1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 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 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
20 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
23 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
24 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
28 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
29 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
30 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
31 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
32 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
33 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
34 in each user's home directory.
37 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
38 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
42 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
45 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
48 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 was added.
51 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
54 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
55 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
58 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
60 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
64 Upgraded to mh-e version 6.1.1. There have been major changes since
65 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
68 ** The `emacsclient' understand the options `--eval' and `--display'
69 which tell Emacs resp. to evaluate the given elisp expressions and
70 to use the given display when visiting files.
73 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
74 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
75 appears between the position information and the major mode.
77 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
78 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
81 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
82 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
83 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
84 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
88 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
89 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
90 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
94 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
95 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
96 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
99 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
100 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
103 ** `ps-print' can now print Unicode characters.
105 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
106 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
107 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
110 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
111 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
112 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
114 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
115 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
116 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
117 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
118 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
120 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
121 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
122 t, and the status is shown.
124 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
125 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
128 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
129 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
130 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
133 ** New language environments: French, Cyrillic-KOI8-U, Windows-1251,
134 Cyrillic-KOI8-T, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8,
135 Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian.
138 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
139 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
140 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
141 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
142 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch.
145 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
146 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
147 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
150 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
151 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
152 codepage.el, based Unicode mappings.
154 ** The utf-8 coding system has been enhanced. Untranslatable utf-8
155 sequences (mostly representing CJK characters) are composed into
156 single quasi-characters. By loading the library utf-8-subst, you can
157 arrange to translate many utf-8 CJK character sequences into real
158 Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS system. The utf-8
159 coding system will now encode characters from most of Emacs's
160 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
162 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
166 ** Limited support for character unification has been added.
167 Emacs now knows how to translate Latin-N chars between their charset
168 and some other Latin-N charset or Unicode. By default this
169 translation will happen automatically on encoding. Quail input
170 methods use the translations to make the input conformant with the
171 encoding of the buffer in which it's being used where possible.
173 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
174 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
175 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
176 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding.
178 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
179 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
180 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
181 controlled by user option utf-8-fragment-on-decoding.
184 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
185 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
186 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
189 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
190 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
191 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
194 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
195 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
196 program files that include other program files.
198 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
199 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
203 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
204 when Emacs visits them.
207 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
209 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
210 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
211 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
214 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
215 now shown as a hollow box or a thin bar. However, you can control how
216 it blinks off by setting the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
220 ** Emacs now supports compound-text Extended Segments in X selections.
222 Some versions of X, notably XFree86, use Extended Segments to encode
223 in X selections characters that belong to character sets which are not
224 part of the list of approved standard encodings defined by the ICCCM
225 spec. Examples of such non-standard encodings include ISO 8859-14, ISO
226 8859-15, KOI8-R, and BIG5. The new coding system
227 `compound-text-with-extensions' supports these extensions, and is now
228 used by default for encoding and decoding X selections. If you don't
229 want this support, set `selection-coding-system' to `compound-text'.
232 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
233 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
234 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
235 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
237 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
238 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
239 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
240 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
241 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
242 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
244 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
245 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
248 ** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
249 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
250 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
251 TeX commands to use at startup.
254 ** New display feature: focus follows mouse. If you set the variable
255 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a different
256 Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can be selected
257 only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this feature is not
261 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
262 description various information about a character, including its
263 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
264 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
265 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
268 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
269 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
270 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
271 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
272 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
275 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
276 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
277 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
278 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
279 also disable mouse highlighting.
282 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
283 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
284 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
285 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
286 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
289 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
290 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
291 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
295 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
296 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
297 the mode line of the currently selected window.
299 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
300 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
303 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
304 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
305 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
306 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
307 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
308 current date and time, current line and column number in the
312 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
315 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mails
316 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
317 `display-time-mail-directory'.
320 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
321 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
322 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
323 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
324 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
325 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
326 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
328 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
332 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
335 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
336 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
337 argument it toggles the mode.
339 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
340 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
343 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
344 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
345 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
346 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
347 `inhibit-splash-screen').
349 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
352 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
353 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
354 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
355 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
356 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
357 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
358 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
359 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
360 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
363 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
364 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
365 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
366 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
370 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
373 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
375 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
376 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
377 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
378 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
381 ** Info-index offers completion.
384 ** shell-mode now supports programmable completion using `pcomplete'.
387 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
391 ** The new command `comint-input-previous-argument' in comint-derived
392 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
393 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
394 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
397 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
399 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
401 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
404 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
405 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
407 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
408 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
410 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
412 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
413 run by the key sequence.
415 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
416 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
419 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
420 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
422 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
423 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
425 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
426 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
428 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
429 new-kill-line is on C-k
432 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
433 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
434 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
435 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
438 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
439 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
440 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
441 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
444 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
445 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
446 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
447 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
450 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
451 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
452 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
453 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
454 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
455 command lines to be used than was possible before.
458 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
459 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
460 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
461 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
462 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
463 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
464 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
467 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
468 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
469 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
470 under the "[State]" button.
473 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
474 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
477 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
479 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
480 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
481 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
482 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
483 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
485 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
486 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
487 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
490 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
493 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
494 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
495 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
497 Added Customization Variables
499 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
501 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
502 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
503 java sources (previous method).
505 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
506 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
511 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
514 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
515 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
516 changes the behavior of motion commands line C-e and C-p.
519 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
520 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
521 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
522 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
523 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
524 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
527 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
528 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
529 what external viewers to use and when.
532 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
533 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
534 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
535 is only rarely needed.
538 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
540 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
541 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
542 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
543 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
546 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
547 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
548 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
549 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
550 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
554 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
555 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
556 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
557 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
558 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
561 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
562 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
563 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
566 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
567 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
568 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
572 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
573 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
574 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
577 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
578 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
582 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
583 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
584 affects the initial frame.
587 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
588 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
589 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
592 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
596 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
597 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
598 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
599 directory listing into a buffer.
602 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
603 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
606 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on
607 your current locale settings. If it turns out that your terminal
608 does not support the encoding implied by your locale (for example,
609 it inserts non-ASCII chars if you hit M-i), you will need to add
611 (set-keyboard-coding-system nil)
613 to your .emacs to revert to the old behavior.
616 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
617 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
618 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
619 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
620 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
623 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
624 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
627 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
628 of the recognized cursor types.
631 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
635 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
636 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
639 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
640 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
641 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
644 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
645 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
646 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
647 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
648 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
649 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
650 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
651 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
652 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
656 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
657 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
658 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
659 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
660 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
662 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
664 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
667 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
668 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
669 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
670 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
671 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
677 *** When comparing directories.
678 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
679 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
680 from one directory to another.
683 *** When comparing files or buffers.
684 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
685 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
686 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
689 ** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
690 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
691 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
696 *** New regular expressions features
698 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
699 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
700 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
701 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
702 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
703 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
704 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
705 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
706 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
707 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
708 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
710 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
711 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
712 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
715 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
716 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
717 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
718 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
720 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
721 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
722 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
724 *** New language parsing features
726 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
727 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
729 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
730 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
731 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
734 **** New language PHP.
735 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
736 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
738 **** New language HTML.
739 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
740 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
742 **** New default keywords for TeX.
743 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
746 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
747 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
748 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
750 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
752 *** Honour #line directives.
753 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
754 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
755 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
756 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
757 writes tags pointing to the source file.
759 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
760 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
761 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
762 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
766 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
767 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
770 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
771 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
774 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
775 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
776 whose names begin with space are omitted.
779 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
780 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
781 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
784 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
785 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
786 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
789 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
790 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
791 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
792 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
793 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
794 from the file name or buffer contents.
797 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `smgl-mode', which has XML support.
800 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
801 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
802 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
805 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
806 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
807 instead of using default-major-mode.
810 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
813 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
816 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
817 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
818 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
821 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
822 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
825 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
826 to support use of font-lock.
829 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
830 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
834 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
835 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
836 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
839 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
840 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
841 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
842 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
843 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
844 candidate is a directory.
847 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
848 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
849 it remains unchanged.
852 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
853 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
854 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
857 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
860 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
861 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
862 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
865 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
866 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
869 ** Some images are now supported on Windows.
870 PBM and XBM images are supported, other formats which require external
871 libraries may be supported in future.
874 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
875 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
876 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
877 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
880 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
881 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
882 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
883 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
885 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
886 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
889 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
892 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
894 ** New modes and packages
897 *** The new ido package is an extension of the iswitchb package
898 to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition to
899 interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with a
900 few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
903 *** The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
904 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
905 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
906 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
907 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
908 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
910 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
911 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
912 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
913 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
915 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
916 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
917 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
918 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
919 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
920 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
921 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
923 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
924 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
925 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
927 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
928 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
930 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
931 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
932 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
933 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
935 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
936 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
937 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
938 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
940 *** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
941 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
942 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
943 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
944 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
946 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
947 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
948 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
949 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
950 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
951 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
953 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
954 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
955 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
956 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
957 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
958 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
959 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
960 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
961 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
964 *** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
965 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
967 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
968 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
969 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
970 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
972 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
975 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
976 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
977 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
978 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
979 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
982 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
983 the keyboard macro ring.
985 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
986 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
988 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
989 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
990 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
991 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
993 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
994 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
995 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
998 *** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1000 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1001 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1002 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1003 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1006 *** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
1008 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
1009 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
1010 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
1011 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
1014 *** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1016 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1017 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1018 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1019 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1020 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1021 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1022 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1023 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1024 `rsync' to do the copying).
1026 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1030 *** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
1033 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
1034 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
1035 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
1036 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
1039 *** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1040 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1041 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1042 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1043 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1044 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1047 *** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1048 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1049 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1053 *** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1054 move your cursor into hidden region of the buffer.
1055 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1056 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1058 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1061 *** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1062 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1064 *** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1065 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1066 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1067 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1068 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1069 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1072 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1073 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1074 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1075 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1077 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
1081 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1083 ** When you are printing using print-continuous-numbering,
1084 if no objects have had to be recorded in print-number-table,
1085 all elements of print-number-table are nil.
1087 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
1088 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
1090 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
1091 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
1094 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
1095 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
1096 can start with this line:
1098 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
1100 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
1101 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
1103 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
1104 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
1106 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
1107 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
1110 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
1111 and `display-warning'.
1113 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
1114 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
1115 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
1118 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
1119 much pure storage it will approximately need.
1121 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
1122 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
1123 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
1124 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
1126 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
1127 of one coding system from another coding system.
1129 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
1130 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
1131 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
1132 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
1135 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
1136 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
1137 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
1138 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
1139 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
1140 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
1142 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
1143 confirmation as before.
1145 ** Controlling the left and right fringe widths.
1147 The left and right fringe widths can now be controlled by setting the
1148 `left-fringe' and `right-fringe' frame parameters to an integer value
1149 specifying the width in pixels. Setting the width to 0 effectively
1150 removes the corresponding fringe.
1152 The actual fringe widths may deviate from the specified widths, since
1153 the combined fringe widths must match an integral number of columns.
1154 The extra width is distributed evenly between the left and right fringe.
1155 For force a specific fringe width, specify the width as a negative
1156 integer (if both widths are negative, only the left fringe gets the
1159 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
1160 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
1161 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
1162 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
1165 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
1166 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
1167 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
1168 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
1169 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
1170 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
1172 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
1173 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
1174 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
1176 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
1177 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
1178 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
1179 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
1180 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
1182 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
1183 to override the internal read-file-name function.
1185 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
1186 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
1187 will only show directories.
1189 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
1190 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
1191 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
1193 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
1194 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
1195 (require 'cl) when loaded.
1197 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1199 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
1200 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
1201 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
1203 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
1205 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
1206 declaration specifiers supported are:
1209 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
1212 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
1213 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
1215 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
1217 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
1218 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
1219 binding and lookup functionality.
1221 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
1222 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
1226 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
1227 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
1228 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
1229 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
1232 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
1233 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
1234 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
1235 map using define-key:
1237 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
1238 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
1240 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
1241 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
1243 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
1244 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
1245 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
1247 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
1249 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1250 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
1251 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
1252 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
1254 - The new function `remap-command' returns the binding for a remapped
1255 command in the current keymaps, or nil if it isn't remapped.
1257 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
1258 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
1260 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
1261 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
1262 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
1263 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
1264 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
1265 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
1267 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
1268 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
1269 command was not remapped.
1271 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
1273 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
1274 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
1277 ** Atomic change groups.
1279 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
1280 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
1281 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
1283 (atomic-change-group
1285 (delete-region x y))
1287 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
1288 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
1289 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
1290 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
1292 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
1293 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
1295 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
1296 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
1297 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
1298 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
1300 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
1301 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
1304 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
1305 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
1306 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
1307 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
1309 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
1310 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
1311 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
1312 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
1313 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
1314 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
1317 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
1318 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
1319 returned values, like this:
1321 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
1322 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
1324 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
1325 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
1326 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
1328 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
1329 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
1330 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
1331 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
1335 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
1337 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
1338 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
1339 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
1340 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
1342 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
1344 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
1345 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
1346 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
1347 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
1349 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
1351 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
1352 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
1353 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
1355 ** New functions insert-for-yank and insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
1357 These functions work like `insert' and `insert-buffer-substring', but
1358 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
1360 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
1362 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
1363 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
1365 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
1366 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
1367 defined with defface.
