3 If you are ready to start working on any of these TODO items, we
4 appreciate your help; please write to emacs-devel@gnu.org so we can be
5 aware that the problem is being addressed, and talk with you how to do
6 it best. Since Emacs is an FSF-copyrighted package, please be
7 prepared to sign legal papers to transfer the copyright on your work
10 * Small but important fixes needed in existing features:
12 ** Fix the kill/yank treatment of invisible text. At the moment,
13 invisible text is placed in the kill-ring, so that the contents of
14 the ring may not correspond to the text as displayed to the user. It
15 ought to be possible to omit text which is invisible (due to a
16 text-property, overlay, or selective display) from the kill-ring.
18 ** Change the way define-minor-mode handles autoloading.
19 It should not generate :require. Or :require in defcustom
20 should not be recorded in the user's custom-set-variables call.
22 ** The buttons at the top of a custom buffer should not omit
23 variables whose values are currently hidden.
25 ** Clean up the variables in browse-url. Perhaps use a shell command string to
26 specify the browser instead of the mushrooming set of functions.
27 See also ESR's proposal for a BROWSER environment variable
28 <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/BROWSER/browse-url.patch>.
32 ** Provide user-friendly ways to list all available font families,
33 display a font as a sample, etc. [fx is looking at multilingual
34 font selection for Emacs 22.]
36 ** Program Enriched mode to read and save in RTF. [Is there actually a
37 decent single definition of RTF? Maybe see info at
38 http://latex2rtf.sourceforge.net/.]
40 ** Implement something better than the current Refill mode. This
41 probably needs some primitive support.
43 ** Implement primitive and higher-level functions to allow filling
44 properly with variable-pitch faces.
46 ** Implement a smoother vertical scroll facility, one that allows
47 C-v to scroll through a tall image. The primitive operations
48 posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y should now make it doable in elisp.
50 ** Implement intelligent search/replace, going beyond query-replace
51 (see http://graphics.csail.mit.edu/~rcm/chi04.pdf).
53 ** Implement other text formatting properties.
54 *** Footnotes that can appear either in place or at the end of the page.
55 *** text property that says "don't break line in middle of this".
56 Don't break the line between two characters that have the
57 same value of this property.
58 *** Discretionary hyphens that are not visible when they are at end of line.
60 ** Make movemail work with IMAP.
62 ** Internationalize Emacs's messages.
64 ** Address internationalization of symbols names essentially
65 as documentation, e.g. in command names and Custom.
67 ** Make the Lucid menu widget display multilingual text. [This
68 probably needs to be done from actual Emacs buffers, either directly
69 in the menu or by rendering in an unmapped window and copying the
70 pixels. The current code assumes a specific locale; that isn't good
71 enough even if X can render the arbitrary text] [The gtk
72 port now displays multilingual text in menus, but only insofar as
73 Emacs can encode it as utf-8 and gtk can display the result.]
74 Maybe making Lucid menus work like Gtk's (i.e. just force utf-8) is good
75 enough now that Emacs can encode most chars into utf-8.
77 ** Remove the limitation that window and frame widths and heights can
78 be only full columns/lines.
80 * Other features we would like:
82 ** A function to check for customizable options that have been
83 set but not saved, and ask the user whether to save them.
84 This could go in kill-emacs-query-functions, to remind people
85 to save their changes. If the user says yes, show them
86 in a Custom buffer using customize-customized.
88 ** Emacs Lisp mode could put an overlay on the defun for every
89 function that has advice. The overlay could have `after-text' like "
90 [Function has advice]". It might look like
91 (defun foo [Function has advice] (x y)
92 The overlay could also be a button that you could use to view the advice.
96 *** Use MLS for ange-ftp-insert-directory if a list of files is specified.
98 ** Ability to map a key, including all modified-combinations.
99 E.g map mouse-4 to wheel-up as well as M-mouse-4 -> M-wheel-up
100 M-C-mouse-4 -> M-C-wheel-up, H-S-C-M-s-double-mouse-4 ->
101 H-S-C-M-s-double-wheel-up, ...
103 ** Beefed-up syntax-tables.
104 *** recognize multi-character syntactic entities like `begin' and `end'.
105 *** nested string-delimiters (for Postscript's (foo(bar)baz) strings).
106 *** support for infix operators (with precedence).
107 *** support for the $ (paired delimiter) in parse-partial-sexp.
108 *** support for hook-chars whose effect on the parsing-state is specified
109 by elisp code. Thus a char could both close a string and open a comment
110 at the same time and do it in a context-sensitive way.
111 *** ability to add mode-specific data to the partial-parse-state.
113 ** Add a way to convert a keyboard macro to equivalent Lisp code.
115 ** Have a command suggestion help system that recognizes patterns
116 of commands which could be replaced with a simpler common command.
