378 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5379 such as `mapconcat'.
5381 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5384 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5385 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5386 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5387 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5388 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5389 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5390 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5391 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5393 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5394 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5395 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5396 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5397 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5398 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5399 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5400 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5401 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5402 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5405 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5406 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5408 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5410 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5411 allows the animated display of strings.
5413 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5414 interactive form of a function.
5416 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5417 between custom options. Example:
5419 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5420 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5421 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5422 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5424 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5425 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5427 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5428 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5429 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5431 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5432 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5433 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5434 (signal or normal termination).
5436 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5437 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5439 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5440 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5442 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5443 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5445 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5447 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5448 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5451 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5453 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5454 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5455 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5456 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5457 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5460 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5461 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5464 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5465 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5467 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5468 with the more general `:mask' property.
5470 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5472 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5475 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5476 is running in batch mode. For example,
5478 (message "%s" (read t))
5480 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5483 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5484 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5486 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5487 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5490 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5493 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5495 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5496 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5498 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5500 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5501 comparison is done with `eq'.
5503 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5505 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5506 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5507 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5509 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5510 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5511 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5513 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5514 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5516 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5517 function was declared obsolete.
5519 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5520 retained as an alias).
5522 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5523 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5524 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5526 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5528 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5530 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5531 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5532 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5533 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5534 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5535 means never include the minibuffer window.
5537 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5539 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5541 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5543 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5544 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5545 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5546 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5549 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5550 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5551 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5552 minibuffer even if it is active.
5554 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5555 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5556 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5557 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5558 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5559 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5561 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5562 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5563 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5564 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5565 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5566 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5567 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5569 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5570 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5571 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5573 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5574 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5575 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5576 Default value is nil.
5578 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5581 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5582 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5583 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5585 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5586 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5587 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5589 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5590 list of a primitive.
5592 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5594 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5595 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5596 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5597 than replacing the local map.
5599 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
5600 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
5601 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
5604 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
5606 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
5607 as promised long ago.
5609 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
5611 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
5612 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
5613 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
5616 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
5618 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
5619 regular expressions.
5621 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
5623 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5627 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5629 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
5633 matches string STRING literally.
5636 matches character CHAR literally.
5639 matches any character except a newline.
5642 matches any character
5645 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
5646 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
5652 matches any character not in SET
5655 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
5656 in the text being matched
5659 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
5662 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5663 string being matched against.
5666 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5667 string being matched against.
5670 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5671 buffer being matched against.
5674 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5675 buffer being matched against.
5678 matches the empty string, but only at point.
5681 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5685 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
5688 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5691 `(not word-boundary)'
5692 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
5696 matches 0 through 9.
5699 matches ASCII control characters.
5702 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5705 matches space and tab only.
5708 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5712 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5716 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5717 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5720 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5721 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5724 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5727 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5730 matches anything lower-case.
5733 matches anything upper-case.
5736 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5737 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5740 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5743 matches anything that has word syntax.
5746 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
5747 of the following symbols.
5749 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
5750 `punctuation' (\\s.)
5753 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
5754 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
5755 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
5756 `string-quote' (\\s\")
5757 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
5759 `character-quote' (\\s/)
5760 `comment-start' (\\s<)
5761 `comment-end' (\\s>)
5763 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
5764 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
5766 `(category CATEGORY)'
5767 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
5768 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
5770 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
5772 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
5773 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
5777 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
5779 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
5780 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
5781 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
5782 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
5783 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
5784 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
5785 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
5786 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
5787 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
5788 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
5789 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
5798 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
5802 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
5809 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
5810 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
5812 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5813 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
5815 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5816 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
5817 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
5819 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5820 another name for `submatch'.
5822 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5823 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
5824 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
5827 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
5828 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
5829 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
5830 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
5831 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
5833 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
5834 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
5836 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
5837 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5840 like `zero-or-more'.
5843 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5846 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5848 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
5849 matches one or more occurrences of A.
5855 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5858 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5860 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
5861 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
5867 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5870 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5873 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5876 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5879 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
5883 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
5885 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
5887 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
5888 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
5889 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
5890 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
5892 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
5893 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
5894 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
5895 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
5897 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
5898 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
5899 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
5901 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
5902 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
5903 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
5904 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
5905 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
5906 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
5907 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
5910 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
5912 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
5913 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
5914 character set as previously.
5916 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
5917 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
5918 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
5920 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
5921 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
5922 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
5923 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
5925 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
5926 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
5928 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
5929 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
5932 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
5933 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
5935 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
5936 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
5937 buffers and strings.
5939 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
5940 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
5941 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
5942 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
5943 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
5944 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
5945 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
5948 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
5949 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
5950 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
5952 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
5953 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
5954 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
5955 may differ between buffer and string text.
5957 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
5958 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
5960 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
5961 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
5962 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
5963 `composition' from STRING.
5965 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
5966 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
5968 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
5971 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
5972 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
5974 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
5975 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
5976 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
5977 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
5979 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
5980 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
5981 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
5982 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
5983 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
5984 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
5986 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
5987 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
5988 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
5990 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
5991 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
5992 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
5994 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
5995 have been introduced.
5997 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5998 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
5999 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
6000 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
6001 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
6002 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
6003 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
6004 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
6005 their multibyte equivalent.
6007 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
6008 that offset in the file before writing.
6010 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
6011 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
6013 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
6014 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
6015 from which the command was issued.
6017 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
6018 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
6019 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
6020 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
6023 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
6024 to `window-buffer-height'.
6026 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
6028 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
6029 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
6030 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
6032 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
6035 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
6036 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
6038 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
6039 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
6040 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
6042 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
6043 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
6044 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
6045 is currently displayed in some window.
6047 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
6048 argument function's results.
6050 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
6051 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
6052 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6053 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6056 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6057 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6059 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6060 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6062 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6063 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6066 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6067 nil don't display a cursor
6068 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6069 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6070 others display a box cursor.
6072 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6073 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6074 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6075 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6077 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6078 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6079 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6080 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6084 (string-to-syntax "()")
6087 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6090 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6091 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6098 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6103 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6108 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6115 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6116 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6119 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6120 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6121 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6122 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6124 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6126 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6127 for a regexp in a string.
6129 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6130 `mouse-position-function'.
6132 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6133 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6135 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6136 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6138 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6141 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6142 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6144 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6145 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6146 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6147 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6150 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6151 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6153 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6154 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6155 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6156 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6159 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6160 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6161 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6162 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6164 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6165 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6166 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6168 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6169 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6172 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6174 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6175 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6176 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6179 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6180 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6181 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6182 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6183 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6185 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6186 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6188 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6189 instead of being optional.
6191 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6192 modify read-only text.
6194 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6196 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6197 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6198 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6199 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6200 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6202 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6203 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6204 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6205 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6206 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6207 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6208 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6210 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6211 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6212 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6215 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6216 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6218 ** New function `propertize'
6220 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6221 strings with text properties.
6223 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6225 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6226 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6227 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6228 specified value of that property. Example:
6230 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6232 ** push and pop macros.
6234 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6235 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6236 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6238 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6239 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6240 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6242 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6244 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6245 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6247 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6248 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6249 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6250 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6252 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6253 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6254 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6255 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6257 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6258 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6259 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6262 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6263 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6264 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6265 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6266 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6268 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6270 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6271 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6272 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6273 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6274 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6275 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6276 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6277 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6278 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6279 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6280 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6281 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6282 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6283 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6284 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6286 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6288 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6290 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6292 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6293 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6297 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6298 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6299 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6303 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6304 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6306 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6308 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6309 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6310 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6311 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6312 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6314 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6316 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6317 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6318 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6322 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6323 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6324 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6325 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6326 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6328 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6330 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6332 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6334 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6336 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6338 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6341 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6343 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6345 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6347 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6349 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6351 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6353 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6355 Returns the size of TABLE.