1369 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
1370 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
1371 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
1373 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
1374 help with handling relative face attributes.
1376 ** Enhanced networking support.
1378 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
1379 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
1380 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
1382 - A server is started using :server t arg.
1383 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
1384 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
1385 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
1386 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
1388 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
1389 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
1391 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
1393 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
1395 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
1396 before the connection is established. The filter and sentinel
1397 functions can be specified as arguments to open-network-stream-nowait.
1398 When the non-blocking connect completes, the sentinel is called with
1399 the status matching "open" or "failed".
1401 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
1402 MORE INFO NEEDED HERE.
1404 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
1405 MORE INFO NEEDED HERE.
1407 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
1408 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
1409 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
1411 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
1412 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
1413 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
1414 the fifth is the port number.
1416 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
1417 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
1418 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
1419 no input is received in the stopped state.
1421 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
1422 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
1424 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
1425 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
1426 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
1428 ** New function copy-tree.
1430 ** New function substring-no-properties.
1432 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
1434 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
1436 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
1437 are now always lower case. If you specify the
1438 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
1439 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
1441 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
1442 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
1444 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
1445 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
1446 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
1447 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
1449 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
1450 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
1452 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
1453 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
1454 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
1457 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
1458 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
1461 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
1462 (function (lambda ()
1464 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
1465 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
1466 (function (lambda ()
1467 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
1469 ** File local variables.
1471 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
1472 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
1475 *** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
1476 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
1477 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
1480 ** New function window-body-height.
1482 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
1485 ** New function format-mode-line.
1487 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
1488 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
1490 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
1492 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
1493 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
1495 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
1497 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' most not be used (as previously
1498 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
1499 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
1500 you specify the map to use as an argument.
1503 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
1505 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
1506 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
1507 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
1510 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
1512 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
1513 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
1514 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
1515 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
1516 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
1519 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
1520 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
1521 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
1522 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
1524 ** Mode line display ignores text properties in the value
1525 of a variable whose `risky-local-variables' property is nil.
1528 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
1529 cl-indent package. The new user options
1530 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
1531 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
1532 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
1535 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
1536 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
1538 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
1540 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
1541 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
1542 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
1545 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
1547 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
1548 the time it takes to convert the format.
1550 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
1553 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
1554 over minor mode keymaps.
1556 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
1557 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
1559 ** Only one of the beginning or end of an invisible, intangible region is
1560 considered an acceptable value for point; which one is determined by
1561 examining how the invisible/intangible properties are inherited when new
1562 text is inserted adjacent to them. If text inserted at the beginning would
1563 inherit the invisible/intangible properties, then that position is
1564 considered unacceptable, and point is forced to the position following the
1565 invisible/intangible text. If text inserted at the end would inherit the
1566 properties, then the opposite happens.
1568 Thus, point can only go to one end of an invisible, intangible region, but
1569 not the other one. This prevents C-f and C-b from appearing to stand still
1572 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
1576 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
1577 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
1578 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
1579 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
1582 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
1584 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
1586 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
1587 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
1588 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
1589 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
1590 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
1591 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
1593 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
1594 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
1595 bindings of the parent keymap.
1597 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
1598 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
1599 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
1600 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
1601 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
1602 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
1610 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
1611 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
1612 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
1613 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
1615 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
1616 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
1618 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
1619 (the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
1621 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
1622 it receives a request from emacsclient.
1624 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
1625 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
1626 than 3 levels of nesting.
1628 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1629 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1630 in Indented-Text mode.
1632 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
1633 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
1636 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1637 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1638 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1640 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
1641 properties from surrounding text.
1643 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
1645 - Function: buffer-local-value variable buffer
1647 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
1648 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
1649 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
1651 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
1652 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
1655 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
1656 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
1657 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
1658 other properties than `face'.
1659 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
1660 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
1662 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
1663 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
1664 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors.
1666 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
1667 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
1668 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
1670 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
1671 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
1674 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
1675 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
1676 and run any code associated with the provided feature.
1678 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
1679 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
1682 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
1683 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
1684 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
1686 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
1687 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
1688 accepts a float as UID parameter.
1690 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
1692 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
1694 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
1695 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
1696 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
1697 the output of other GNU tools.
1699 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
1701 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
1703 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
1704 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
1706 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
1708 - Function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
1710 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
1711 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
1712 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
1713 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
1715 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
1716 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
1718 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
1720 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
1721 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
1722 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
1724 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
1725 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
1727 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
1728 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
1730 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
1731 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
1733 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
1734 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
1736 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
1737 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
1738 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
1740 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-keysequence and alike that
1741 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer now display the prompt
1742 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
1746 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
1747 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
1749 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
1750 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
1753 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1754 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1756 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
1757 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
1758 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
1759 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
1760 as help and apropos buffers.
1763 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
1765 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
1766 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
1767 charsets in this release.
1769 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
1771 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
1773 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
1774 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
1777 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
1778 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
1779 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
1780 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
1781 necessary changes to unexec.
1783 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
1784 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
1786 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
1787 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
1789 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
1790 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
1792 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
1793 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
1794 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
1795 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
1796 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
1798 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
1799 new display features described below.
1802 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
1804 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
1806 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
1807 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
1808 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
1809 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
1812 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
1814 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
1815 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
1816 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
1817 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
1820 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
1821 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
1822 under Lisp changes, below.
1824 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
1826 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
1827 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
1828 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
1829 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
1830 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
1831 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
1834 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
1835 supported on character terminals.
1837 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
1838 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
1839 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
1840 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
1842 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
1846 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
1847 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
1848 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
1849 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
1852 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
1854 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
1855 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
1856 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
1857 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
1859 - User option: max-mini-window-height
1861 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
1862 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
1863 specifies a number of lines.
1867 - User option: resize-mini-windows
1869 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
1870 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
1871 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
1874 Default is `grow-only'.
1878 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
1879 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
1881 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
1883 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
1884 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
1887 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
1889 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
1890 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
1891 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
1893 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
1895 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
1896 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
1897 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
1898 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
1899 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
1902 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
1903 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
1904 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
1905 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
1906 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
1907 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
1909 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
1910 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
1911 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
1912 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
1913 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
1914 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
1916 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
1917 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
1918 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
1919 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
1920 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
1922 ** Tool bar support.
1924 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
1925 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
1926 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
1927 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
1928 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
1931 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
1932 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
1936 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
1937 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
1938 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
1940 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
1941 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
1942 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
1943 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
1945 ** Automatic Hscrolling
1947 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
1948 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
1951 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
1952 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
1953 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
1954 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
1955 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
1957 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
1958 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
1959 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
1960 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
1961 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
1962 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
1964 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
1965 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
1966 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
1967 customizing face `fringe'.
1969 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
1970 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
1971 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
1972 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
1973 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
1974 the window to be partially obscured.)
1976 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
1977 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
1978 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
1979 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
1981 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1983 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
1984 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
1985 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
1986 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
1987 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
1990 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
1992 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
1994 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
1996 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
1997 `*') toggles the status.
1999 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
2001 ** Hourglass pointer
2003 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
2004 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
2008 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
2009 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
2010 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
2013 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
2015 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
2016 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
2017 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
2020 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
2021 have to do anything to activate it.
2023 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
2025 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
2026 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
2028 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
2029 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
2030 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
2031 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
2032 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
2033 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
2034 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
2035 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
2037 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
2038 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
2039 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
2040 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
2041 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
2042 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
2044 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
2045 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
2047 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
2048 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
2051 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
2052 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
2053 beginning and end of the buffer.
2055 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
2056 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
2059 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
2060 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
2062 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
2063 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
2066 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
2067 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
2070 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
2072 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
2073 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
2074 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
2076 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
2077 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
2078 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
2080 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
2083 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
2085 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
2086 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
2087 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
2088 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
2089 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
2092 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
2093 all frames except the selected one.
2095 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
2096 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
2098 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
2099 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
2100 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
2101 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
2102 `Info-use-header-line'.
2104 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
2105 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
2106 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
2108 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
2110 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
2111 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
2114 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
2115 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
2116 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
2117 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
2119 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
2121 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
2122 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
2123 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
2124 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
2126 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
2127 point in a pop-up window.
2129 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
2130 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
2131 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
2133 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
2134 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
2136 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
2137 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
2138 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
2139 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
2141 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
2143 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2144 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2146 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
2147 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
2148 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
2150 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
2151 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
2154 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
2155 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
2156 file that is already visited under a different name.
2158 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
2159 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
2161 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
2162 and displays information about that.
2164 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
2165 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
2167 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
2168 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
2169 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
2170 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
2171 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
2172 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
2174 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
2175 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
2177 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
2178 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
2179 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
2180 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
2181 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
2182 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
2183 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
2185 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
2186 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
2188 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
2189 system for keyboard input.
2191 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
2192 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
2193 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
2194 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
2195 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
2196 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
2197 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
2198 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
2199 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
2201 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
2202 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
2204 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
2205 displays all characters in that character set.
2207 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
2208 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
2210 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
2211 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
2212 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
2214 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
2215 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
2216 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
2217 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
2218 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
2219 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
2222 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
2223 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
2226 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
2227 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
2228 Lisp Coding Convention".
2230 new command old-binding
2231 --- ------- -----------
2232 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
2233 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
2234 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
2236 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
2237 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
2238 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
2240 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
2241 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
2242 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
2243 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
2244 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
2245 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
2247 ** There are new Leim input methods.
2248 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
2249 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
2252 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
2253 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
2254 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
2255 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
2256 "`", you must type "=q".
2258 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
2259 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
2260 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
2261 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
2262 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
2265 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
2266 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
2267 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
2268 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
2270 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
2271 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
2272 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
2273 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
2275 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
2276 on the display using several methods
2278 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
2279 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
2280 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
2282 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
2283 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
2285 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
2287 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
2288 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
2290 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
2291 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
2292 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
2293 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
2295 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
2296 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
2297 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
2299 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
2300 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
2302 ** New X resources recognized
2304 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
2305 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
2306 is useful for debugging X problems.
2310 emacs.synchronous: true
2312 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
2313 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
2314 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
2315 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
2316 visual class names are
2325 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
2326 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
2329 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
2330 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
2331 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
2336 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
2338 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
2339 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
2340 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
2341 resource values are `true' or `on'.
2345 emacs.privateColormap: true
2347 ** Faces and frame parameters.
2349 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
2350 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2351 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
2352 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
2353 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
2354 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
2355 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
2357 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
2358 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
2359 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
2360 `default' face and vice versa.
2364 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
2366 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
2368 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
2369 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
2370 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
2371 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
2373 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
2374 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
2375 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
2377 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
2380 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
2382 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
2383 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
2384 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
2385 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
2387 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
2389 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
2391 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
2393 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
2396 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
2399 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
2401 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
2402 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
2403 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
2405 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
2406 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
2408 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
2409 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
2410 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
2412 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
2414 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
2415 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
2416 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
2417 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
2419 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
2420 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
2421 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
2422 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
2424 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
2425 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
2426 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
2429 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
2431 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
2432 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
2433 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
2435 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
2436 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
2437 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
2438 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
2439 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
2440 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
2442 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
2444 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
2445 notably at the end of lines.
2447 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
2448 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
2450 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
2452 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
2453 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
2455 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
2456 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
2457 after each match to get the replacement text.
2459 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
2460 you edit the replacement string.
2462 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
2463 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
2464 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
2466 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
2468 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
2469 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
2471 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
2472 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
2473 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
2474 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
2477 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
2478 read mail from the menu etc.
2480 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
2481 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
2482 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
2483 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
2485 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
2486 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
2488 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
2489 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
2490 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
2491 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
2492 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
2495 ** Customize changes
2497 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
2498 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
2499 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
2500 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
2501 earlier versions of Emacs.
2503 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
2504 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
2507 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
2508 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
2509 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
2510 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
2513 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
2514 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
2515 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
2516 already in your init file.
2518 ** New features in evaluation commands
2520 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
2521 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
2522 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
2523 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
2524 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
2526 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
2527 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
2528 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
2529 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
2532 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
2533 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
2535 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
2536 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
2538 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
2539 code when called with a prefix argument.
2543 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
2544 current user setups (although it's believed that these
2545 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
2546 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
2547 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
2548 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
2551 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
2552 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
2553 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
2556 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
2557 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
2558 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
2559 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
2561 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
2562 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
2564 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
2565 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
2567 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
2568 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
2569 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
2570 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
2572 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
2573 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
2574 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
2575 earlier statement. An example:
2577 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
2579 res += a[i]->offset;
2582 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
2583 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
2584 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
2585 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
2588 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
2591 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
2592 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
2593 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
2594 documentation or other natural language text.
2596 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
2597 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
2598 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
2599 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
2600 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
2601 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
2602 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
2604 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
2605 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
2606 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
2607 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
2609 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
2610 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
2611 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
2612 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
2615 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
2616 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
2617 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
2618 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
2619 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
2620 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
2621 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
2622 is reported afterwards.