117 It should not make more than one suggestion per 10 minutes.
119 ** Add a way to define input methods by computing them (when first used)
120 from other input methods. Then redefine C-x 8 to use a
121 user-selected input method, with the default being the union of
122 latin-1-prefix and latin-1-postfix.
124 ** Implement a clean way to use different major modes for
125 different parts of a buffer. This could be useful in editing
126 Bison input files, for instance, or other kinds of text
127 where one language is embedded in another language.
129 ** Give start-process the ability to direct standard-error
130 output to a different filter.
132 ** Make desktop.el save the "frame configuration" of Emacs (in some
135 ** Give desktop.el a feature to switch between different named
138 ** Replace finder.el with something that generates an Info file
139 which gives the same information through a menu structure. [Dave
140 Love started on this.]
142 ** Implement a variant of uncompress.el or jka-compr.el that works with
143 GNU Privacy Guard for encryption. [Code exists but isn't assigned.
144 See the Gnus development sources for assigned code concerning GPG
145 use with mail, which is probably a good start.]
147 ** Save undo information in special temporary files, and reload it
148 when needed for undoing. This could extend undo capacity.
150 ** Change the Windows NT menu code
151 so that it handles the deep_p argument and avoids
152 regenerating the whole menu bar menu tree except
153 when the user tries to use the menubar.
155 This requires the RIT to forward the WM_INITMENU message to
156 the main thread, and not return from that message until the main
157 thread has processed the MENU_BAR_ACTIVATE_EVENT and regenerated
158 the whole menu bar. In the mean time, it should process other messages.
160 ** Get some major packages installed: W3 (development version needs
161 significant work), PSGML. Check the assignments file for other
162 packages which might go in and have been missed.
164 ** Make keymaps a first-class Lisp object (this means a rewrite of
165 keymap.c). What should it do apart from being opaque ?
166 multiple inheritance ? faster where-is ? no more fix_submap_inheritance ?
169 ** Provide real menus on ttys. The MS-DOS implementation can serve as
170 an example how to do part of this.
172 ** Implement popular parts of the rest of the CL functions as compiler
175 ** Make compiler warnings about functions that might be undefined at run time
176 smarter, so that they know which files are required by the file being
177 compiled and don't warn about functions defined in them.
179 ** Highlight rectangles (`mouse-track-rectangle-p' in XEmacs). Already in CUA,
180 but it's a valuable feature worth making more general.
182 ** Support simultaneous tty and X frames.
184 ** Provide MIME support for Rmail using the Gnus MIME library. [Maybe
185 not now feasible, given Gnus maintenance decisions. fx looked at
186 this and can say where some of the problems are.]
188 ** Eliminate the storm of warnings concerning char/unsigned char
189 mismatches that we get with proprietary compilers on various systems.
190 They make it difficult to spot the important warnings.
192 ** Fix anything necessary to use `long long' EMACS_INTs with GCC.
194 ** Split out parts of lisp.h and generate Makefile dependencies
199 ** Allow auto-compression-mode to use zlib calls if zlib is available.
200 [It's required for PNG, so may be linked anyhow.]
202 ** Add a --pristine startup flag which does -q --no-site-file plus
203 ignoring X resources (Doze equivalents?) and most of the
204 environment. What should not be ignored needs consideration.
206 ** Investigate using the language environment (or locale?) to set up
207 more things, such as the default Ispell dictionary, calendar
208 holidays, quoting characters?,...
210 ** Improve the GC (generational, incremental). (We may be able to use
211 the Boehm collector.) [See the Boehm-GC branch in CVS for work on
214 ** Check what hooks would help Emacspeak -- see the defadvising in W3.
216 ** Add horizontal scroll bars.
218 ** Provide an optional feature which computes a scroll bar slider's
219 size and its position from lines instead of characters.
221 ** Make the Custom themes support do useful things.
223 ** Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering to
226 ** Allow unknown image types to be rendered via an external program
227 converting them to, say, PBM (in the same way as PostScript?).
229 ** Allow displaying an X window from an external program in a buffer,
230 e.g. to render graphics from Java applets. [gerd and/or wmperry
231 thought this was feasible.]
233 ** Allow images (not just text) in the margin to be mouse-sensitive.
234 (Requires recursing through display properties). Provide some way
235 to simulate mouse-clicks on marginal text without a mouse.
237 ** Implement Lisp functions to determine properly whether a character
238 is displayable (particularly needed in XFree 4, sigh). Use it to
239 define useful glyphs that may be displayed as images or unicodes
240 (with ASCIIfied fallback via latin1-disp). Examples include
241 box-drawing graphics in Custom buffers, W3 rules and tables, and
242 tree displays generally, mode-line mail indicator. [See work done
243 already for Emacs 22 and consult fx.]
245 ** Do something to make rms happy with fx's dynamic loading, and use it
246 to implement things like auto-loaded buffer parsers and database
247 access in cases which need more than Lisp.
249 ** Extend ps-print to deal with multiple font sizes, images, and extra
252 ** Provide portable undumping using mmap (per gerd design).