6357 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6359 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6361 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6363 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6365 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6369 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6371 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6374 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6376 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6377 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6379 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6381 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6383 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6385 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6386 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6388 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6390 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6392 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6394 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6395 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6396 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6397 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6398 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6400 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6402 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6403 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6404 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6406 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6407 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6409 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6410 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6412 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6413 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6415 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6416 'case-fold-string-hash))
6418 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6420 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6422 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6423 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6424 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6426 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6428 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6429 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6431 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6432 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6433 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6434 is too short to reach that column.
6436 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6437 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6438 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6439 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6441 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6442 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6443 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6445 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6446 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6448 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6449 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6451 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6452 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6453 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6454 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6455 temporary-file-directory instead.
6457 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6458 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6459 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6460 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6462 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6463 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6465 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6467 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6468 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6469 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6471 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6473 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6474 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6475 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6476 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6477 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6478 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6480 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6481 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6482 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6483 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6485 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6487 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6488 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6489 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6492 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6493 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6497 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6499 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6500 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6503 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6505 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6507 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6508 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6511 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6513 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6514 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6519 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6520 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6522 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6523 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6524 to enable sound support.
6526 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6527 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6528 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6529 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6530 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6532 The following sound properties are supported:
6536 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6537 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6541 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6542 may be present, but not both.
6546 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6547 0..1. This property is optional.
6551 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6552 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6554 Other properties are ignored.
6556 An alternative interface is called as
6557 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6559 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6561 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6564 ** Changes to garbage collection
6566 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6567 of live and free strings.
6569 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6570 strings that have been consed so far.
6573 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6576 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6579 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6580 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6581 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6583 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6585 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6587 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6590 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6592 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6594 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6595 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6596 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6597 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
6598 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
6600 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
6603 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
6605 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
6606 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
6607 or omitted means use the selected frame.
6609 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
6610 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
6612 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
6615 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
6619 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
6621 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
6622 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
6624 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
6625 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
6626 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
6627 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
6628 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
6629 just display it black instead.
6631 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
6634 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
6638 ** New face implementation.
6640 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
6641 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
6645 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
6647 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
6649 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
6650 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
6652 3. Font height in 1/10pt
6654 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
6656 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
6658 6. Foreground color.
6660 7. Background color.
6662 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
6664 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
6666 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
6668 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
6670 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
6673 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
6674 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
6676 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
6677 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
6678 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
6679 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
6680 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
6681 attributes mentioned above.
6683 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
6684 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
6687 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
6688 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
6693 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
6694 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
6695 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
6696 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
6697 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
6698 results in a fully-specified face.
6700 *** Face realization.
6702 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
6703 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
6704 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
6705 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
6706 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
6707 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
6709 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
6710 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
6711 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
6712 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
6714 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
6715 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
6716 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
6717 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
6718 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
6720 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
6721 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
6722 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
6723 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
6724 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
6727 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
6728 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
6729 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
6730 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
6732 **** Clearing face caches.
6734 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
6735 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
6740 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
6741 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
6742 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
6744 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
6745 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
6746 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
6747 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
6748 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
6750 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
6751 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
6752 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
6754 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
6756 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
6757 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
6758 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
6759 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
6760 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
6761 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
6762 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
6764 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6765 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
6768 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6769 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
6772 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
6775 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
6780 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
6781 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
6784 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
6785 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
6786 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
6787 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
6788 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
6791 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
6793 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
6795 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
6797 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
6799 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
6800 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
6801 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
6803 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
6804 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
6805 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
6806 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
6807 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
6808 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
6809 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
6810 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
6811 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
6812 of the face font sort order.
6814 - Function: x-font-family-list
6816 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
6817 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
6818 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
6819 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
6821 - Variable: font-list-limit
6823 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
6824 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
6825 matching font. The default is currently 100.
6827 *** Setting face attributes.
6829 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
6830 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
6831 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
6834 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
6835 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
6837 The following attributes are recognized:
6841 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
6842 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
6843 and `?' are allowed.
6847 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
6848 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
6849 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
6850 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
6854 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
6855 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
6856 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
6857 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
6861 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
6862 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
6863 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
6867 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
6868 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
6871 `:foreground', `:background'
6873 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
6877 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
6878 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
6879 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
6884 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
6885 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
6886 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
6891 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
6892 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
6893 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
6894 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
6898 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
6899 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
6900 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
6901 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
6902 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
6903 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
6904 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
6905 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
6906 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
6907 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
6908 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
6909 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
6910 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
6911 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
6912 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
6913 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
6918 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
6919 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
6923 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
6924 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
6925 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
6926 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
6927 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
6928 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
6930 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
6931 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
6935 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
6936 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
6937 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
6940 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
6941 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
6942 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
6944 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
6949 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
6950 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
6951 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
6953 *** Face attributes and X resources
6955 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
6958 Face attribute X resource class
6959 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
6960 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
6961 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
6962 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
6963 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
6964 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
6965 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
6966 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
6967 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
6968 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
6969 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
6970 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
6971 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
6972 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
6973 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
6974 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
6975 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6976 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
6977 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
6978 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6980 *** Text property `face'.
6982 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
6983 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
6984 specification can be
6986 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
6988 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
6989 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
6990 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
6991 for face attribute names.
6993 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
6994 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
6995 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
6997 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
6999 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
7000 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
7001 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
7002 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
7003 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
7004 used to clear the mapping table.
7006 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
7008 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
7009 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
7010 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
7011 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
7012 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
7013 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
7014 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
7015 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
7016 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
7017 modify their color-related behavior.
7019 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
7022 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
7024 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
7025 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
7026 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
7027 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
7028 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
7029 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
7030 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
7031 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
7032 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
7034 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
7035 display can display image files.
7037 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
7039 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
7040 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
7041 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
7042 `Inviolable' option.
7044 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
7045 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
7046 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
7048 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
7050 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
7051 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
7052 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7054 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7055 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7056 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7057 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7058 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7059 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7060 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7063 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7064 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7065 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7067 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7069 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7071 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7073 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7074 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7075 constrained position if that is different.
7077 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7078 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7079 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7080 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7081 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7082 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7083 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7084 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7085 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7087 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7088 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7089 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7090 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7091 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7093 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7094 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7096 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7098 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7100 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7101 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7102 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7104 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7106 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7107 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7108 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7109 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7110 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7112 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7114 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7115 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7116 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7117 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7118 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7120 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7122 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7123 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7124 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7126 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7128 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7129 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7130 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7134 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7135 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7136 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7137 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7139 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7140 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7141 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7142 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7145 IMAGE is an image specification.
7147 *** Image specifications
7149 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7150 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7151 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7152 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7153 described below are ignored.
7155 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7159 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7160 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7161 to use for its ascent.
7163 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7164 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7166 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7167 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7168 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7169 overlays that apply to the image.
7173 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7174 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7175 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7179 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7184 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7186 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7187 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7189 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7190 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7191 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7192 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7193 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7194 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7195 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7196 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7199 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7201 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7203 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7204 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7205 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7206 of the factors' absolute values.
7208 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7214 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7220 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7225 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7226 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7227 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7228 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7229 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7230 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7231 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7234 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7235 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7240 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7241 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7242 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7243 may be present in the image specification.
7247 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7248 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7249 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7250 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7252 *** Supported image types
7254 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7256 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7257 properties supported are:
7261 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7262 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7266 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7267 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7269 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7270 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7271 instead of a `:file' property.
7275 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7279 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7285 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7286 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7288 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7290 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7293 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7294 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7297 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7299 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7300 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7301 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7302 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7304 Additional image properties supported are:
7306 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7308 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7309 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7312 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7313 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7315 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7316 to display compressed images.