2624 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
2625 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
2626 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
2628 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
2629 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
2630 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
2631 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
2632 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
2633 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
2636 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
2637 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
2638 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
2639 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
2640 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
2643 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
2644 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
2645 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
2646 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
2647 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
2648 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
2650 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
2651 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
2652 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
2653 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
2654 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
2655 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
2656 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
2657 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
2659 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
2660 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
2661 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
2662 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
2665 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
2666 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
2667 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
2668 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
2669 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
2670 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
2671 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
2672 function documentation for more info.
2674 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
2675 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
2676 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
2677 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
2678 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
2679 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
2680 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
2681 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
2683 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
2685 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
2686 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
2688 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
2689 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
2690 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
2691 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
2692 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
2695 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
2696 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
2697 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
2700 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
2701 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
2702 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
2703 chapter about this in the manual.
2705 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
2706 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
2707 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
2708 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
2709 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
2711 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
2712 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
2713 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
2715 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
2716 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
2718 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
2719 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
2720 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
2723 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
2724 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
2725 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
2726 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
2729 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
2730 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
2731 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
2732 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
2733 they were before the filling.
2735 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
2736 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
2737 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
2740 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
2741 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
2742 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
2743 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
2746 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
2747 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
2748 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
2749 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
2750 Thanks to Eric Eide.
2752 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
2753 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
2754 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
2756 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
2758 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
2759 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
2760 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
2761 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
2763 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
2764 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
2765 the column specified by comment-column.
2767 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
2768 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
2769 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
2770 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
2771 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
2772 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
2774 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
2775 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
2778 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
2780 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
2781 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
2782 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
2783 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
2786 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
2790 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
2791 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
2792 is, delete only empty directories.
2794 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
2795 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
2796 copy directories recursively.
2798 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
2799 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
2800 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
2802 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
2803 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
2806 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
2807 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
2808 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
2809 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
2810 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
2812 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
2815 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
2816 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
2817 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
2818 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
2822 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
2823 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
2824 internationalization and mail-fetching.
2826 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
2827 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
2829 If you used procmail like in
2831 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
2832 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
2833 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
2834 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
2836 this now has changed to
2839 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
2842 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
2843 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
2845 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
2846 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
2847 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
2848 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
2850 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
2851 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
2852 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
2854 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
2855 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
2856 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
2857 now just a compatibility layer.
2859 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
2862 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
2863 called to position point.
2865 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
2866 summary buffers and NOV files.
2868 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
2869 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
2871 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
2872 subtly different manner.
2874 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
2875 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
2876 ever-changing layouts.
2878 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
2880 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
2882 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
2884 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
2888 -------------------------
2892 C-c C-c q @quotation
2894 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
2897 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
2899 ** Changes in Outline mode.
2901 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
2902 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
2903 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
2905 ** Changes to Emacs Server
2907 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
2908 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
2909 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
2910 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
2911 buffers to kill, as before.
2913 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
2914 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
2917 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
2918 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
2920 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
2922 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
2923 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
2924 use. Default is 1000.
2926 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
2927 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
2929 ** Changes to hideshow.el
2931 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
2933 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
2934 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
2935 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
2936 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
2938 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
2939 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
2940 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
2943 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
2944 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
2945 the normal block-hiding function.
2947 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
2949 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
2950 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
2951 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
2952 for `hs-minor-mode'.
2954 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
2955 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
2957 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
2959 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
2960 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
2961 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
2963 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
2966 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
2969 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
2970 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
2971 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
2972 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
2973 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
2974 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
2976 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
2978 ** Changes to cmuscheme
2980 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
2981 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
2983 ** Changes in Font Lock
2985 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
2986 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
2988 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
2989 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
2991 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
2992 the face used for each string/comment.
2994 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
2995 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
2997 ** Changes to Shell mode
2999 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
3000 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
3001 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
3002 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
3004 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3006 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
3007 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
3009 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
3010 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
3011 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
3012 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
3013 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
3014 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
3016 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
3017 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
3018 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
3019 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
3020 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
3021 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
3022 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
3023 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
3025 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
3026 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
3028 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
3029 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
3030 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
3032 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
3033 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
3034 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
3036 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
3037 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
3038 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
3040 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
3041 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
3042 argument, it appends to the file.
3044 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
3045 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
3048 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
3051 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
3052 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
3053 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
3055 ** Changes to Rmail mode
3057 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
3058 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
3059 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
3060 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
3061 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
3064 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
3065 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
3066 regexp matching your mail addresses.
3068 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
3069 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
3070 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
3071 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
3072 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
3074 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
3077 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
3078 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
3081 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
3082 in which folder to put messages automatically.
3084 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
3085 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
3086 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
3088 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
3089 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
3091 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
3092 use the -f option when sending mail.
3094 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
3095 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
3096 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
3097 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
3098 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
3099 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
3101 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
3102 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
3103 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
3105 ** Changes to TeX mode
3107 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
3110 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
3112 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
3114 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
3116 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3118 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
3119 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
3120 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
3121 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
3122 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
3123 can be edited from that buffer.
3125 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
3126 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
3127 `A' to use all marked entries).
3129 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
3130 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
3132 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
3133 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
3134 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
3137 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
3138 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
3139 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
3140 in column 1 are always made leaves.
3142 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
3143 has the following new features:
3145 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
3146 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
3147 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
3148 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
3150 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
3151 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
3152 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
3153 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
3154 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
3157 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
3162 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
3163 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
3164 spell-checks the current buffer.
3166 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
3169 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
3170 correction is made and re-checked.
3172 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
3174 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
3177 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
3180 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
3183 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3185 ** Makefile mode changes
3187 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
3189 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
3190 Fontlock mode is active.
3194 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
3195 so that searches can be resumed.
3197 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
3198 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
3199 that started the search.
3201 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
3202 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
3204 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
3206 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
3207 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
3208 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
3209 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
3210 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
3211 `secondary-selection'.
3213 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
3214 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
3215 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
3216 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
3217 usual snappy response.
3219 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
3220 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
3221 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
3222 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
3226 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
3227 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
3228 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
3229 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
3230 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
3231 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
3232 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
3233 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
3234 file is registered in that backend.
3236 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
3237 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
3238 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
3239 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
3240 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
3241 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
3243 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
3244 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
3245 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
3246 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
3247 where it doesn't make sense.)
3249 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
3250 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
3251 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
3255 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
3256 checks are always done now.
3258 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
3261 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
3262 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
3263 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
3265 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
3266 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
3267 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
3268 the working file (``merge news'').
3270 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
3271 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
3274 *** Multiple Backends
3276 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
3277 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
3278 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
3279 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
3282 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
3283 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
3284 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
3285 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
3287 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
3288 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
3289 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
3290 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
3291 current revision number from the more remote backend.
3293 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
3294 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
3295 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
3296 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
3298 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
3299 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
3300 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
3301 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
3305 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
3306 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
3307 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
3308 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
3309 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
3310 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
3311 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
3313 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
3314 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
3315 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
3316 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
3317 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
3318 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
3319 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
3320 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
3321 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
3322 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
3323 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
3326 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
3327 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
3328 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
3329 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
3330 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
3331 entire directory tree.
3333 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
3334 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
3335 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
3336 "watched" by other developers.)
3338 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
3339 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
3340 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
3341 starting at the given directory.
3343 *** Lisp Changes in VC
3345 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
3346 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
3347 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
3348 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
3349 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
3350 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
3351 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
3352 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
3353 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
3355 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
3356 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
3357 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
3358 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
3360 ** New modes and packages
3362 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
3363 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
3364 the default is not applicable.
3366 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
3367 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
3368 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
3372 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
3373 drawn, like this: | \ /
3377 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
3378 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
3379 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
3380 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
3381 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
3384 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
3385 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
3387 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
3390 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
3391 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
3392 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
3393 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
3395 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
3396 also do without the mouse.
3398 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
3399 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
3400 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
3401 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
3402 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
3404 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
3406 lines straight-lines
3408 poly-lines straight poly-lines
3410 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
3411 spray-can setting size for spraying
3412 vaporize line vaporize lines
3413 erase characters erase rectangles
3415 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
3416 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
3417 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
3420 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
3421 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
3422 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
3423 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
3425 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
3428 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
3429 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
3430 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
3431 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
3432 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
3433 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
3434 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
3435 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
3436 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
3438 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
3439 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
3440 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
3441 on certain projects.
3443 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
3444 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
3446 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
3448 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
3449 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
3450 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
3451 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
3452 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
3453 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
3454 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
3455 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
3457 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
3460 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
3461 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
3463 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
3464 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
3466 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
3467 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
3468 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
3469 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
3470 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
3472 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
3473 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
3474 separate Texinfo file.
3476 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
3477 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
3478 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
3479 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
3480 enter check-in log messages.
3482 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
3483 without invoking external programs.
3485 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
3486 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
3487 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
3488 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
3489 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
3491 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
3492 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
3494 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
3495 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
3497 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
3498 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
3499 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
3500 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
3501 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
3504 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
3505 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
3506 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
3507 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
3509 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
3510 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
3511 actually modifying content of a buffer.
3513 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
3516 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
3518 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
3520 ; comment (until end of line)
3524 $A default non-terminal
3525 $"C" default terminal
3526 $?C? default special
3527 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
3528 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
3529 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
3530 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
3531 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
3532 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
3533 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
3534 C+ one or more occurrences of C
3535 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
3536 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
3537 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
3538 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
3539 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
3540 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
3541 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
3543 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
3545 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
3546 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
3547 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
3548 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
3549 equal signs of assignments.
3551 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
3552 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
3554 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
3555 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
3556 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
3558 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
3560 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
3561 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
3562 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
3563 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
3564 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
3565 which answers different needs.
3567 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
3568 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
3569 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
3570 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
3571 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
3574 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
3575 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
3577 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
3579 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
3580 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
3581 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
3583 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
3585 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
3586 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
3587 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
3588 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
3589 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
3590 and background colors.
3592 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
3595 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
3598 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
3600 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
3602 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
3603 whitespace in a file.
3605 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
3606 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
3607 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
3608 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
3609 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
3610 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
3611 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
3613 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
3615 Here is an example of columns:
3618 dog pineapple car EXTRA
3619 porcupine strawberry airplane
3621 Doing the following settings:
3623 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
3624 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
3625 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
3626 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
3629 Selecting the lines above and typing:
3631 M-x delimit-columns-region
3635 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
3636 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
3637 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
3639 delim-col has the following options:
3641 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
3644 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
3645 between each column.
3647 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
3650 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
3653 delim-col has the following commands:
3655 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
3656 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
3658 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
3659 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
3660 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
3661 recent file list can be displayed:
3663 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
3664 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
3665 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
3667 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
3668 dynamically change the menu appearance.
3670 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
3673 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
3674 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
3675 specific to Message mode.
3677 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
3678 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
3679 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
3681 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
3682 interface to access directory servers using different directory
3683 protocols. It has a separate manual.
3685 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
3686 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
3688 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
3690 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
3691 minibuffer with completion.
3693 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
3694 with the diary features.
3696 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
3697 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
3699 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
3702 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
3703 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
3704 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
3705 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
3707 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
3708 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
3711 ** Changes in sort.el
3713 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
3714 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
3715 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
3718 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
3720 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
3721 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
3722 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
3724 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
3725 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
3727 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
3728 output ^M at the end of lines.
3730 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
3731 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
3733 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
3734 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
3737 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
3740 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
3741 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
3744 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
3745 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
3746 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
3747 nil -- just delete one character.
3749 Default value is `untabify'.
3751 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
3753 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
3754 symbol, not double-quoted.
3756 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
3757 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
3758 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
3759 moved to lisp/obsolete.
3761 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
3762 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
3763 `auto-compression-mode' command.
3765 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
3766 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
3767 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
3769 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
3770 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
3772 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
3773 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
3775 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
3776 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
3778 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
3779 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
3780 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
3781 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
3782 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
3783 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
3785 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
3786 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
3788 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
3790 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
3791 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
3793 ** Shell script mode changes.
3795 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
3796 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
3797 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
3801 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
3803 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
3804 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
3805 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
3806 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
3807 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
3809 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
3810 declarations when given the --declarations option.
3812 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
3813 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
3815 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
3816 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
3817 `template' keywords.
3819 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
3820 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
3822 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
3825 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
3827 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
3829 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
3832 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
3834 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
3835 variables are tagged.
3837 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
3839 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
3842 ** Changes in etags.el
3844 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
3845 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
3846 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
3848 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
3849 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
3851 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
3852 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
3853 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
3854 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
3856 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
3858 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
3859 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
3861 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
3863 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
3864 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
3865 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
3867 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
3868 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
3870 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
3871 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
3873 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
3874 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
3875 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
3876 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
3877 point will go to the beginning of the file.
3879 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
3880 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
3881 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
3883 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
3884 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
3885 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
3887 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
3888 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
3889 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
3891 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
3893 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
3895 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
3896 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
3897 expression from that list, are not checked.
3899 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
3900 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
3901 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
3902 the buffer, just like for the local files.
3904 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
3906 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
3907 displays local abbrevs, only.
3909 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
3910 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
3912 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
3913 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
3914 is measured in pixels.
3916 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
3917 to be visited as images.