254 ** Use the XIE X extension, if available, for image display.
256 ** Make monochrome images display using the foreground and background
257 colors of the applicable faces.
259 ** Add support for rendering antialiased text, probably using
262 ** Port the conservative stack marking code of Emacs' garbage collector
263 to more systems, so that we can completely get rid of GCPROs.
265 ** Reorder defcustom's in each package so that the more important
266 options come first in the Customize buffers. This could be done by
267 either rearranging the file (since options are shown in the order
268 they appear in the *.el files), or by adding a few :set-after
271 ** Maybe document the features of libraries missing from the manual (or
272 ancillary manuals, including the Lisp manual in some cases).
273 This is not worth doing for all of these packages and we need not
274 aim for completeness, but some may be worth documenting.
276 Here's a list which is probably not complete/correct: align, allout,
277 artist, ansi-color, array, battery, calculator, cdl, cmuscheme,
278 completion, cua, delim-col, dirtrack, double, echistory, elide-head,
279 easymenu, expand, flow-ctrl, format [format-alist],
280 generic/generic-x [various modes], kermit, log-edit, ledit
281 [obsolete?], makesum, midnight [other than in Kill Buffer node],
282 mouse-copy [?], mouse-drag, mouse-sel, net-utils, rcompile,
283 snmp-mode [?], soundex [should be interactive?], strokes [start from
284 the web page], talk, thingatpt [interactive functions?], type-break,
285 vcursor, xscheme, zone-mode [?], mlconvert [?], iso-cvt, iso-swed,
286 swedish, feedmail [?], uce, bruce, gametree, meese, page-ext,
287 refbib, refer, scribe, sgml-mode, spell, texinfo, underline,
288 cmacexp, hideif, mantemp [obsolete?], pcomplete, assoc, xml,
289 cvs-status (should be described in PCL-CVS manual); other progmodes,
290 probably in separate manual.
292 ** Convert the XPM bitmaps to PPM, replace the PBMs with them and scrap
293 the XPMs so that the colour versions work generally. (Requires care
294 with the colour used for the transparent regions.)
296 ** Convenient access to the `values' variable. It would be nice to have an
297 interface that would show you the printed reps of the elements of the
298 list in a menu, let you select one of the values, and put it into some
299 other variable, without changing the value of `values'.
301 ** (Controlled by a flag) make open and close syntax match exactly,
302 i.e. `(' doesn't match `]'.
304 ** Specify parameter ID-FORMAT in all calls to `file-attributes' and
305 `directory-files-and-attributes' where attributes UID or GID are used.
306 Whenever possible, use value 'string.
307 When done, change meaning of default value from 'integer to 'string.
308 If value 'integer is used nowhere, remove the parameter ID-FORMAT from
309 the definition of `file-attributes' and `directory-files-and-attributes'
312 ** Make language-info-alist customizable. Currently a user can customize
313 only the variable `current-language-environment'.
315 ** Improve language environment handling so that Emacs can fit
316 better to a users locale. Currently Emacs uses utf-8 language
317 environment for all utf-8 locales, thus a user in ja_JP.UTF-8 locale
318 are also put in utf-8 lang. env. In such a case, it is
319 better to use Japanese lang. env. but prefer utf-8 coding system.
321 ** Eliminate the current restriction on header printing by ps-print.
322 Currently, a header can contain only single 1-byte charset in
325 ** In ps-print, provide an user friendly interface to specify fonts.
327 ** OpenType font support for various complex scripts (e.g. Devanagari).
328 As X protocal doesn't provide a way to access OpenType Layout Tables
329 in a OpenType font of a server side, we need a way to utilize local
330 fonts (perhaps by directly using the Freetype library or indirectly
333 ** Enhance word boundary detection for such a script that doesn't use
334 space at word boundary (e.g. Thai).
336 ** Implement interface programs with major Japanese conversion server
337 in lib-src so that they can be used from the input method
338 "japanese". Currently, most Japanese users are using external
339 packages (e.g. tamago, anthy) or an input method via XIM.
341 ** Provide the toolbar on ttys. This could map a bit like tmm-menubar
342 for the menubar and buttons could look a bit like those used by customize.
346 ** Replace gmalloc.c with the modified Doug Lea code from the current
347 GNU libc so that the special mmapping of buffers can be removed --
348 that apparently loses under Solaris, at least. [fx has mostly done
351 ** Rewrite make-docfile to be clean and maintainable.
353 ** Add an inferior-comint-minor-mode to capture the common set of operations
354 offered by major modes that offer an associated inferior
355 comint-derived mode. I.e. basically make cmuscheme.el/inf-lisp.el generic.
356 For use by sml-mode, python-mode, tex-mode, scheme-mode, lisp-mode,
357 haskell-mode, tuareg-mode, ...
359 ;;; arch-tag: b0a3e40b-726a-457d-9999-ba848321b036