7318 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7320 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7321 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7326 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7327 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7331 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7332 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7334 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7336 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7337 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7340 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
7342 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7343 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7346 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7348 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7349 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7351 Additional image properties supported are:
7355 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7356 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
7359 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7360 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7361 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7364 (defun show-anim (file max)
7365 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7366 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7368 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7371 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7374 (goto-char (point-min))
7375 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7376 (insert-image img "x"))
7377 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7379 **** PNG, image type `png'
7381 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7382 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7385 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7387 Additional image properties supported are:
7391 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7392 integer. This is a required property.
7396 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7397 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7401 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7402 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7403 files. This is an required property.
7405 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7410 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7411 which are supported in the current configuration.
7413 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7414 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7415 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7416 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7417 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7419 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7421 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7422 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7423 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7424 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7425 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7430 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7433 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7434 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7435 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7436 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7437 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7438 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7439 of the display margins.
7441 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7442 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7443 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7444 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7449 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7450 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7451 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7452 that have a `help-echo' property.
7454 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7455 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7456 the window in which the help was found.
7458 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7459 `help-echo' text property was found.
7461 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7462 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7464 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7465 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7468 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7469 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7471 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7472 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7473 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7474 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7475 used as help string.
7477 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7478 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7479 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7481 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7483 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7484 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7486 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7487 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7488 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7489 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7492 (global-set-key [A-down]
7495 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7496 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7497 (global-set-key [A-up]
7500 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7501 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7503 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7505 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7506 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7507 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7508 is called with one argument, POS.
7510 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7511 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7512 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7513 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7514 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7516 ** Tool bar support.
7518 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7519 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7520 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7521 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7522 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7523 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7525 *** Tool bar item definitions
7527 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7528 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7529 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7531 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7532 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7533 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7534 property (see below).
7536 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7537 binding are currently ignored.
7539 The following properties are recognized:
7543 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7548 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7552 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7553 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7554 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7556 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7558 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7559 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7563 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7564 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7565 meaning of each of the four elements:
7567 Index Use when item is
7568 ----------------------------------------
7569 0 enabled and selected
7570 1 enabled and deselected
7571 2 disabled and selected
7572 3 disabled and deselected
7574 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7575 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7577 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7579 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7580 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7582 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7583 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7584 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7587 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7588 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7589 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7591 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7593 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7594 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7595 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7597 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
7598 raised when the mouse moves over them.
7600 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
7601 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
7602 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
7603 vertical margins . Default is 1.
7605 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
7606 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
7608 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
7610 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
7613 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
7614 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
7615 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
7617 is the original tool bar item definition, then
7619 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
7621 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
7624 ** Mode line changes.
7626 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
7628 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
7629 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
7630 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
7632 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
7633 a `local-map' text property.
7635 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
7636 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
7638 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
7639 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
7640 `local-map' property.
7642 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
7643 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
7646 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
7647 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
7649 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
7650 variable mode-line-format to nil.
7652 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
7654 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
7655 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
7656 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
7657 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
7660 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
7663 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
7664 position in the header-line.
7666 ** Text property `display'
7668 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
7669 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
7670 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
7671 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
7672 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
7674 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
7676 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
7677 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
7679 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
7680 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
7681 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
7682 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7683 simpler form STRING as property value.
7685 *** Variable width and height spaces
7687 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
7688 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
7689 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
7690 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
7691 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
7692 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7693 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
7695 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
7696 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
7697 properties described below.
7699 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
7700 characters having the `display' property.
7704 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
7705 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
7707 - :relative-width FACTOR
7709 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
7710 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
7711 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
7712 width of that character by FACTOR.
7716 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
7717 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
7719 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
7723 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
7726 - :relative-height FACTOR
7728 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
7729 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
7733 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
7734 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
7735 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
7738 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
7742 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
7743 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
7744 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
7745 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
7746 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
7747 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
7748 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
7749 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
7750 as display specification.
7752 *** Other display properties
7754 - (space-width FACTOR)
7756 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
7757 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
7762 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
7764 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
7765 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
7766 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
7767 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
7768 a font is available counts as a step.
7770 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
7771 as tall as the frame's default font.
7773 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
7774 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
7776 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
7777 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
7781 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
7782 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
7783 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
7784 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
7785 `height' subproperty.
7787 *** Conditional display properties
7789 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
7790 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
7791 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
7792 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
7793 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
7794 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
7795 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
7796 different when object is a string.
7798 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
7801 ** New menu separator types.
7803 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
7804 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
7805 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
7806 to specify other menu separator types.
7808 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
7810 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
7813 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
7815 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
7817 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
7819 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
7821 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
7823 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7825 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
7827 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7829 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
7831 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
7832 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
7834 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
7836 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
7838 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
7840 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
7842 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
7844 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
7846 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
7848 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7850 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
7852 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
7854 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
7856 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7858 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
7860 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
7862 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
7863 the corresponding single-line separators.
7865 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
7867 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
7868 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
7869 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
7870 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
7871 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
7872 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
7873 default foreground is black.
7875 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
7876 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
7877 `ScrollBarBackground').
7879 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
7880 settings for scroll bar colors.
7882 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
7883 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
7885 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
7886 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
7887 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
7888 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
7889 the original window start.
7891 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
7892 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
7893 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
7895 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
7897 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
7898 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
7899 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
7900 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
7902 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
7903 fixed-width and fixed-height.
7905 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
7907 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
7908 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
7909 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
7910 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
7911 temporarily to nil, for example
7913 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
7914 (enlarge-window 10))
7916 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
7917 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
7919 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
7920 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
7921 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
7922 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
7923 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
7924 support a vertical-bar cursor).
7928 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
7930 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
7933 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
7935 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
7937 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
7938 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
7939 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
7940 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
7941 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
7943 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
7947 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
7949 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
7953 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7955 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
7956 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
7958 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
7960 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
7962 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
7963 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
7964 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
7966 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
7967 is the one that is used.
7969 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
7970 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
7971 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
7972 separate from the command's regular output.
7973 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
7974 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
7975 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
7978 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
7979 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
7980 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
7981 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
7983 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
7984 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
7985 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
7986 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
7988 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
7989 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
7990 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
7991 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
7993 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
7994 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
7995 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
7996 they never ignore case.
7998 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
7999 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
8000 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
8001 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
8002 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
8003 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
8004 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
8006 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
8007 the same format that was used in the file before.
8009 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
8010 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
8012 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
8013 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
8014 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
8016 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
8017 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
8018 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
8019 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
8020 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
8021 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
8022 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
8024 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
8025 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
8026 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
8027 format. You can now customize these variables.
8029 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
8030 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
8031 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
8032 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
8034 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
8035 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
8036 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
8038 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
8039 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
8040 doesn't have any effect.
8042 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
8045 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
8046 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
8047 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
8049 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
8050 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
8051 `auto-show-mode' command.
8053 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8054 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8055 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8056 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8057 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8059 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8060 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8062 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8063 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8064 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8066 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8067 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8068 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8069 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8071 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8073 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8074 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8075 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8076 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8077 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8079 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8080 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8082 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8083 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8084 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8085 `?' on other systems.
8087 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8088 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8091 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8092 current codepage when it starts.
8096 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8097 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8098 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8099 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8100 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8101 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8105 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8106 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8108 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8109 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8110 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8111 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8112 buffer-file-coding-system.
8114 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8115 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8118 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8119 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8120 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8121 list of possible coding systems.
8125 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8126 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8127 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8128 docstring for details.
8130 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8131 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8132 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8133 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8134 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8136 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8137 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8139 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8140 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8142 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8143 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8144 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8145 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8148 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8149 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8151 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8152 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8153 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8154 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8156 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8157 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8158 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8159 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8160 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8162 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8164 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8166 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8167 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8169 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8171 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8172 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8173 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8174 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8175 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8179 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8180 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8181 Gnus manual for the full story.