3919 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
3920 were added to compile.el.
3922 ** Withdrawn packages
3924 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
3925 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
3927 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
3929 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
3932 * Incompatible Lisp changes
3934 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
3935 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
3936 See the sections below for details.
3938 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
3939 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
3940 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
3941 to remove the properties of the copy.
3943 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
3944 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
3945 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
3946 these properties are active.
3948 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
3949 ranges may affect some code.
3951 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
3952 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
3953 make a difference to some code.
3955 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
3956 operates on the minibuffer.
3958 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3959 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
3960 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
3961 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
3962 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
3963 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
3964 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
3965 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
3966 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
3967 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
3968 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
3969 the buffer as multibyte characters.
3971 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
3972 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
3973 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
3975 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
3976 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
3977 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
3979 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
3980 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
3981 such as `mapconcat'.
3983 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
3986 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
3987 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
3988 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
3989 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
3990 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
3991 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
3992 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
3993 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
3995 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
3996 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
3997 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
3998 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
3999 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
4000 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
4001 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
4002 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
4003 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
4004 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
4007 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
4008 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
4010 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
4012 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
4013 allows the animated display of strings.
4015 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
4016 interactive form of a function.
4018 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
4019 between custom options. Example:
4021 (defcustom default-input-method nil
4022 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
4023 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
4024 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
4026 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
4027 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
4029 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
4030 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
4031 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
4033 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
4034 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
4035 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
4036 (signal or normal termination).
4038 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
4039 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
4041 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
4042 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
4044 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
4045 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
4047 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
4049 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
4050 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
4053 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
4055 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
4056 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
4057 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
4058 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
4059 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
4062 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
4063 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
4066 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
4067 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
4069 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
4070 with the more general `:mask' property.
4072 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
4074 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
4077 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
4078 is running in batch mode. For example,
4080 (message "%s" (read t))
4082 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
4085 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
4086 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
4088 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
4089 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
4092 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
4095 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
4097 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
4098 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
4100 - Function: remq ELT LIST
4102 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
4103 comparison is done with `eq'.
4105 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
4107 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
4108 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
4109 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
4111 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
4112 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
4113 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
4115 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
4116 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
4118 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
4119 function was declared obsolete.
4121 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
4122 retained as an alias).
4124 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
4125 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
4126 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
4128 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
4130 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
4132 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
4133 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
4134 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
4135 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
4136 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
4137 means never include the minibuffer window.
4139 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
4141 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
4143 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
4145 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
4146 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
4147 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
4148 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
4151 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
4152 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
4153 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
4154 minibuffer even if it is active.
4156 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
4157 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
4158 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
4159 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
4160 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
4161 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
4163 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
4164 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
4165 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
4166 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
4167 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
4168 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
4169 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
4171 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
4172 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
4173 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
4175 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
4176 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
4177 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
4178 Default value is nil.
4180 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
4183 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
4184 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
4185 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
4187 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
4188 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
4189 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
4191 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
4192 list of a primitive.
4194 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
4196 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
4197 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
4198 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
4199 than replacing the local map.
4201 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
4202 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
4203 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
4206 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
4208 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
4209 as promised long ago.
4211 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
4213 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
4214 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
4215 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
4218 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
4220 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
4221 regular expressions.
4223 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
4225 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
4229 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
4231 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
4235 matches string STRING literally.
4238 matches character CHAR literally.
4241 matches any character except a newline.
4244 matches any character
4247 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
4248 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
4254 matches any character not in SET
4257 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
4258 in the text being matched
4261 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
4264 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
4265 string being matched against.
4268 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
4269 string being matched against.
4272 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
4273 buffer being matched against.
4276 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
4277 buffer being matched against.
4280 matches the empty string, but only at point.
4283 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
4287 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
4290 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
4293 `(not word-boundary)'
4294 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
4298 matches 0 through 9.
4301 matches ASCII control characters.
4304 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
4307 matches space and tab only.
4310 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
4314 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
4318 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4319 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
4322 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4323 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
4326 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
4329 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
4332 matches anything lower-case.
4335 matches anything upper-case.
4338 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4339 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
4342 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
4345 matches anything that has word syntax.
4348 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
4349 of the following symbols.
4351 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
4352 `punctuation' (\\s.)
4355 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
4356 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
4357 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
4358 `string-quote' (\\s\")
4359 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
4361 `character-quote' (\\s/)
4362 `comment-start' (\\s<)
4363 `comment-end' (\\s>)
4365 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
4366 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
4368 `(category CATEGORY)'
4369 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
4370 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
4372 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
4374 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
4375 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
4379 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
4381 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
4382 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
4383 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
4384 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
4385 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
4386 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
4387 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
4388 `indian-tow-byte' (\\cI)
4389 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
4390 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
4391 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
4400 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
4404 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
4411 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
4412 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
4414 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
4415 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
4417 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
4418 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
4419 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
4421 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
4422 another name for `submatch'.
4424 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
4425 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
4426 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
4429 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
4430 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
4431 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
4432 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
4433 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
4435 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
4436 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
4438 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
4439 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
4442 like `zero-or-more'.
4445 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
4448 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
4450 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
4451 matches one or more occurrences of A.
4457 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
4460 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
4462 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
4463 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
4469 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
4472 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
4475 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
4478 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
4481 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
4485 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
4487 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
4489 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
4490 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
4491 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
4492 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
4494 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
4495 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
4496 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
4497 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
4499 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
4500 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
4501 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
4503 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
4504 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
4505 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
4506 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
4507 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
4508 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
4509 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
4512 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
4514 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
4515 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
4516 character set as previously.
4518 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
4519 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
4520 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
4522 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
4523 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
4524 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
4525 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
4527 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
4528 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
4530 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
4531 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
4534 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
4535 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
4537 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
4538 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
4539 buffers and strings.
4541 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
4542 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
4543 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
4544 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
4545 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
4546 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
4547 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
4550 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
4551 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
4552 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
4554 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
4555 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
4556 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
4557 may differ between buffer and string text.
4559 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
4560 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
4562 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
4563 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
4564 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
4565 `composition' from STRING.
4567 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
4568 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
4570 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
4573 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
4574 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
4576 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
4577 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
4578 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
4579 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
4581 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
4582 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
4583 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
4584 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
4585 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
4586 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
4588 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
4589 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
4590 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
4592 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
4593 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
4594 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
4596 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
4597 have been introduced.
4599 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
4600 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
4601 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
4602 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
4603 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
4604 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
4605 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
4606 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
4607 their multibyte equivalent.
4609 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
4610 that offset in the file before writing.
4612 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
4613 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
4615 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
4616 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
4617 from which the command was issued.
4619 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
4620 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
4621 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
4622 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
4625 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
4626 to `window-buffer-height'.
4628 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
4630 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
4631 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
4632 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
4634 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
4637 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
4638 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
4640 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
4641 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
4642 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
4644 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
4645 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
4646 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
4647 is currently displayed in some window.
4649 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
4650 argument function's results.
4652 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
4653 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
4654 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
4655 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
4658 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
4659 header in the list of headers passed to it.
4661 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
4662 ignores differences in case and text representation.
4664 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
4665 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
4668 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
4669 nil don't display a cursor
4670 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
4671 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
4672 others display a box cursor.
4674 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
4675 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
4676 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
4677 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
4679 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
4680 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
4681 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
4682 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
4686 (string-to-syntax "()")
4689 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
4692 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
4693 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
4700 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
4705 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
4710 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
4717 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
4718 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
4721 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
4722 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
4723 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
4724 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
4726 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
4728 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
4729 for a regexp in a string.
4731 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
4732 `mouse-position-function'.
4734 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
4735 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
4737 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
4738 Keywords are now always considered constants.
4740 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
4743 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
4744 returned by function `recent-keys'.
4746 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
4747 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
4748 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
4749 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
4752 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
4753 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
4755 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
4756 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
4757 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
4758 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
4761 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
4762 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
4763 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
4764 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
4766 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
4767 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
4768 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
4770 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
4771 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
4774 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
4776 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
4777 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
4778 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
4781 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
4782 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
4783 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
4784 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
4785 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
4787 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
4788 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
4790 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
4791 instead of being optional.
4793 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
4794 modify read-only text.
4796 ** New functions and variables for locales.
4798 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
4799 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
4800 time functions like strftime. The new variables
4801 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
4802 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
4804 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
4805 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
4806 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
4807 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
4808 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
4809 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
4810 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
4812 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
4813 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
4814 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
4817 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
4818 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
4820 ** New function `propertize'
4822 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
4823 strings with text properties.
4825 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
4827 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
4828 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
4829 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
4830 specified value of that property. Example:
4832 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
4834 ** push and pop macros.
4836 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
4837 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
4838 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
4840 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
4841 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
4842 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
4844 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
4846 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
4847 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
4849 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
4850 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
4851 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
4852 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
4854 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
4855 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
4856 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
4857 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
4859 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
4860 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
4861 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
4864 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
4865 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
4866 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
4867 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
4868 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
4870 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
4872 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
4873 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4874 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
4875 [:alpha:] matches letters.
4876 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4877 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
4878 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
4879 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
4880 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
4881 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
4882 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
4883 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
4884 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
4885 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
4886 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
4888 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
4890 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
4892 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
4894 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
4895 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
4899 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
4900 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
4901 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
4905 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
4906 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
4908 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
4910 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
4911 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
4912 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
4913 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
4914 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
4916 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
4918 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
4919 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
4920 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
4924 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
4925 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
4926 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
4927 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
4928 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
4930 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
4932 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
4934 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
4936 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
4938 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
4940 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
4943 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
4945 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
4947 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
4949 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
4951 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
4953 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
4955 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
4957 Returns the size of TABLE.
4959 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
4961 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
4963 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
4965 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
4967 - Function: clrhash TABLE
4971 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
4973 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
4976 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
4978 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
4979 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
4981 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
4983 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
4985 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
4987 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
4988 arguments KEY and VALUE.
4990 - Function: sxhash OBJ
4992 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
4994 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
4996 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
4997 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
4998 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
4999 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
5000 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
5002 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
5004 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
5005 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
5006 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
5008 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
5009 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
5011 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
5012 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
5014 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
5015 (sxhash (upcase a)))
5017 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
5018 'case-fold-string-hash))
5020 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
5022 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
5024 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
5025 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
5026 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
5028 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
5030 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
5031 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
5033 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
5034 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
5035 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
5036 is too short to reach that column.
5038 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
5039 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
5040 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
5041 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
5043 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
5044 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
5045 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
5047 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
5048 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
5050 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
5051 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
5053 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
5054 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
5055 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
5056 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
5057 temporary-file-directory instead.
5059 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
5060 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
5061 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
5062 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
5064 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
5065 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
5067 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
5069 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
5070 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
5071 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
5073 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
5075 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
5076 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
5077 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
5078 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
5079 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
5080 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
5082 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
5083 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
5084 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
5085 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
5087 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
5089 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
5090 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
5091 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
5094 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
5095 string where arguments appear in the result string.
5099 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
5101 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
5102 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
5105 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
5107 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
5109 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
5110 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
5113 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
5115 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
5116 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
5121 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
5122 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
5124 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
5125 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
5126 to enable sound support.
5128 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
5129 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
5130 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
5131 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
5132 sound to play, before playing the sound.
5134 The following sound properties are supported:
5138 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
5139 searched relative to `data-directory'.
5143 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
5144 may be present, but not both.
5148 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
5149 0..1. This property is optional.
5153 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
5154 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
5156 Other properties are ignored.
5158 An alternative interface is called as
5159 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
5161 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
5163 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
5166 ** Changes to garbage collection
5168 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
5169 of live and free strings.
5171 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
5172 strings that have been consed so far.
5175 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
5178 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
5181 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
5182 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
5183 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
5185 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
5187 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
5189 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
5192 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
5194 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
5196 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
5197 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
5198 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
5199 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
5200 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
5202 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
5205 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
5207 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
5208 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
5209 or omitted means use the selected frame.
5211 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
5212 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
5214 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
5217 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
5221 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
5223 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
5224 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
5226 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
5227 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
5228 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
5229 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
5230 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
5231 just display it black instead.
5233 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
5236 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
5240 ** New face implementation.
5242 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
5243 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
5247 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
5249 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
5251 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
5252 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
5254 3. Font height in 1/10pt
5256 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
5258 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
5260 6. Foreground color.
5262 7. Background color.
5264 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
5266 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
5268 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
5270 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
5272 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
5275 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
5276 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
5278 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
5279 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
5280 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
5281 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
5282 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
5283 attributes mentioned above.
5285 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
5286 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
5289 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
5290 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
5295 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
5296 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
5297 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
5298 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
5299 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
5300 results in a fully-specified face.
5302 *** Face realization.
5304 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
5305 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
5306 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
5307 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
5308 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
5309 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
5311 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
5312 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
5313 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
5314 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
5316 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
5317 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
5318 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
5319 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
5320 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
5322 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
5323 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
5324 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
5325 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
5326 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
5329 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
5330 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
5331 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
5332 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
5334 **** Clearing face caches.
5336 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
5337 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
5342 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
5343 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
5344 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
5346 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
5347 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
5348 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
5349 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
5350 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
5352 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
5353 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
5354 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
5356 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
5358 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
5359 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
5360 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
5361 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
5362 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
5363 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
5364 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
5366 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
5367 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
5370 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
5371 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
5374 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
5377 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
5382 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
5383 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
5386 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
5387 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
5388 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
5389 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
5390 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
5393 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
5395 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
5397 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
5399 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
5401 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
5402 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
5403 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
5405 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
5406 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
5407 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
5408 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
5409 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
5410 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
5411 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
5412 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
5413 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
5414 of the face font sort order.
5416 - Function: x-font-family-list
5418 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
5419 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
5420 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
5421 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
5423 - Variable: font-list-limit
5425 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
5426 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
5427 matching font. The default is currently 100.
5429 *** Setting face attributes.
5431 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
5432 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
5433 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
5436 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
5437 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
5439 The following attributes are recognized:
5443 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
5444 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
5445 and `?' are allowed.
5449 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
5450 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
5451 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
5452 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
5456 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
5457 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
5458 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
5459 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
5463 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
5464 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
5465 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
5469 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
5470 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
5473 `:foreground', `:background'
5475 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
5479 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
5480 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
5481 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
5486 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
5487 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
5488 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
5493 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
5494 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
5495 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
5496 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
5500 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
5501 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
5502 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
5503 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
5504 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
5505 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
5506 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
5507 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
5508 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
5509 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
5510 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
5511 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
5512 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
5513 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
5514 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
5515 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
5520 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
5521 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
5525 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
5526 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
5527 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
5528 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
5529 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
5530 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
5532 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
5533 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
5537 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
5538 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
5539 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
5542 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
5543 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
5544 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
5546 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
5551 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
5552 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
5553 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
5555 *** Face attributes and X resources
5557 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
5560 Face attribute X resource class
5561 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
5562 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
5563 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
5564 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
5565 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
5566 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
5567 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
5568 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
5569 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
5570 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
5571 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
5572 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
5573 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
5574 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
5575 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
5576 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
5577 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
5578 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
5579 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
5580 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
5582 *** Text property `face'.
5584 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
5585 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
5586 specification can be
5588 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
5590 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
5591 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
5592 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
5593 for face attribute names.
5595 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
5596 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
5597 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
5599 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
5601 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
5602 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
5603 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
5604 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
5605 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
5606 used to clear the mapping table.
5608 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
5610 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
5611 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
5612 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
5613 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
5614 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
5615 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
5616 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
5617 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
5618 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
5619 modify their color-related behavior.
5621 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
5624 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
5626 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
5627 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
5628 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
5629 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
5630 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
5631 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
5632 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
5633 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
5634 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
5636 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
5637 display can display image files.
5639 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
5641 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
5642 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
5643 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
5644 `Inviolable' option.
5646 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
5647 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
5648 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
5650 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
5652 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
5653 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
5654 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
5656 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
5657 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
5658 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
5659 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
5660 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
5661 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
5662 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
5665 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
5666 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
5667 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
5669 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
5671 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
5673 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
5675 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5676 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
5677 constrained position if that is different.
5679 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
5680 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
5681 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
5682 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
5683 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
5684 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
5685 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
5686 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
5687 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
5689 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
5690 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
5691 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
5692 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
5693 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
5695 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
5696 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
5698 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
5700 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
5702 Delete the field surrounding POS.
5703 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5704 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
5706 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
5708 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
5709 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5710 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
5711 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
5712 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
5714 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
5716 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
5717 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5718 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
5719 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
5720 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
5722 - Function: field-string &optional POS
5724 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
5725 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5726 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
5728 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
5730 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
5731 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
5732 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
5736 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
5737 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
5738 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
5739 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
5741 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
5742 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
5743 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
5744 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
5747 IMAGE is an image specification.
5749 *** Image specifications
5751 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
5752 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
5753 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
5754 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
5755 described below are ignored.
5757 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
5761 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
5762 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
5763 to use for its ascent.
5765 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
5766 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
5768 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
5769 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
5770 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
5771 overlays that apply to the image.
5775 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
5776 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
5777 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
5781 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
5786 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
5788 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
5789 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
5791 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
5792 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
5793 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
5794 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
5795 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
5796 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
5797 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
5798 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
5801 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
5803 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
5805 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
5806 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
5807 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
5808 of the factors' absolute values.
5810 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
5816 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
5822 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
5827 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
5828 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
5829 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
5830 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
5831 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
5832 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
5833 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
5836 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
5837 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
5842 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
5843 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
5844 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
5845 may be present in the image specification.
5849 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
5850 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
5851 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
5852 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
5854 *** Supported image types
5856 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
5858 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
5859 properties supported are
5863 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
5864 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
5868 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
5869 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
5871 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
5872 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
5873 instead of a `:file' property.
5877 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
5881 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
5887 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
5888 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
5890 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
5892 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
5895 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
5896 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
5899 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
5901 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
5902 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
5903 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
5904 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
5906 Additional image properties supported are:
5908 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
5910 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
5911 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
5914 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
5915 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
5917 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
5918 to display compressed images.
5920 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
5922 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
5923 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
5928 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
5929 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
5933 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
5934 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
5936 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
5938 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
5939 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
5942 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
5944 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
5945 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
5948 **** GIF, image type `gif'
5950 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
5951 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
5953 Additional image properties supported are:
5957 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
5958 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
5960 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
5961 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
5962 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
5965 (defun show-anim (file max)
5966 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
5967 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
5969 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
5972 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
5975 (goto-char (point-min))
5976 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
5977 (insert-image img "x"))
5978 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
5980 **** PNG, image type `png'
5982 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
5983 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
5986 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
5988 Additional image properties supported are:
5992 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
5993 integer. This is a required property.
5997 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
5998 must be a integer. This is an required property.
6002 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
6003 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
6004 files. This is an required property.
6006 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
6011 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
6012 which are supported in the current configuration.
6014 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
6015 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
6016 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
6017 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
6018 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
6020 *** Simplified image API, image.el
6022 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
6023 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
6024 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
6025 define an image based on available image types. The functions
6026 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
6031 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
6034 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
6035 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
6036 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
6037 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
6038 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
6039 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
6040 of the display margins.
6042 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
6043 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
6044 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
6045 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
6050 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
6051 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
6052 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
6053 that have a `help-echo' property.
6055 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
6056 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
6057 the window in which the help was found.
6059 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
6060 `help-echo' text property was found.
6062 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
6063 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
6065 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
6066 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
6069 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
6070 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
6072 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
6073 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
6074 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
6075 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
6076 used as help string.
6078 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
6079 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
6080 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
6082 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
6084 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
6085 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
6087 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
6088 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
6089 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
6090 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
6093 (global-set-key [A-down]
6096 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
6097 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
6098 (global-set-key [A-up]
6101 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
6102 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
6104 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
6106 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
6107 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
6108 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
6109 is called with one argument, POS.
6111 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
6112 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
6113 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
6114 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
6115 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
6117 ** Tool bar support.
6119 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
6120 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
6121 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
6122 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
6123 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
6124 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
6126 *** Tool bar item definitions
6128 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
6129 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
6130 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
6132 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
6133 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
6134 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
6135 property (see below).
6137 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
6138 binding are currently ignored.
6140 The following properties are recognized:
6144 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
6149 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
6153 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
6154 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
6155 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
6157 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
6159 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
6160 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
6164 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
6165 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
6166 meaning of each of the four elements:
6168 Index Use when item is
6169 ----------------------------------------
6170 0 enabled and selected
6171 1 enabled and deselected
6172 2 disabled and selected
6173 3 disabled and deselected
6175 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
6176 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
6178 `:help HELP-STRING'.
6180 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
6181 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
6183 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
6184 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
6185 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
6188 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
6189 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
6190 buffer-locally to override the global map.
6192 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
6194 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
6195 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
6196 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
6198 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
6199 raised when the mouse moves over them.
6201 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
6202 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
6203 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
6204 vertical margins . Default is 1.
6206 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
6207 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
6209 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
6211 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
6214 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
6215 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
6216 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
6218 is the original tool bar item definition, then
6220 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
6222 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
6225 ** Mode line changes.
6227 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
6229 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
6230 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
6231 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
6233 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
6234 a `local-map' text property.
6236 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
6237 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
6239 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
6240 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
6241 `local-map' property.
6243 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
6244 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
6247 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
6248 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
6250 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
6251 variable mode-line-format to nil.
6253 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
6255 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
6256 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
6257 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
6258 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
6261 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
6264 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
6265 position in the header-line.
6267 ** Text property `display'
6269 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
6270 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
6271 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
6272 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
6273 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
6275 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
6277 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
6278 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
6280 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
6281 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
6282 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
6283 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
6284 simpler form STRING as property value.
6286 *** Variable width and height spaces
6288 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
6289 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
6290 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
6291 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
6292 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
6293 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
6294 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
6296 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
6297 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
6298 properties described below.
6300 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
6301 characters having the `display' property.
6305 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
6306 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
6308 - :relative-width FACTOR
6310 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
6311 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
6312 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
6313 width of that character by FACTOR.
6317 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
6318 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
6320 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
6324 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
6327 - :relative-height FACTOR
6329 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
6330 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
6334 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
6335 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
6336 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
6339 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
6343 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
6344 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
6345 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
6346 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
6347 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
6348 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
6349 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
6350 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
6351 as display specification.
6353 *** Other display properties
6355 - (space-width FACTOR)
6357 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
6358 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
6363 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
6365 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
6366 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
6367 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
6368 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
6369 a font is available counts as a step.
6371 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
6372 as tall as the frame's default font.
6374 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
6375 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
6377 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
6378 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
6382 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
6383 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
6384 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
6385 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
6386 `height' subproperty.
6388 *** Conditional display properties
6390 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
6391 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
6392 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
6393 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
6394 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
6395 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
6396 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
6397 different when object is a string.
6399 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
6402 ** New menu separator types.
6404 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
6405 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
6406 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
6407 to specify other menu separator types.
6409 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
6411 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
6414 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
6416 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
6418 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
6420 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
6422 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
6424 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
6426 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
6428 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
6430 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
6432 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
6433 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
6435 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
6437 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
6439 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
6441 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
6443 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
6445 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
6447 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
6449 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
6451 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
6453 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
6455 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
6457 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
6459 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
6461 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
6463 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
6464 the corresponding single-line separators.
6466 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
6468 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6469 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
6470 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
6471 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
6472 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
6473 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
6474 default foreground is black.
6476 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
6477 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
6478 `ScrollBarBackground').
6480 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
6481 settings for scroll bar colors.
6483 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
6484 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
6486 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
6487 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
6488 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
6489 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
6490 the original window start.
6492 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
6493 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
6494 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
6496 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
6498 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
6499 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
6500 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
6501 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
6503 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
6504 fixed-width and fixed-height.
6506 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
6508 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
6509 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
6510 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
6511 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
6512 temporarily to nil, for example
6514 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
6515 (enlarge-window 10))
6517 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
6518 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
6520 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
6521 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
6522 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
6523 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
6524 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
6525 support a vertical-bar cursor).
6529 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
6531 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
6534 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
6536 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
6538 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
6539 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
6540 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
6541 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
6542 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
6544 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
6548 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
6550 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
6554 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6556 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
6557 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
6559 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
6561 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
6563 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
6564 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
6565 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
6567 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
6568 is the one that is used.
6570 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
6571 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
6572 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
6573 separate from the command's regular output.
6574 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
6575 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
6576 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
6579 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
6580 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
6581 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
6582 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
6584 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
6585 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
6586 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
6587 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
6589 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
6590 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
6591 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
6592 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
6594 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
6595 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
6596 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
6597 they never ignore case.
6599 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
6600 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
6601 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
6602 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
6603 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
6604 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
6605 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
6607 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
6608 the same format that was used in the file before.
6610 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
6611 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
6613 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
6614 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
6615 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
6617 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
6618 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
6619 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
6620 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
6621 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
6622 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
6623 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
6625 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
6626 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
6627 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
6628 format. You can now customize these variables.
6630 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
6631 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
6632 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
6633 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
6635 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
6636 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
6637 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
6639 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
6640 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
6641 doesn't have any effect.
6643 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
6646 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
6647 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
6648 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
6650 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
6651 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
6652 `auto-show-mode' command.
6654 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
6655 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
6656 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
6657 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
6658 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
6660 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
6661 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
6663 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
6664 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
6665 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
6667 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
6668 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
6669 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
6670 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
6672 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
6674 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
6675 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
6676 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
6677 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
6678 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
6680 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
6681 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
6683 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
6684 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
6685 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
6686 `?' on other systems.
6688 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
6689 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
6692 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
6693 current codepage when it starts.
6697 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
6698 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
6699 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
6700 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
6701 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
6702 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
6706 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
6707 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
6709 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
6710 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
6711 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
6712 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
6713 buffer-file-coding-system.
6715 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
6716 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
6719 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
6720 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
6721 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
6722 list of possible coding systems.
6726 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
6727 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
6728 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
6729 docstring for details.
6731 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
6732 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
6733 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
6734 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
6735 lineup functions use this feature currently.