8183 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8184 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8185 group, which is created automatically.
8187 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8190 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8192 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8193 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8195 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8198 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8200 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8201 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8203 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8205 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8206 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8208 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8209 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8211 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8212 control over simplification.
8214 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8216 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8219 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8221 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8223 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8224 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8225 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8227 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8228 `a' forces normal posting method.
8230 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8233 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8236 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8237 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8239 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8242 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8244 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8246 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8247 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8249 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8250 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8252 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8254 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8257 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8258 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8260 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8261 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8263 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8265 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8267 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8269 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8271 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8272 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8273 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8275 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8276 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8277 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8278 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8279 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8281 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8282 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8283 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8284 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8286 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8287 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8288 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8291 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8293 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8294 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8296 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8297 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8298 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8299 removed from the label.
8301 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8302 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8304 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8305 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8307 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8308 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8311 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8313 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8315 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8316 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8318 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8319 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8320 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8322 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8323 changes with a special face.
8325 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8326 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8327 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8329 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8331 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8332 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8333 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8334 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8335 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8337 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8338 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8339 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8341 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
8342 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
8343 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8344 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8345 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8346 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8347 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8348 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8349 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8351 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8352 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8353 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8354 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8355 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8358 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8359 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8360 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8361 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8362 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8363 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8365 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8366 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8367 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8368 was not documented clearly before.
8370 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8371 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8373 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8375 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8376 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8377 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8378 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8380 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8381 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8382 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8384 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8386 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8387 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8389 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8390 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8393 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8394 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8395 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8396 file names and attributes are returned.
8398 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8399 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8400 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8401 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8404 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8405 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8407 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8409 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8410 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8411 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8414 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8415 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8418 The new function process-running-child-p
8419 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8420 terminal to its own child process.
8422 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8423 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8424 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8425 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8427 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8428 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8430 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8431 :included is an alias for :visible.
8433 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8434 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8435 to move or copy menu entries.
8437 ** Multibyte editing changes
8439 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8440 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8441 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8442 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8443 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8444 (setq char (sref str idx)
8445 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8446 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8448 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8449 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8450 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8452 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8453 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8454 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8456 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8458 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8459 across the boundary.
8461 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8462 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8463 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8464 contains 8-bit characters.
8465 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8466 contains invalid characters.
8468 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8469 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8470 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8471 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8474 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8475 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8476 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8477 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8479 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8480 compose Thai characters in a string.
8482 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8483 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8484 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8485 menus should always use the third argument.
8487 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8488 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8489 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8490 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8492 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8493 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8494 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8495 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8497 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8498 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8499 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8502 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8504 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8505 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8506 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8508 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8509 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8510 means to clear out that attribute.
8512 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8513 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8515 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8516 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8517 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8518 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8520 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8521 the gap of the current buffer.
8523 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8524 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8527 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8528 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8529 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8530 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8532 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8534 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8535 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8536 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8537 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8538 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8540 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8541 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8542 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8543 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8544 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8546 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8547 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8548 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8550 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8551 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8552 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8553 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8554 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8557 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8558 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8559 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8560 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8562 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8564 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8565 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8566 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8567 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8569 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8570 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8571 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8572 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8573 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8574 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8575 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8578 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8581 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8582 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8583 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8584 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8585 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8587 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8588 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8589 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8590 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8592 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8593 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8594 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8595 something that most users not do.
8597 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
8598 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
8599 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
8602 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
8605 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
8606 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
8607 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
8608 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
8611 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
8612 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
8613 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
8614 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
8615 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
8618 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
8619 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
8620 to be confused by TeX commands.
8622 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
8623 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
8624 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
8625 of various alternative replacements and actions.
8627 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
8628 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
8629 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
8630 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
8631 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
8633 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
8634 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
8636 ** Changes in input method usage.
8638 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
8639 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
8642 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
8644 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
8645 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
8647 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
8648 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
8650 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
8652 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
8654 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
8655 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
8657 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
8658 given in the following case:
8659 o When you are using a complex input method.
8660 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
8662 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
8663 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
8664 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
8665 setting it to t is helpful.
8667 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
8669 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
8671 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
8672 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
8673 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
8674 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
8677 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
8678 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
8679 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
8682 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
8684 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
8686 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
8687 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
8689 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
8690 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
8691 its owner and group.
8693 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
8694 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
8696 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
8697 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
8699 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
8700 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
8701 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
8702 by the left edge of the rectangle.
8704 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
8705 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
8706 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
8707 for writing keyboard macros.
8709 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
8710 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
8711 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
8712 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
8713 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
8716 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
8718 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
8719 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
8722 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
8723 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
8724 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
8725 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
8727 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
8728 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
8729 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
8731 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
8732 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
8733 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
8734 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
8736 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
8737 failure if the command produces no output.
8739 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
8740 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
8743 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
8744 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
8745 function and variable names.
8747 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
8748 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
8749 file-coding-system-alist.
8751 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
8752 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
8753 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
8754 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
8755 according to the current fontset.
8757 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
8759 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
8760 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
8761 nonascii-insert-offset.
8763 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
8764 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
8765 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
8766 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
8768 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
8769 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
8771 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
8772 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
8774 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
8775 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
8778 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
8779 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
8781 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
8782 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
8783 all variables that have documentation.
8785 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
8786 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
8787 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
8788 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
8789 it should show; the default is 20.
8791 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
8792 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
8795 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
8796 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
8797 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
8798 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
8799 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
8800 Newly added options are included as well.
8802 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
8803 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
8804 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
8806 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
8809 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
8810 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
8812 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
8813 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
8816 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
8817 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
8820 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
8821 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
8822 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
8823 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
8826 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
8828 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
8829 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
8830 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
8832 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
8833 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
8834 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
8839 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
8840 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
8842 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
8843 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
8845 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
8846 read and post multi-lingual articles.
8848 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
8849 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
8850 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
8851 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
8852 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
8853 made invisible again.
8855 ** Mail reading and sending changes
8857 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
8858 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
8859 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
8862 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
8863 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
8864 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
8865 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
8866 rmail-default-body-file.
8868 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
8869 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
8870 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
8872 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
8873 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
8874 is evaluated to insert the signature.
8876 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
8877 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
8878 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
8879 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
8880 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
8881 especially interested in trying feedmail.
8883 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
8884 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
8885 provided by feedmail are:
8887 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
8888 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
8889 there is also a queue for draft messages
8891 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
8892 be prompted for confirmation
8894 **** does smart filling of address headers
8896 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
8897 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
8898 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
8900 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
8901 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
8902 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
8903 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
8907 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
8908 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
8910 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
8911 run Dired on the directory name at point.
8913 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
8914 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
8915 for a specified regexp.
8919 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
8922 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
8923 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
8926 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
8927 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
8928 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
8929 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
8931 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
8932 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
8933 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
8934 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
8935 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
8937 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
8938 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
8939 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
8940 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
8941 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
8943 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
8944 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
8945 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
8946 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
8948 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
8949 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
8950 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
8952 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
8953 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
8954 session to resolve them.
8956 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
8957 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
8958 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
8961 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
8962 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
8963 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
8964 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
8965 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
8966 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
8969 ** Changes in Font Lock
8971 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
8972 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
8973 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
8974 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
8975 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
8977 ** Frame name display changes
8979 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
8980 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
8981 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
8982 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
8984 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
8985 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
8988 ** Comint (subshell) changes
8990 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
8991 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
8992 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
8994 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
8996 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
8997 that is, the line after the last line you got.
8998 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
9000 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
9001 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
9004 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
9005 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
9006 previously sent input.
9008 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
9009 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
9010 as the search string.
9012 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
9013 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
9017 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
9018 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
9019 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
9022 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
9023 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
9024 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
9025 style is still the default however.