6737 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
6738 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
6740 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
6741 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
6743 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
6744 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
6745 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
6746 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
6749 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
6750 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
6752 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
6753 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
6754 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
6755 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
6757 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
6758 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
6759 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
6760 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
6761 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
6763 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
6765 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
6767 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
6768 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
6770 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
6772 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
6773 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
6774 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
6775 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
6776 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
6780 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
6781 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
6782 Gnus manual for the full story.
6784 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
6785 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
6786 group, which is created automatically.
6788 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
6791 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
6793 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
6794 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
6796 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
6799 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
6801 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
6802 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
6804 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
6806 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
6807 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
6809 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
6810 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
6812 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
6813 control over simplification.
6815 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
6817 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
6820 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
6822 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
6824 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
6825 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
6826 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
6828 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
6829 `a' forces normal posting method.
6831 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
6834 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
6837 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
6838 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
6840 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
6843 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
6845 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
6847 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
6848 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
6850 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
6851 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
6853 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
6855 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
6858 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
6859 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
6861 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
6862 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
6864 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
6866 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
6868 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
6870 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
6872 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
6873 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
6874 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
6876 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
6877 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
6878 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
6879 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
6880 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
6882 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
6883 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
6884 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
6885 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
6887 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
6888 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
6889 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
6892 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6894 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
6895 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
6897 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
6898 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
6899 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
6900 removed from the label.
6902 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
6903 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
6905 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
6906 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
6908 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
6909 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
6912 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
6914 ** New/deleted modes and packages
6916 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
6917 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
6919 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
6920 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
6921 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
6923 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
6924 changes with a special face.
6926 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
6927 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
6928 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
6930 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
6932 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
6933 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
6934 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
6935 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
6936 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
6938 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
6939 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
6940 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
6942 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
6943 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
6944 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
6945 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
6946 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
6947 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
6948 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
6949 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
6950 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
6952 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
6953 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
6954 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
6955 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
6956 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
6959 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
6960 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
6961 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
6962 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
6963 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
6964 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
6966 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
6967 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
6968 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
6969 was not documented clearly before.
6971 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
6972 This includes Tetris and Snake.
6974 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
6976 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
6977 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
6978 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
6979 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
6981 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
6982 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
6983 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
6985 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
6987 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
6988 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
6990 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6991 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
6994 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
6995 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
6996 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
6997 file names and attributes are returned.
6999 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
7000 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
7001 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
7002 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
7005 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
7006 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
7008 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
7010 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
7011 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
7012 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
7015 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
7016 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
7019 The new function process-running-child-p
7020 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
7021 terminal to its own child process.
7023 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
7024 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
7025 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
7026 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
7028 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
7029 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
7031 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
7032 :included is an alias for :visible.
7034 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
7035 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
7036 to move or copy menu entries.
7038 ** Multibyte editing changes
7040 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
7041 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
7042 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
7043 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
7044 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
7045 (setq char (sref str idx)
7046 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
7047 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
7049 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
7050 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
7051 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
7053 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
7054 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
7055 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
7057 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
7059 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
7060 across the boundary.
7062 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
7063 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
7064 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
7065 contains 8-bit characters.
7066 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
7067 contains invalid characters.
7069 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
7070 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
7071 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
7072 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
7075 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
7076 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
7077 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
7078 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
7080 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
7081 compose Thai characters in a string.
7083 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
7084 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
7085 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
7086 menus should always use the third argument.
7088 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
7089 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
7090 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
7091 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
7093 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
7094 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
7095 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
7096 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
7098 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
7099 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
7100 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
7103 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
7105 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
7106 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
7107 requested feature cannot be loaded.
7109 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
7110 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
7111 means to clear out that attribute.
7113 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
7114 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
7116 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
7117 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
7118 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
7119 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
7121 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
7122 the gap of the current buffer.
7124 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
7125 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
7128 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
7129 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
7130 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
7131 it back in after any modifications have been made.
7133 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
7135 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
7136 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
7137 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
7138 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
7139 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
7141 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
7142 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
7143 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
7144 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
7145 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
7147 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
7148 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
7149 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
7151 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
7152 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
7153 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
7154 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
7155 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
7158 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
7159 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
7160 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
7161 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
7163 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
7165 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
7166 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
7167 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
7168 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
7170 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
7171 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
7172 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
7173 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
7174 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
7175 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
7176 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
7179 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
7182 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
7183 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
7184 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
7185 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
7186 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
7188 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
7189 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
7190 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
7191 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
7193 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
7194 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
7195 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
7196 something that most users not do.
7198 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
7199 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
7200 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
7203 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
7206 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
7207 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
7208 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
7209 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
7212 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
7213 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
7214 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
7215 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
7216 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
7219 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
7220 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
7221 to be confused by TeX commands.
7223 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
7224 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
7225 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
7226 of various alternative replacements and actions.
7228 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
7229 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
7230 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
7231 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
7232 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
7234 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
7235 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
7237 ** Changes in input method usage.
7239 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
7240 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
7243 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
7245 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
7246 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
7248 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
7249 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
7251 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
7253 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
7255 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
7256 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
7258 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
7259 given in the following case:
7260 o When you are using a complex input method.
7261 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
7263 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
7264 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
7265 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
7266 setting it to t is helpful.
7268 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
7270 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
7272 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
7273 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
7274 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
7275 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
7278 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
7279 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
7280 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
7283 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
7285 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
7287 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
7288 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
7290 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
7291 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
7292 its owner and group.
7294 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
7295 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
7297 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
7298 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
7300 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
7301 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
7302 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
7303 by the left edge of the rectangle.
7305 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
7306 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
7307 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
7308 for writing keyboard macros.
7310 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
7311 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
7312 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
7313 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
7314 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
7317 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
7319 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
7320 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
7323 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
7324 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
7325 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
7326 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
7328 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
7329 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
7330 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
7332 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
7333 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
7334 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
7335 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
7337 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
7338 failure if the command produces no output.
7340 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
7341 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
7344 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
7345 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
7346 function and variable names.
7348 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
7349 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
7350 file-coding-system-alist.
7352 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
7353 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
7354 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
7355 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
7356 according to the current fontset.
7358 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
7360 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
7361 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
7362 nonascii-insert-offset.
7364 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
7365 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
7366 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
7367 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
7369 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
7370 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
7372 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
7373 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
7375 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
7376 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
7379 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
7380 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
7382 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
7383 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
7384 all variables that have documentation.
7386 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
7387 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
7388 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
7389 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
7390 it should show; the default is 20.
7392 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
7393 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
7396 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
7397 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
7398 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
7399 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
7400 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
7401 Newly added options are included as well.
7403 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
7404 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
7405 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
7407 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
7410 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
7411 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
7413 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
7414 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
7417 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
7418 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
7421 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
7422 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
7423 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
7424 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
7427 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
7429 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
7430 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
7431 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
7433 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
7434 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
7435 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
7440 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
7441 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
7443 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
7444 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
7446 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
7447 read and post multi-lingual articles.
7449 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
7450 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
7451 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
7452 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
7453 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
7454 made invisible again.
7456 ** Mail reading and sending changes
7458 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
7459 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
7460 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
7463 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
7464 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
7465 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
7466 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
7467 rmail-default-body-file.
7469 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
7470 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
7471 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
7473 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
7474 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
7475 is evaluated to insert the signature.
7477 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
7478 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
7479 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
7480 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
7481 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
7482 especially interested in trying feedmail.
7484 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
7485 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
7486 provided by feedmail are:
7488 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
7489 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
7490 there is also a queue for draft messages
7492 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
7493 be prompted for confirmation
7495 **** does smart filling of address headers
7497 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
7498 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
7499 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
7501 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
7502 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
7503 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
7504 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
7508 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
7509 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
7511 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
7512 run Dired on the directory name at point.
7514 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
7515 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
7516 for a specified regexp.
7520 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
7523 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
7524 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
7527 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
7528 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
7529 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
7530 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
7532 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
7533 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
7534 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
7535 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
7536 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
7538 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
7539 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
7540 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
7541 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
7542 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
7544 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
7545 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
7546 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
7547 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
7549 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
7550 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
7551 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
7553 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
7554 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
7555 session to resolve them.
7557 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
7558 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
7559 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
7562 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
7563 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
7564 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
7565 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
7566 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
7567 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
7570 ** Changes in Font Lock
7572 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
7573 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
7574 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
7575 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
7576 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
7578 ** Frame name display changes
7580 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
7581 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
7582 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
7583 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
7585 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
7586 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
7589 ** Comint (subshell) changes
7591 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
7592 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
7593 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
7595 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
7597 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
7598 that is, the line after the last line you got.
7599 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
7601 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
7602 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
7605 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
7606 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
7607 previously sent input.
7609 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
7610 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
7611 as the search string.
7613 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
7614 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
7618 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
7619 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
7620 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
7623 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
7624 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
7625 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
7626 style is still the default however.
7628 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
7630 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
7631 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
7632 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
7634 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
7635 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
7637 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
7638 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
7640 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
7641 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
7643 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
7644 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
7646 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
7647 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
7648 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
7649 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
7651 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
7653 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
7654 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
7655 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
7657 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
7658 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
7659 expanding dynamically.
7661 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
7662 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
7664 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
7665 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
7666 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
7667 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
7669 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
7671 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7673 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
7674 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
7675 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
7676 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
7677 against the first word in the title.
7679 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
7680 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
7681 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
7682 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
7683 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
7684 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
7686 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
7687 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
7688 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
7689 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
7691 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
7693 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
7694 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
7695 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
7696 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
7697 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
7698 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
7700 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
7701 Editing group once the package is loaded.
7703 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
7704 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
7705 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
7707 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
7708 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
7712 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
7713 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
7714 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
7716 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
7717 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
7718 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
7719 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
7722 o URLs are automatically skipped
7723 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
7725 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
7727 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
7729 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
7730 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
7731 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
7732 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
7734 *** New recursive parser.
7736 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
7737 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
7738 recursive parser scans the individual files.
7740 *** Parsing only part of a document.
7742 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
7743 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
7744 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
7746 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
7748 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
7750 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
7752 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
7754 *** Using multiple selection buffers
7756 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
7757 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
7759 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
7761 *** References to external documents.
7763 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
7764 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
7765 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
7766 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
7767 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
7768 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
7769 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
7771 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
7773 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
7774 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
7776 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
7777 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
7779 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
7781 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
7782 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
7784 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
7786 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
7787 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
7788 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
7789 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
7790 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
7791 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
7794 *** Support for the varioref package
7796 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
7800 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
7801 and citations are created. These hooks are
7802 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
7803 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
7805 *** Citations outside LaTeX
7807 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
7808 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
7810 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
7812 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
7813 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
7816 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
7818 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
7819 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
7820 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
7821 directories that contain the same file name.
7823 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
7824 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
7825 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
7826 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
7827 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
7828 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
7829 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
7832 ** New modes and packages
7834 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
7835 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
7836 it, but some do not.
7838 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
7841 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
7842 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
7845 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
7847 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
7848 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
7849 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
7850 established system of notation similar to Chess.
7852 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
7853 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
7854 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
7856 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
7857 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
7858 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
7859 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
7860 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
7863 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
7864 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
7866 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
7867 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
7868 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
7869 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
7871 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
7873 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
7874 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
7875 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
7876 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
7877 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
7878 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
7879 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
7880 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
7881 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
7882 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
7883 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
7885 Platform-specific modes:
7887 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
7888 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
7889 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
7890 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
7891 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
7892 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
7893 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
7894 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
7895 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
7897 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
7899 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
7900 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
7901 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
7902 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
7904 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
7905 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
7906 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
7908 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
7909 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
7910 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
7911 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
7913 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
7914 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
7915 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
7918 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
7919 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
7920 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
7921 current input method for reading this one event.
7923 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
7924 now control whether to output certain characters as
7925 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
7926 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
7927 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
7928 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
7930 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
7932 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
7933 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
7935 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
7936 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
7937 always increases point by 1.
7939 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
7940 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
7942 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
7944 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
7945 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
7946 default value changed. For example,
7948 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
7953 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
7956 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
7957 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
7958 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
7959 `:version' in the top level group.
7961 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
7963 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
7964 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
7966 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
7967 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
7968 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
7971 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
7972 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
7975 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
7976 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
7977 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
7979 ** Frame-local variables.
7981 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
7982 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
7983 local bindings for that variable.
7985 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
7986 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
7987 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
7990 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
7991 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
7992 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
7993 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
7995 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
7996 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
7997 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
7998 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
8000 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
8001 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
8002 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
8003 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
8004 See the documentation in sregex.el.
8006 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
8007 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
8008 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
8009 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
8011 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
8012 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
8014 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
8015 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
8016 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
8018 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
8019 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
8020 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
8021 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
8023 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
8024 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
8027 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
8028 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
8029 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
8030 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
8031 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
8033 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
8034 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
8035 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
8036 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
8038 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
8039 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
8040 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
8041 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
8042 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
8044 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
8045 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
8046 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
8047 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
8049 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
8050 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
8051 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
8053 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
8054 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
8055 was directed to display this buffer.
8057 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
8058 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
8059 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
8060 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
8061 set-window-configuration.