9027 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
9029 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
9030 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
9031 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
9033 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
9034 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
9036 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
9037 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
9039 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
9040 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
9042 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
9043 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
9045 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
9046 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
9047 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
9048 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
9050 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
9052 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9053 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9054 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9056 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9057 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9058 expanding dynamically.
9060 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9061 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9063 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9064 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9065 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9066 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9068 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9070 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9072 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9073 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9074 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9075 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9076 against the first word in the title.
9078 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9079 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9080 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9081 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9082 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9083 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9085 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9086 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9087 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9088 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9090 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9092 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9093 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9094 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9095 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9096 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9097 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9099 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9100 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9102 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9103 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9104 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9106 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9107 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9111 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9112 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9113 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9115 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9116 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9117 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9118 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9121 o URLs are automatically skipped
9122 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9124 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9126 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9128 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9129 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9130 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9131 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9133 *** New recursive parser.
9135 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9136 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9137 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9139 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9141 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9142 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9143 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9145 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9147 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9149 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9151 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9153 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9155 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9156 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9158 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9160 *** References to external documents.
9162 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9163 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9164 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9165 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9166 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9167 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9168 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9170 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9172 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9173 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9175 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9176 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9178 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9180 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9181 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9183 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9185 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9186 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9187 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9188 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9189 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9190 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9193 *** Support for the varioref package
9195 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9199 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9200 and citations are created. These hooks are
9201 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9202 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9204 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9206 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9207 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9209 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9211 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9212 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9215 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9217 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9218 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9219 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9220 directories that contain the same file name.
9222 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9223 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9224 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9225 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9226 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9227 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9228 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9231 ** New modes and packages
9233 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9234 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9235 it, but some do not.
9237 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9240 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9241 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9244 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9246 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9247 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9248 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9249 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9251 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9252 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9253 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9255 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9256 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9257 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9258 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9259 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9262 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9263 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9265 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9266 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9267 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9268 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9270 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9272 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9273 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9274 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9275 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9276 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9277 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9278 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9279 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9280 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9281 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9282 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9284 Platform-specific modes:
9286 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9287 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9288 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9289 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9290 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9291 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9292 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9293 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9294 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9296 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9298 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9299 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9300 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9301 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9303 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9304 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9305 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9307 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9308 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9309 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9310 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9312 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9313 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9314 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9317 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9318 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9319 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9320 current input method for reading this one event.
9322 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9323 now control whether to output certain characters as
9324 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9325 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9326 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9327 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9329 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9331 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9332 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9334 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9335 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9336 always increases point by 1.
9338 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9339 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9341 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
9343 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9344 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9345 default value changed. For example,
9347 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9352 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9355 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9356 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9357 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9358 `:version' in the top level group.
9360 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9362 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9363 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9365 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9366 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9367 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9370 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9371 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9374 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9375 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9376 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9378 ** Frame-local variables.
9380 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9381 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9382 local bindings for that variable.
9384 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9385 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9386 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9389 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9390 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9391 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9392 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9394 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9395 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9396 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9397 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9399 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9400 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9401 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9402 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9403 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9405 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9406 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9407 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9408 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9410 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9411 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9413 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9414 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9415 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9417 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9418 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9419 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9420 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9422 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9423 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9426 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9427 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9428 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9429 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9430 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9432 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9433 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9434 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9435 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9437 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9438 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9439 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9440 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9441 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9443 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9444 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9445 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9446 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9448 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9449 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9450 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9452 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9453 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9454 was directed to display this buffer.
9456 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9457 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9458 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9459 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9460 set-window-configuration.
9462 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9463 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9464 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9465 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9467 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9468 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9469 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9471 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9472 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9473 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9475 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9476 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9478 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9479 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9481 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9482 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9483 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9485 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9486 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9487 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9488 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9492 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9493 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9496 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9497 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9498 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9499 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9500 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9502 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9504 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9505 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9506 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9507 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9510 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9511 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9512 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9513 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9514 The supported properties include
9516 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9518 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9519 item should appear in the menu.
9521 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9522 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9523 It should return a binding to use instead.
9525 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9526 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9527 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9528 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9529 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9532 This means that the command normally has no
9533 keyboard equivalent.
9534 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9535 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9536 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9537 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9538 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9540 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9541 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9543 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9547 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9548 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9549 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9550 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9552 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9554 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9555 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9556 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9557 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9558 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9559 forward, away from the user.
9561 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9563 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9564 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9565 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9566 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9567 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9569 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9571 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9572 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9573 that were dragged and dropped.
9575 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9577 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9579 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9580 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9581 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9583 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9584 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9585 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9587 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9588 in Emacs 19 and before.
9590 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9591 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9593 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9594 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9595 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9596 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
9598 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
9599 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
9600 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
9601 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
9602 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
9604 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
9605 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
9606 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
9607 consistent with the new representation.
9609 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
9610 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
9611 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
9612 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9614 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
9615 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
9616 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
9618 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
9619 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
9620 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9622 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
9623 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
9624 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
9626 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9627 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
9629 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9630 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
9632 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
9633 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
9634 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
9635 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
9637 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
9638 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
9640 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
9641 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
9642 buffer or string being searched.
9644 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
9645 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
9646 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
9647 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
9648 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
9649 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
9650 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
9652 *** Structure of coding system changed.
9654 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
9655 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
9656 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
9657 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
9658 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
9659 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
9660 define-coding-system-alias.
9662 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
9663 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
9664 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
9665 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
9666 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
9667 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
9668 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
9671 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
9672 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
9673 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
9674 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
9676 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
9677 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
9678 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
9679 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
9681 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
9682 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
9683 This function requires a user interaction.
9685 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
9686 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
9687 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
9688 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
9689 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
9690 select-safe-coding-system.
9692 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
9693 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
9694 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
9697 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
9698 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
9699 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
9701 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
9702 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
9703 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
9704 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
9706 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
9707 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
9708 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
9711 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
9712 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
9714 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
9715 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
9716 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
9717 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
9718 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
9719 range of characters.
9721 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
9722 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
9724 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
9725 in the current buffer at position POS.
9727 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
9728 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
9729 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
9730 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
9731 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
9732 binding input-method-function to nil.
9734 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
9735 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
9736 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
9737 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
9738 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
9740 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
9741 subsequent events of a key sequence.
9743 *** You can customize any language environment by using
9744 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
9746 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
9747 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
9748 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
9749 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
9750 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
9752 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
9754 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
9755 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
9756 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
9759 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
9760 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
9762 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
9763 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
9764 in your .emacs file.)
9766 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
9767 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
9769 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
9770 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
9772 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
9773 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
9776 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
9777 delete the character before point, as usual.
9779 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
9780 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
9781 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
9783 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
9784 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
9785 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
9786 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
9787 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
9790 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
9791 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
9792 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
9793 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
9794 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
9796 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
9797 and is an alias for it.
9799 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
9800 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
9802 ** Scrolling changes
9804 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
9805 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
9807 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
9808 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
9811 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
9812 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
9813 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
9814 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
9816 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
9817 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
9818 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
9819 recenters the window.
9821 ** International character set support (MULE)
9823 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
9824 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
9825 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
9826 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
9827 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
9828 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
9830 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
9831 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
9832 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
9833 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
9834 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
9836 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
9837 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
9838 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
9839 language, to make it possible to type them.
9841 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
9842 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
9844 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
9845 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
9847 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
9849 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
9851 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
9852 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
9853 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
9854 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
9855 characters for their work until they want to change.
9859 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
9860 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
9861 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
9862 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
9863 support several input methods.
9865 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
9866 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
9869 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
9870 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
9871 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
9872 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
9873 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
9876 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
9877 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
9878 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
9879 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
9880 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
9882 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
9883 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
9884 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
9885 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
9887 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
9888 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
9889 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
9890 the first guess is wrong.