8063 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
8064 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
8065 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
8066 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
8068 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
8069 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
8070 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
8072 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
8073 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
8074 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
8076 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
8077 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
8079 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
8080 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
8082 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
8083 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
8084 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
8086 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
8087 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
8088 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
8089 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
8093 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
8094 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
8097 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
8098 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
8099 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
8100 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
8101 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
8103 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
8105 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
8106 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
8107 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
8108 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
8111 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
8112 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
8113 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
8114 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
8115 The supported properties include
8117 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
8119 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
8120 item should appear in the menu.
8122 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
8123 which will be REAL-BINDING.
8124 It should return a binding to use instead.
8126 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
8127 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
8128 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
8129 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
8130 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
8133 This means that the command normally has no
8134 keyboard equivalent.
8135 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
8136 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
8137 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
8138 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
8139 value says whether this button is currently selected.
8141 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
8142 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
8144 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
8148 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
8149 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
8150 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
8151 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
8153 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
8155 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
8156 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
8157 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
8158 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
8159 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
8160 forward, away from the user.
8162 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
8164 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
8165 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
8166 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
8167 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
8168 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
8170 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
8172 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
8173 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
8174 that were dragged and dropped.
8176 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
8178 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
8180 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
8181 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
8182 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
8184 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
8185 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
8186 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
8188 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
8189 in Emacs 19 and before.
8191 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
8192 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
8194 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
8195 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
8196 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
8197 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
8199 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
8200 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
8201 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
8202 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
8203 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
8205 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
8206 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
8207 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
8208 consistent with the new representation.
8210 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
8211 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
8212 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
8213 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
8215 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
8216 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
8217 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
8219 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
8220 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
8221 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
8223 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
8224 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
8225 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
8227 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
8228 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
8230 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
8231 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
8233 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
8234 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
8235 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
8236 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
8238 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
8239 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
8241 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
8242 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
8243 buffer or string being searched.
8245 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
8246 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
8247 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
8248 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
8249 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
8250 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
8251 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
8253 *** Structure of coding system changed.
8255 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
8256 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
8257 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
8258 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
8259 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
8260 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
8261 define-coding-system-alias.
8263 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
8264 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
8265 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
8266 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
8267 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
8268 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
8269 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
8272 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
8273 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
8274 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
8275 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
8277 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
8278 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
8279 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
8280 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
8282 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
8283 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
8284 This function requires a user interaction.
8286 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
8287 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
8288 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
8289 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
8290 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
8291 select-safe-coding-system.
8293 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
8294 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
8295 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
8298 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
8299 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
8300 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
8302 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
8303 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
8304 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
8305 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
8307 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
8308 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
8309 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
8312 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
8313 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
8315 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
8316 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
8317 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
8318 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
8319 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
8320 range of characters.
8322 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
8323 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
8325 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
8326 in the current buffer at position POS.
8328 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
8329 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
8330 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
8331 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
8332 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
8333 binding input-method-function to nil.
8335 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
8336 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
8337 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
8338 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
8339 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
8341 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
8342 subsequent events of a key sequence.
8344 *** You can customize any language environment by using
8345 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
8347 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
8348 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
8349 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
8350 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
8351 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
8353 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
8355 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
8356 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
8357 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
8360 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
8361 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
8363 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
8364 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
8365 in your .emacs file.)
8367 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
8368 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
8370 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
8371 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
8373 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
8374 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
8377 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
8378 delete the character before point, as usual.
8380 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
8381 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
8382 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
8384 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
8385 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
8386 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
8387 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
8388 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
8391 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
8392 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
8393 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
8394 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
8395 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
8397 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
8398 and is an alias for it.
8400 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
8401 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
8403 ** Scrolling changes
8405 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
8406 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
8408 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
8409 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
8412 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
8413 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
8414 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
8415 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
8417 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
8418 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
8419 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
8420 recenters the window.
8422 ** International character set support (MULE)
8424 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
8425 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
8426 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
8427 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
8428 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
8429 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
8431 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
8432 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
8433 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
8434 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
8435 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
8437 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
8438 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
8439 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
8440 language, to make it possible to type them.
8442 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
8443 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
8445 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
8446 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
8448 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
8450 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
8452 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
8453 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
8454 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
8455 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
8456 characters for their work until they want to change.
8460 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
8461 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
8462 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
8463 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
8464 support several input methods.
8466 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
8467 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
8470 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
8471 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
8472 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
8473 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
8474 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
8477 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
8478 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
8479 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
8480 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
8481 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
8483 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
8484 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
8485 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
8486 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
8488 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
8489 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
8490 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
8491 the first guess is wrong.
8493 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
8494 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
8496 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
8497 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
8498 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
8499 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
8501 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
8502 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
8503 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
8504 translate automatically to and from either one.
8506 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
8508 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
8509 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
8510 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
8513 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
8514 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
8515 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
8516 multibyte characters in that buffer.
8518 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
8519 character conversion as well.
8521 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
8523 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
8524 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
8525 requires using many fonts.
8527 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
8528 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
8530 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
8531 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
8532 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
8533 you would use a font.
8535 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
8536 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
8537 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
8539 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
8540 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
8543 *** Defining fontsets.
8545 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
8546 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
8547 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
8549 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
8550 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
8551 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
8552 standard fontset are created automatically.
8554 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
8555 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
8556 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
8557 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
8558 name is `fontset-startup'.
8560 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
8561 The resource value should have this form:
8562 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
8563 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
8564 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
8565 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
8566 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
8567 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
8568 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
8569 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
8570 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
8572 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
8573 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
8574 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
8576 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
8577 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
8579 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
8580 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
8581 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
8582 Here is the substitution rule:
8583 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
8584 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
8585 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
8586 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
8587 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
8589 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
8590 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
8591 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
8593 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
8594 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
8595 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
8596 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
8599 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
8600 defaults for a particular choice of language.
8602 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
8603 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
8604 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
8605 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
8606 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
8607 system for new files that you create.
8609 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
8610 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
8611 whole Emacs session.
8613 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
8614 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
8615 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
8617 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
8618 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
8619 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
8620 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
8621 coding systems that Emacs supports.
8623 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
8624 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
8625 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
8626 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
8627 is used for *the immediately following command*.
8629 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
8630 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
8632 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
8633 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
8635 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
8636 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
8638 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
8639 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
8640 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
8641 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
8644 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
8645 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
8646 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
8647 translated into that character code.
8649 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
8650 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
8652 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
8654 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
8655 the coding system for keyboard input.
8657 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
8658 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
8659 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
8661 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
8663 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
8664 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
8665 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
8666 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
8667 designed to work with terminals.
8669 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
8670 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
8671 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
8672 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
8673 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
8674 in the corresponding buffer.
8676 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
8678 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
8679 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
8680 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
8682 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
8683 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
8684 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
8687 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
8688 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
8690 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
8691 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
8692 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
8693 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
8695 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
8696 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
8697 related information.
8699 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
8700 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
8703 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
8704 information about the support for a particular language.
8705 You specify the language as an argument.
8707 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
8708 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
8711 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
8712 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
8713 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
8714 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
8716 A alternativnyj (Russian)
8718 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
8719 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
8720 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
8721 E euc-japan (Japanese)
8722 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
8723 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
8724 K euc-korea (Korean)
8727 S shift_jis (Japanese)
8730 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
8731 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
8732 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
8736 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
8737 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
8738 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
8739 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
8741 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
8742 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
8744 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
8745 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
8746 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
8747 Rmail files themselves.
8749 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
8750 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
8752 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
8755 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
8756 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
8757 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
8758 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
8759 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
8761 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
8762 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
8763 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
8766 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
8767 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
8768 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
8769 without any conversion.
8771 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
8772 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
8773 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
8774 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
8776 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
8777 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
8779 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
8780 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
8782 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
8783 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
8785 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
8786 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
8787 in the buffer before point.
8789 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
8790 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
8793 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
8794 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
8796 ** File locking works with NFS now.
8798 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
8799 in the same directory as FILENAME.
8801 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
8802 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
8803 can become a bottleneck.
8805 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
8806 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
8807 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
8808 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
8809 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
8810 so useful that the change is worth while.
8812 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
8813 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
8814 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
8815 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
8817 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
8818 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
8821 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
8822 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
8823 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
8825 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
8826 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
8827 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
8829 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
8830 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
8831 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
8833 ** Changes in View mode.
8835 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
8836 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
8838 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
8839 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
8841 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
8844 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
8845 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
8847 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
8848 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
8849 not just the selected window.
8851 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
8852 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
8853 turns View mode on or off.
8855 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
8856 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
8857 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
8859 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
8860 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
8862 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
8863 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
8864 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
8865 which version to compare with.
8867 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
8868 blocks if a match is inside the block.
8870 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
8871 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
8872 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
8873 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
8875 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
8876 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
8877 blocks, all of them or none.
8879 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
8880 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
8883 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
8884 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
8885 However, the mode will not be changed if
8886 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
8887 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
8888 not suitable for ordinary files, or
8889 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
8891 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
8893 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
8894 these commands do not change the major mode.
8896 ** M-x occur changes.
8898 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
8899 it performs a case-sensitive search.
8901 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
8902 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
8903 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
8905 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
8906 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
8907 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
8908 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
8909 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
8911 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
8912 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
8913 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
8914 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
8916 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
8917 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
8918 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
8920 ** Outline mode changes.
8922 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
8924 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
8926 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
8927 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
8928 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
8931 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
8932 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
8935 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
8936 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
8938 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
8940 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8941 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
8942 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
8943 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
8945 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
8946 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
8947 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
8949 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
8950 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
8953 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
8954 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
8955 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
8956 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
8958 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
8959 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
8960 can be. The default value is 30.
8962 ** Changes in Mail mode.
8964 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
8965 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
8966 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
8967 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
8968 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
8971 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
8972 compose-mail-other-frame.
8974 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
8975 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
8976 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
8977 buffer that shows the original message.
8979 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
8980 with separator lines around the contents.
8982 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
8983 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
8984 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
8985 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
8987 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
8989 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
8990 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
8991 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
8992 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
8994 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
8995 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
8998 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
8999 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
9002 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
9003 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
9004 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
9005 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
9007 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
9008 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
9009 be taken to be magic.
9011 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
9012 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
9013 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
9015 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
9016 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
9018 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
9019 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
9021 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
9023 new key dired.el binding old key
9024 ------- ---------------- -------
9025 * c dired-change-marks c
9027 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
9028 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
9029 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
9031 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
9032 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
9033 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
9034 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
9035 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
9036 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
9040 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
9041 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
9042 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
9043 each time you run it.
9045 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
9046 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
9048 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
9049 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
9050 means to move in the opposite direction.
9052 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
9053 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
9055 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
9056 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
9057 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
9058 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
9063 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
9065 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
9068 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
9069 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
9071 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
9074 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
9076 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
9078 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
9080 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
9081 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
9082 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
9084 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
9086 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
9088 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
9089 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
9091 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
9092 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
9093 used to pick articles.
9095 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
9096 another have been added.
9098 `M-x gnus-change-server'
9100 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
9101 generating lines in buffers.
9103 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
9106 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
9108 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
9110 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
9112 *** Scores can be decayed.
9114 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
9116 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
9117 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
9119 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
9122 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
9124 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
9125 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
9127 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
9129 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
9130 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
9132 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
9133 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
9135 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
9138 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
9139 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
9141 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
9143 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
9145 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
9147 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
9149 Use the `Y c' command.
9151 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
9153 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
9155 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
9157 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
9158 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
9160 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
9162 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
9164 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
9165 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
9167 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
9169 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
9170 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
9171 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
9172 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
9175 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
9176 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
9177 particular news group. This can be done by:
9179 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
9181 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
9182 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
9183 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
9184 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
9185 for reading and posting).
9187 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
9188 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
9189 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
9190 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
9193 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
9194 default. Here are some of these default settings:
9196 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
9197 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
9198 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
9199 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
9200 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
9202 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
9203 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
9207 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
9208 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
9209 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
9210 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
9211 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
9214 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
9215 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
9216 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
9217 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
9218 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
9219 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
9221 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
9222 of the current buffer.
9224 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
9225 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
9226 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
9228 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
9229 style that the Python developers like.
9231 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
9232 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
9233 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
9237 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
9238 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
9239 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
9241 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
9242 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
9245 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
9246 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
9248 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
9249 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
9250 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
9251 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
9253 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
9254 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
9256 ** Calendar changes.
9258 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
9259 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
9260 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
9261 following/previous years.
9263 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
9264 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
9265 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
9266 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
9267 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
9268 supposed attribute of God.
9272 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
9275 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
9277 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
9278 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
9279 printer system has this behavior, set variable
9280 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
9282 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
9283 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
9284 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
9286 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
9287 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
9289 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
9290 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
9291 printing for your printer.
9293 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
9294 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
9296 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
9297 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
9299 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
9300 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
9301 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
9302 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
9303 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
9304 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
9305 The default value is nil.
9307 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
9308 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
9310 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
9311 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
9312 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
9313 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
9314 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
9315 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
9316 color). The default is 0 ("black").
9318 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
9319 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
9321 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
9322 The default is 0 ("black").
9324 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
9325 The default is 0 ("black").
9327 border-width Specify the border width.