9892 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
9893 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
9895 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
9896 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
9897 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
9898 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
9900 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
9901 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
9902 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
9903 translate automatically to and from either one.
9905 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
9907 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
9908 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
9909 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
9912 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
9913 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
9914 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
9915 multibyte characters in that buffer.
9917 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
9918 character conversion as well.
9920 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
9922 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
9923 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
9924 requires using many fonts.
9926 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
9927 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
9929 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
9930 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
9931 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
9932 you would use a font.
9934 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
9935 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
9936 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
9938 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
9939 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
9942 *** Defining fontsets.
9944 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
9945 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
9946 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
9948 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
9949 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
9950 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
9951 standard fontset are created automatically.
9953 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
9954 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
9955 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
9956 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
9957 name is `fontset-startup'.
9959 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
9960 The resource value should have this form:
9961 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
9962 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
9963 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
9964 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
9965 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
9966 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
9967 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
9968 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
9969 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
9971 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
9972 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
9973 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
9975 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
9976 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
9978 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
9979 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
9980 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
9981 Here is the substitution rule:
9982 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
9983 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
9984 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
9985 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
9986 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
9988 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
9989 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
9990 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
9992 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
9993 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
9994 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
9995 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
9998 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
9999 defaults for a particular choice of language.
10001 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
10002 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
10003 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
10004 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
10005 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
10006 system for new files that you create.
10008 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
10009 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
10010 whole Emacs session.
10012 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
10013 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
10014 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
10016 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
10017 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
10018 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
10019 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
10020 coding systems that Emacs supports.
10022 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
10023 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
10024 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
10025 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
10026 is used for *the immediately following command*.
10028 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
10029 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
10031 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
10032 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
10034 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
10035 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
10037 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
10038 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
10039 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
10040 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
10043 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
10044 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
10045 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
10046 translated into that character code.
10048 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
10049 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
10051 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10053 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10054 the coding system for keyboard input.
10056 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10057 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10058 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10060 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10062 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10063 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10064 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10065 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10066 designed to work with terminals.
10068 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10069 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10070 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10071 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10072 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10073 in the corresponding buffer.
10075 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10077 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10078 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10079 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10081 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10082 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10083 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10086 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10087 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10089 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10090 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10091 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10092 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10094 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10095 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10096 related information.
10098 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10099 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10102 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10103 information about the support for a particular language.
10104 You specify the language as an argument.
10106 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10107 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10110 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10111 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10112 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10113 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10115 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10117 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10118 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10119 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10120 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10121 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10122 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10123 K euc-korea (Korean)
10126 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10129 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10130 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10131 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10132 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10135 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10136 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10137 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10138 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10140 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10141 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10143 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10144 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10145 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10146 Rmail files themselves.
10148 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10149 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10151 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10154 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10155 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10156 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10157 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10158 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10160 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10161 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10162 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10165 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10166 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10167 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10168 without any conversion.
10170 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10171 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10172 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10173 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10175 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10176 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10178 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10179 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10181 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10182 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10184 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10185 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10186 in the buffer before point.
10188 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10189 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10192 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10193 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10195 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10197 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10198 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10200 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10201 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10202 can become a bottleneck.
10204 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10205 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10206 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10207 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10208 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10209 so useful that the change is worth while.
10211 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10212 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10213 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10214 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10216 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10217 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10220 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10221 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10222 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10224 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10225 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10226 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10228 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10229 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10230 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10232 ** Changes in View mode.
10234 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10235 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10237 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10238 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10240 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10243 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10244 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10246 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10247 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10248 not just the selected window.
10250 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10251 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10252 turns View mode on or off.
10254 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10255 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10256 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10258 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10259 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10261 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10262 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10263 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10264 which version to compare with.
10266 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10267 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10269 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10270 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10271 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10272 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10274 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10275 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10276 blocks, all of them or none.
10278 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10279 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10280 confirmation first.
10282 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10283 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10284 However, the mode will not be changed if
10285 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10286 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10287 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10288 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10290 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10292 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10293 these commands do not change the major mode.
10295 ** M-x occur changes.
10297 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10298 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10300 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10301 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10302 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10304 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10305 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10306 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10307 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10308 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10310 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10311 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10312 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10313 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10315 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10316 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10317 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10319 ** Outline mode changes.
10321 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10323 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10325 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10326 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10327 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10328 was already active.
10330 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10331 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10332 get confused by it.
10334 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10335 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10337 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10339 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10340 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10341 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
10342 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10344 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10345 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10346 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10348 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10349 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10352 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10353 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10354 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10355 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10357 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10358 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10359 can be. The default value is 30.
10361 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10363 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10364 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10365 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10366 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10367 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10370 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10371 compose-mail-other-frame.
10373 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10374 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10375 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10376 buffer that shows the original message.
10378 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10379 with separator lines around the contents.
10381 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10382 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10383 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10384 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10386 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10388 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10389 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10390 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10391 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10393 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10394 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10397 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10398 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10401 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10402 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10403 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10404 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10406 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10407 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10408 be taken to be magic.
10410 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10411 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10412 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10414 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10415 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10417 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10418 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10420 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10422 new key dired.el binding old key
10423 ------- ---------------- -------
10424 * c dired-change-marks c
10426 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10427 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10428 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10430 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10431 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10432 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10433 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10434 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10435 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10439 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10440 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10441 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10442 each time you run it.
10444 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10445 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10447 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10448 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10449 means to move in the opposite direction.
10451 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10452 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10454 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10455 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10456 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10457 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10462 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10464 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10467 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10468 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10470 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10473 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10475 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10477 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10479 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10480 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10481 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10483 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10485 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10487 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10488 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10490 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10491 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10492 used to pick articles.
10494 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10495 another have been added.
10497 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10499 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10500 generating lines in buffers.
10502 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10505 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10507 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10509 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10511 *** Scores can be decayed.
10513 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10515 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10516 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10518 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10521 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10523 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10524 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10526 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10528 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10529 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10531 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10532 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10534 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10537 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10538 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10540 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10542 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10544 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10546 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10548 Use the `Y c' command.
10550 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10552 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10554 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10556 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10557 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10559 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10561 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10563 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10564 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10566 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10568 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10569 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10570 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10571 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10574 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10575 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10576 particular news group. This can be done by:
10578 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10580 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10581 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10582 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10583 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10584 for reading and posting).
10586 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10587 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10588 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10589 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10592 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10593 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10595 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10596 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10597 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
10598 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
10599 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
10601 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
10602 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
10604 ** CC mode changes.
10606 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
10607 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
10608 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
10609 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
10610 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
10613 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
10614 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
10615 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
10616 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
10617 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
10618 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
10620 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
10621 of the current buffer.
10623 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
10624 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
10625 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
10627 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
10628 style that the Python developers like.
10630 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
10631 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
10632 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
10634 ** VC Changes [new]
10636 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
10637 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
10638 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
10640 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
10641 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
10644 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
10645 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
10647 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
10648 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
10649 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
10650 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
10652 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
10653 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
10655 ** Calendar changes.
10657 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
10658 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
10659 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
10660 following/previous years.
10662 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
10663 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
10664 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
10665 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
10666 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
10667 supposed attribute of God.
10669 ** ps-print changes
10671 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
10674 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
10676 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
10677 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
10678 printer system has this behavior, set variable
10679 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
10681 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
10682 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
10683 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
10685 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
10686 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
10688 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
10689 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
10690 printing for your printer.
10692 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
10693 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10695 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
10696 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10698 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
10699 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
10700 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
10701 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
10702 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
10703 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
10704 The default value is nil.
10706 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
10707 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
10709 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
10710 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
10711 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
10712 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
10713 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
10714 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
10715 color). The default is 0 ("black").
10717 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
10718 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
10720 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
10721 The default is 0 ("black").
10723 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
10724 The default is 0 ("black").
10726 border-width Specify the border width.
10727 The default is 0.4.
10729 Any other property is ignored.
10731 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
10732 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
10735 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
10736 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
10737 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
10738 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
10739 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
10740 controlling headers.
10742 *** Color management (subgroup)
10744 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
10747 *** Face Management (subgroup)
10749 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
10750 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
10751 background should be used. Valid values are:
10753 t always use face background color.
10754 nil never use face background color.
10755 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
10757 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
10759 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
10762 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
10763 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
10765 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
10768 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
10769 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
10770 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
10772 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
10776 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
10780 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
10784 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
10788 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
10790 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
10792 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
10795 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
10796 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
10797 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
10799 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
10800 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10801 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10802 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10803 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10807 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10808 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10809 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10812 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10813 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10814 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
10815 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
10816 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
10817 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10818 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10819 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10820 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
10821 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
10822 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
10825 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10827 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
10830 *** Printer management (subgroup)
10832 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
10833 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
10834 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
10835 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
10838 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
10839 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
10840 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
10842 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
10843 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
10846 *** Page settings (subgroup)
10848 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
10849 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
10850 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
10851 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
10852 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
10853 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
10856 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
10857 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
10858 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
10860 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
10861 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
10862 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
10863 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
10864 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
10865 its TO, are ignored.
10867 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
10868 pages. Valid values are:
10870 nil print all pages.
10872 `even-page' print only even pages.
10874 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
10876 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
10877 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10878 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
10879 print only the even sheet of paper.
10881 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
10882 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10883 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
10884 only the odd sheet of paper.
10886 Any other value is treated as nil.
10888 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
10889 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
10890 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
10892 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
10894 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
10895 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
10897 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
10898 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10899 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
10900 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10901 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10902 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10903 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10905 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
10906 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10907 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
10908 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
10909 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
10910 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
10911 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
10913 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
10915 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
10916 messages should be sent.
10918 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
10919 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
10920 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
10922 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
10924 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
10925 points for line numbers.
10927 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
10928 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
10930 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
10931 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
10932 to 2, the printing will look like:
10944 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
10945 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
10948 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
10949 zebra stripe is to be printed.
10951 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
10953 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
10954 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
10955 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
10956 3, the output will look like:
10970 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
10971 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
10973 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
10974 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10977 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
10978 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10981 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
10983 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
10984 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
10986 ** hideshow changes.
10988 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
10991 *** Support for java-mode added.
10993 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
10994 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
10996 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
10997 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
10998 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
11000 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
11001 robust and a lot faster.
11003 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
11005 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
11006 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
11007 documentation for more details.
11009 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
11011 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
11012 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
11013 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
11014 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
11015 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
11017 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
11018 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
11019 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
11020 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
11026 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
11027 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
11028 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
11029 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
11030 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
11031 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
11033 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
11035 *** Maximum decoration
11037 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
11038 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
11039 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
11040 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
11041 to get the old behavior.
11045 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
11047 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
11048 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
11050 *** Configurable support
11052 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11053 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11054 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11055 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11056 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11057 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11058 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11060 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11061 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11062 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11064 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11066 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11067 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11070 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11072 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
11078 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11079 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11080 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11081 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11083 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11085 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11086 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11087 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11089 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11091 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11092 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11093 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11094 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11095 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11096 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11097 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11099 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11100 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11101 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11102 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11103 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11104 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11106 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11108 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11109 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11110 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11111 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11113 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11116 ** Ada mode changes.
11118 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11119 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11120 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11121 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11124 *** There are two new commands:
11125 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11126 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11128 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11129 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11130 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11132 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11133 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11134 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11136 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11137 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11138 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11139 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11141 ** Scheme mode changes.
11143 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11144 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11145 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11146 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11149 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11150 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11151 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11152 variables as buffer-local variables.
11154 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11155 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11157 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11159 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11160 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11161 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11162 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11164 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11165 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11168 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11169 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11170 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11171 option takes precedence.
11173 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11174 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11175 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11177 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11178 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11181 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11182 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11184 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11185 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11188 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11189 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11190 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11191 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11192 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11193 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11195 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11196 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11197 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11198 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11200 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11201 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11202 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11203 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11204 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11206 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11207 since it applies only to the current frame.
11209 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11210 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11211 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11213 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11214 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11215 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11216 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11217 instead of just the file you are editing.
11221 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11222 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11223 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11224 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11225 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11228 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11229 knows which kind of label is needed.
11231 C-c ) reftex-reference
11232 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11233 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11235 C-c [ reftex-citation
11236 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11237 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11239 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11240 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11243 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11244 can quickly jump to every section.
11246 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11247 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11248 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11249 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11250 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11252 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11254 *** Info documentation is now available.
11256 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11257 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11259 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11260 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11262 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11263 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11265 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11266 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11267 appropriate functions.
11269 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11270 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11272 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11275 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11276 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11278 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11279 shall be delimited.
11281 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11282 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11283 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11285 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11286 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11287 prefixed with `ALT'.
11289 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11290 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11291 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11294 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11295 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11296 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11298 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11299 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11301 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11302 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11303 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11305 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11307 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11309 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11310 from alien sources.
11312 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11313 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11316 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11319 *** Added support for imenu.
11321 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11322 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11323 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11324 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11326 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11327 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11329 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11331 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11333 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11334 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11335 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11338 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11339 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11341 ** browse-url changes
11343 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11344 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11345 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11346 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11347 customization variables.
11349 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11351 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11352 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11353 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11355 ** Changes in Ediff
11357 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11358 pops up the Info file for this command.
11360 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11361 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11362 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11365 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11366 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11367 files in the same directory.
11369 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11370 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11371 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11373 ** Changes in Viper
11375 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11376 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11378 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11379 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11380 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11381 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11382 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11383 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11384 color when Viper is in insert state.
11385 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11386 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11387 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11391 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11392 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11393 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11394 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11395 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11397 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11399 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11400 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11402 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11403 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11404 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11406 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11407 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11408 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11409 methods and protocols.
11411 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11412 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11413 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11416 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11417 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11418 at least M times and as many as N times.
11420 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11421 in files has changed slightly.
11423 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11424 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11425 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11426 with old time-stamp-format values.
11428 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11429 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11430 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11433 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11434 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11435 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11436 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11437 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11438 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11440 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11441 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11442 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11444 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11445 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11446 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11447 recommended now will continue to work then.
11449 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11452 ** There are some additional major modes:
11454 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11455 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11456 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11458 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11459 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11462 ** New Lisp packages include:
11464 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11466 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11467 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11469 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11471 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11474 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11475 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11478 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11479 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11480 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11481 strings or comments.
11483 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11484 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11485 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11486 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11489 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11490 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11492 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11493 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11495 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11497 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11498 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11500 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11502 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11504 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11506 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11507 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11509 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11510 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11511 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11512 original place after inserting the copy.
11514 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11517 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11518 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11519 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11521 Enable mouse-drag with:
11522 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11524 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11526 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11527 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11529 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11530 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11534 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11535 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11536 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11537 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11538 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11539 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11540 instance) and vice versa.
11542 To use this package load it using
11543 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11544 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11545 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11546 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11547 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11548 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11550 *** Interface to ph.
11552 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11554 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11555 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11558 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11560 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11561 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11562 while the real cursor does not move.
11564 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11565 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11567 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11568 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11572 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11573 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11574 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11575 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11577 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11579 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11581 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11583 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11584 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11585 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11586 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11587 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11589 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11590 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11591 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11592 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11593 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11594 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11596 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
11598 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
11599 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
11600 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
11601 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
11603 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
11604 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
11606 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
11607 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
11610 ** Basic Lisp changes
11612 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
11613 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
11615 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
11616 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
11619 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
11621 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
11623 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
11624 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
11626 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
11627 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
11630 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
11632 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
11634 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
11636 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
11637 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
11638 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
11641 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
11642 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
11643 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
11645 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
11646 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
11647 adding one of these suffixes.
11649 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
11650 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
11651 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
11653 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
11654 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
11656 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
11658 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
11659 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
11661 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
11662 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
11664 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
11666 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
11667 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
11669 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
11670 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
11671 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
11672 works using `save-current-buffer'.
11674 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
11675 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
11678 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
11679 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
11680 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
11683 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
11684 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
11687 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
11689 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
11690 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
11691 Then it returns that string.
11693 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
11695 (with-output-to-string
11696 (princ "The buffer is ")
11697 (princ (buffer-name)))
11699 returns "The buffer is foo".
11701 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
11704 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
11705 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
11706 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
11708 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
11709 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
11711 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
11712 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
11713 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
11714 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
11715 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
11716 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
11718 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
11719 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
11720 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
11723 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
11724 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
11725 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
11726 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
11727 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
11729 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
11730 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
11731 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
11732 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
11734 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
11735 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
11737 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
11739 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
11740 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
11741 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
11742 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
11745 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
11746 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
11749 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
11751 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
11752 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
11753 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
11754 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
11755 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
11757 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
11759 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
11760 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
11761 more than the number of characters.
11763 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
11764 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
11765 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
11766 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
11767 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
11768 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
11770 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
11771 and returns a string containing those characters.
11773 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
11774 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
11775 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
11776 character, sref signals an error.
11778 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
11779 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
11780 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11782 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
11783 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
11784 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11786 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
11787 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
11788 to a vector of the characters in it.
11790 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
11791 of a string. You call it as follows:
11793 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
11795 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
11796 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
11797 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
11798 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
11799 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
11801 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
11802 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11804 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
11805 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11807 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
11808 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
11809 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
11810 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
11812 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
11814 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
11816 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
11817 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
11818 are not included in the resulting value.
11820 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
11821 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
11822 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
11823 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
11825 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
11826 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
11827 character extends across that column), then the padding character
11828 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
11829 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
11830 column START-COLUMN.
11832 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
11833 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
11834 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
11835 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
11836 changed text, before the change.
11838 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
11839 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
11840 one character set for each script, not for each language.
11842 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
11844 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
11846 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
11847 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
11849 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
11850 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
11851 which identify the character within that character set.
11853 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
11854 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
11855 opposite of split-char.
11857 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
11858 of all the characters between BEG and END.
11860 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
11861 of all the characters in a string.
11863 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
11864 and specifying coding systems.
11866 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
11867 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
11868 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
11869 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
11870 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
11871 as what to do about code conversion.)
11873 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
11874 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
11876 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11877 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11878 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
11880 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11881 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
11882 to match against a file name.
11884 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11885 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11886 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11887 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11888 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11889 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11891 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11892 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11894 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
11895 the coding system to use for network sockets.
11897 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11898 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
11899 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
11902 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11903 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11904 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11905 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11906 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11907 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11909 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11910 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11912 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11913 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11914 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
11915 start the subprocess.
11917 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
11918 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
11919 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
11920 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
11921 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
11923 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
11924 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
11927 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
11928 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
11929 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
11930 connection permanently or until overridden.
11932 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
11933 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
11934 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
11935 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
11936 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
11937 system for one operation at a time.
11939 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
11940 files, subprocesses or network connections.
11942 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
11943 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
11944 The value is a cons cell,
11945 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
11946 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
11947 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
11948 input to the subprocess.
11950 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
11951 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
11953 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
11954 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
11955 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
11957 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
11958 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
11959 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
11960 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
11963 Thus, instead of writing
11965 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
11966 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
11968 you would now write this:
11970 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
11971 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
11975 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
11976 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
11977 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
11978 for a description of them.
11980 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
11981 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
11983 (defgroup ispell nil
11984 "Spell checking using Ispell."
11987 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
11988 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
11989 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
11990 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
11991 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
11993 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
11994 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
11995 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
11996 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
11997 first-level subgroups.
11999 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
12001 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
12002 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
12006 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
12007 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
12008 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
12009 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
12010 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
12011 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
12013 ** Text property changes
12015 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
12018 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
12019 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
12020 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
12021 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
12022 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
12024 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
12025 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
12026 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
12027 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
12029 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
12030 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
12031 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
12033 ** Changes in invisibility features
12035 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
12036 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
12037 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
12038 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
12039 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
12040 make the overlay visible.
12042 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
12043 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
12044 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
12045 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
12046 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
12047 t when it should hide it.
12049 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
12051 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
12052 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12053 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12054 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12055 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12056 Here is an example of how to do this:
12058 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12059 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12060 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12061 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12064 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12067 ;; When done with the overlays:
12068 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12069 ;; Or respectively:
12070 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12072 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
12074 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12075 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12076 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12077 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12079 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12080 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12081 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12083 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12084 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12086 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12087 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12089 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12090 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12091 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12093 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12094 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12095 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12096 determine the syntax type of the character.
12098 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12099 of the current buffer.
12101 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12102 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12103 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12105 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12106 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12107 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12108 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12109 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12111 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12114 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12115 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12116 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12118 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12119 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12120 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12121 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12122 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12124 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12125 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12126 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12128 ** Changes in face features
12130 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12131 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12133 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12134 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12136 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12137 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12139 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12140 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12142 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12143 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12144 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12145 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12148 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12149 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12151 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12153 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12154 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12155 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12156 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12158 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12161 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12162 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12164 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12165 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12167 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12168 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12170 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12171 character code conversion as well as other things.
12173 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12174 (formerly it did not).
12176 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12177 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12179 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12180 instead of constant strings.
12182 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12183 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12184 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12186 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12187 in the same way as before.
12189 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12190 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12191 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12193 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12194 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12195 else, and returns nil.
12197 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12198 directory cannot be listed.
12200 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12202 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12203 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12204 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12205 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12208 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12209 It is available through the history command M-n.
12211 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12212 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12213 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12214 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12215 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12217 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12218 argument in this way.
12220 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12221 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12222 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12224 ** Echo area features
12226 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12227 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12228 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12229 after the echo area is cleared.
12231 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12232 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12234 ** Keyboard input features
12236 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12237 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12239 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12240 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12241 by keyboard macros.
12243 ** Frame-related changes
12245 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12246 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12247 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12249 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12250 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12251 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12253 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12254 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12255 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12256 in the selected frame.
12258 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12259 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12260 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12262 ** X Windows features
12264 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12265 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12266 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12268 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12269 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12271 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12272 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12273 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12275 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12276 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12278 ** Subprocess features
12280 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12281 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12284 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12285 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12287 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12288 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12290 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12291 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12293 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12294 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12295 goes after the other menu items.
12297 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12298 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12299 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12302 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12303 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12305 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12306 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12309 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12310 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12311 but its hook is still run.
12313 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12314 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12316 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12317 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12318 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12320 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12321 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12322 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12325 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12326 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12328 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12329 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12330 functions like display-time.
12332 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12333 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12335 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12336 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12337 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12339 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12340 if there is an error in compilation.
12342 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
12343 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12344 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12345 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12347 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12348 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12349 the *scratch* buffer.
12351 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12352 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12353 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12354 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12356 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12357 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12358 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12360 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12361 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12362 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12363 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12365 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12366 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12367 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12369 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12370 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12371 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12372 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12373 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12376 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12377 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12378 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12379 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12381 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12382 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12383 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12384 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12386 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12388 ** imenu.el changes.
12390 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12391 item from menu created by imenu.
12393 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12394 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12395 select one of those items.
12397 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12399 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12400 Copyright information:
12402 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12404 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12405 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12406 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12407 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12409 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12410 of this document, or of portions of it,
12411 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12412 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12416 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
12419 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793