9330 Any other property is ignored.
9332 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
9333 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
9336 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
9337 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
9338 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
9339 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
9340 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
9341 controlling headers.
9343 *** Color management (subgroup)
9345 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
9348 *** Face Management (subgroup)
9350 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
9351 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
9352 background should be used. Valid values are:
9354 t always use face background color.
9355 nil never use face background color.
9356 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
9358 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
9360 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
9363 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
9364 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
9366 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
9369 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
9370 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
9371 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
9373 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
9377 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
9381 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
9385 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
9389 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
9391 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
9393 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
9396 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
9397 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
9398 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
9400 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
9401 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
9402 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9403 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9404 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9408 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9409 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9410 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9413 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
9414 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
9415 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
9416 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
9417 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
9418 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9419 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9420 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
9421 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
9422 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
9423 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
9426 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
9428 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
9431 *** Printer management (subgroup)
9433 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
9434 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
9435 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
9436 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
9439 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
9440 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
9441 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
9443 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
9444 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
9447 *** Page settings (subgroup)
9449 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
9450 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
9451 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
9452 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
9453 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
9454 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
9457 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
9458 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
9459 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
9461 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
9462 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
9463 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
9464 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
9465 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
9466 its TO, are ignored.
9468 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
9469 pages. Valid values are:
9471 nil print all pages.
9473 `even-page' print only even pages.
9475 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
9477 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
9478 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
9479 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
9480 print only the even sheet of paper.
9482 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
9483 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
9484 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
9485 only the odd sheet of paper.
9487 Any other value is treated as nil.
9489 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
9490 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
9491 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
9493 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
9495 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
9496 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
9498 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
9499 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
9500 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
9501 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
9502 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
9503 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
9504 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
9506 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
9507 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
9508 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
9509 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
9510 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
9511 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
9512 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
9514 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
9516 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
9517 messages should be sent.
9519 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
9520 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
9521 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
9523 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
9525 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
9526 points for line numbers.
9528 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
9529 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
9531 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
9532 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
9533 to 2, the printing will look like:
9545 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
9546 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
9549 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
9550 zebra stripe is to be printed.
9552 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
9554 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
9555 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
9556 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
9557 3, the output will look like:
9571 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
9572 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
9574 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
9575 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
9578 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
9579 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
9582 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
9584 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
9585 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
9587 ** hideshow changes.
9589 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
9592 *** Support for java-mode added.
9594 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
9595 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
9597 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
9598 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
9599 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
9601 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
9602 robust and a lot faster.
9604 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
9606 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
9607 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
9608 documentation for more details.
9610 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
9612 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
9613 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
9614 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
9615 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
9616 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
9618 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
9619 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
9620 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
9621 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
9627 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
9628 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
9629 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
9630 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
9631 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
9632 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
9634 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
9636 *** Maximum decoration
9638 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
9639 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
9640 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
9641 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
9642 to get the old behavior.
9646 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
9648 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
9649 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
9651 *** Configurable support
9653 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
9654 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
9655 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
9656 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
9657 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
9658 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
9659 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
9661 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
9662 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
9663 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
9665 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
9667 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
9668 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
9671 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
9673 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
9679 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
9680 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
9681 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
9682 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
9684 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
9686 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
9687 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
9688 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
9690 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
9692 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
9693 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
9694 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
9695 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
9696 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
9697 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
9698 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
9700 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
9701 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
9702 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
9703 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
9704 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
9705 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
9707 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
9709 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
9710 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
9711 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
9712 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
9714 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
9717 ** Ada mode changes.
9719 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
9720 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
9721 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
9722 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
9725 *** There are two new commands:
9726 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
9727 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
9729 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
9730 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
9731 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
9733 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
9734 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
9735 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
9737 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
9738 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
9739 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
9740 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
9742 ** Scheme mode changes.
9744 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
9745 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
9746 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
9747 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
9750 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
9751 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
9752 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
9753 variables as buffer-local variables.
9755 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
9758 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
9760 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
9761 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
9762 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
9763 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
9765 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
9766 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
9769 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
9770 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
9771 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
9772 option takes precedence.
9774 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
9775 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
9776 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
9778 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
9779 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
9782 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
9783 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
9785 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
9786 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
9789 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
9790 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
9791 these register values no longer become completely useless.
9792 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
9793 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
9794 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
9796 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
9797 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
9798 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
9799 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
9801 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
9802 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
9803 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
9804 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
9805 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
9807 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
9808 since it applies only to the current frame.
9810 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
9811 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
9812 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
9814 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
9815 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
9816 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
9817 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
9818 instead of just the file you are editing.
9822 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
9823 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
9824 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
9825 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
9826 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
9829 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
9830 knows which kind of label is needed.
9832 C-c ) reftex-reference
9833 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
9834 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
9836 C-c [ reftex-citation
9837 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
9838 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
9840 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
9841 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
9844 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
9845 can quickly jump to every section.
9847 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
9848 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
9849 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
9850 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
9851 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
9853 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9855 *** Info documentation is now available.
9857 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
9858 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
9860 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
9861 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
9863 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
9864 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
9866 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
9867 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
9868 appropriate functions.
9870 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
9871 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
9873 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
9876 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
9877 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
9879 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
9882 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
9883 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
9884 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
9886 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
9887 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
9888 prefixed with `ALT'.
9890 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
9891 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
9892 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
9895 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
9896 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
9897 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
9899 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
9900 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
9902 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
9903 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
9904 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
9906 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
9908 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
9910 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
9913 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
9914 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
9917 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
9920 *** Added support for imenu.
9922 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
9923 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
9924 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
9925 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
9927 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
9928 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
9930 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
9932 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
9934 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
9935 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
9936 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
9939 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
9940 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
9942 ** browse-url changes
9944 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
9945 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
9946 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
9947 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
9948 customization variables.
9950 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
9952 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
9953 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
9954 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
9958 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
9959 pops up the Info file for this command.
9961 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
9962 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
9963 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
9966 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
9967 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
9968 files in the same directory.
9970 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
9971 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
9972 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
9976 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
9977 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
9979 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
9980 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
9981 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
9982 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
9983 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
9984 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
9985 color when Viper is in insert state.
9986 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
9987 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
9988 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
9992 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
9993 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
9994 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
9995 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
9996 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
9998 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
10000 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
10001 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
10003 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
10004 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
10005 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
10007 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
10008 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
10009 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
10010 methods and protocols.
10012 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
10013 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
10014 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
10017 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
10018 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
10019 at least M times and as many as N times.
10021 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
10022 in files has changed slightly.
10024 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
10025 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
10026 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
10027 with old time-stamp-format values.
10029 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
10030 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
10031 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
10034 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
10035 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
10036 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
10037 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
10038 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
10039 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
10041 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
10042 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
10043 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
10045 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
10046 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
10047 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
10048 recommended now will continue to work then.
10050 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
10053 ** There are some additional major modes:
10055 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
10056 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
10057 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
10059 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
10060 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
10063 ** New Lisp packages include:
10065 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
10067 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
10068 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
10070 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
10072 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
10075 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
10076 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
10079 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
10080 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
10081 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
10082 strings or comments.
10084 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
10085 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
10086 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
10087 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
10090 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
10091 can visit them by short forms of their names.
10093 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
10094 Emacs Lisp function at point.
10096 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
10098 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
10099 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
10101 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
10103 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
10105 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
10107 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
10108 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
10110 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
10111 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
10112 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
10113 original place after inserting the copy.
10115 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
10118 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
10119 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
10120 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
10122 Enable mouse-drag with:
10123 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
10125 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
10127 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
10128 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
10130 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
10131 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
10135 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
10136 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
10137 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
10138 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
10139 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
10140 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
10141 instance) and vice versa.
10143 To use this package load it using
10144 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
10145 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
10146 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
10147 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
10148 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
10149 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
10151 *** Interface to ph.
10153 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
10155 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
10156 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
10159 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
10161 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
10162 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
10163 while the real cursor does not move.
10165 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
10166 for visiting your favorite web sites.
10168 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
10169 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
10173 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
10174 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
10175 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
10176 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
10178 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
10180 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
10182 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
10184 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
10185 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
10186 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
10187 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
10188 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
10190 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
10191 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
10192 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
10193 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
10194 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
10195 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
10197 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
10199 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
10200 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
10201 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
10202 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
10204 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
10205 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
10207 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
10208 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
10211 ** Basic Lisp changes
10213 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
10214 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
10216 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
10217 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
10220 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
10222 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
10224 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
10225 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
10227 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
10228 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
10231 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
10233 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
10235 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
10237 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
10238 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
10239 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
10242 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
10243 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
10244 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
10246 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
10247 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
10248 adding one of these suffixes.
10250 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
10251 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
10252 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
10254 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
10255 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
10257 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
10259 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
10260 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
10262 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
10263 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
10265 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
10267 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
10268 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
10270 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
10271 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
10272 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
10273 works using `save-current-buffer'.
10275 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
10276 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
10279 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
10280 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
10281 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
10284 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
10285 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
10288 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
10290 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
10291 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
10292 Then it returns that string.
10294 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
10296 (with-output-to-string
10297 (princ "The buffer is ")
10298 (princ (buffer-name)))
10300 returns "The buffer is foo".
10302 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
10305 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
10306 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
10307 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
10309 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
10310 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
10312 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
10313 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
10314 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
10315 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
10316 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
10317 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
10319 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
10320 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
10321 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
10324 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
10325 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
10326 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
10327 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
10328 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
10330 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
10331 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
10332 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
10333 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
10335 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
10336 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
10338 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
10340 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
10341 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
10342 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
10343 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
10346 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
10347 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
10350 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
10352 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
10353 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
10354 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
10355 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
10356 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
10358 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
10360 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
10361 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
10362 more than the number of characters.
10364 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
10365 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
10366 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
10367 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
10368 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
10369 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
10371 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
10372 and returns a string containing those characters.
10374 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
10375 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
10376 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
10377 character, sref signals an error.
10379 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
10380 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
10381 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
10383 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
10384 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
10385 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
10387 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
10388 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
10389 to a vector of the characters in it.
10391 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
10392 of a string. You call it as follows:
10394 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
10396 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
10397 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
10398 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
10399 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
10400 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
10402 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
10403 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
10405 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
10406 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
10408 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
10409 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
10410 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
10411 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
10413 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
10415 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
10417 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
10418 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
10419 are not included in the resulting value.
10421 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
10422 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
10423 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
10424 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
10426 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
10427 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
10428 character extends across that column), then the padding character
10429 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
10430 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
10431 column START-COLUMN.
10433 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
10434 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
10435 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
10436 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
10437 changed text, before the change.
10439 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
10440 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
10441 one character set for each script, not for each language.
10443 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
10445 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
10447 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
10448 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
10450 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
10451 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
10452 which identify the character within that character set.
10454 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
10455 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
10456 opposite of split-char.
10458 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
10459 of all the characters between BEG and END.
10461 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
10462 of all the characters in a string.
10464 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
10465 and specifying coding systems.
10467 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
10468 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
10469 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
10470 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
10471 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
10472 as what to do about code conversion.)
10474 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
10475 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
10477 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
10478 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
10479 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
10481 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
10482 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
10483 to match against a file name.
10485 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
10486 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
10487 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
10488 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
10489 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
10490 specifies the coding system for encoding.
10492 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
10493 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
10495 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
10496 the coding system to use for network sockets.
10498 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
10499 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
10500 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
10503 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
10504 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
10505 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
10506 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
10507 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
10508 specifies the coding system for encoding.
10510 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
10511 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
10513 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
10514 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
10515 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
10516 start the subprocess.
10518 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
10519 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
10520 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
10521 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
10522 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
10524 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
10525 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
10528 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
10529 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
10530 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
10531 connection permanently or until overridden.
10533 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
10534 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
10535 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
10536 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
10537 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
10538 system for one operation at a time.
10540 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
10541 files, subprocesses or network connections.
10543 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
10544 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
10545 The value is a cons cell,
10546 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
10547 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
10548 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
10549 input to the subprocess.
10551 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
10552 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
10554 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
10555 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
10556 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
10558 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
10559 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
10560 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
10561 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
10564 Thus, instead of writing
10566 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
10567 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
10569 you would now write this:
10571 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
10572 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
10576 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
10577 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
10578 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
10579 for a description of them.
10581 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
10582 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
10584 (defgroup ispell nil
10585 "Spell checking using Ispell."
10588 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
10589 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
10590 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
10591 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
10592 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
10594 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
10595 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
10596 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
10597 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
10598 first-level subgroups.
10600 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
10602 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
10603 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
10607 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
10608 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
10609 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
10610 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
10611 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
10612 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
10614 ** Text property changes
10616 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
10619 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
10620 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
10621 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
10622 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
10623 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
10625 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
10626 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
10627 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
10628 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
10630 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
10631 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
10632 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
10634 ** Changes in invisibility features
10636 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
10637 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
10638 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
10639 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
10640 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
10641 make the overlay visible.
10643 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
10644 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
10645 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
10646 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
10647 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
10648 t when it should hide it.
10650 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
10652 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
10653 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
10654 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
10655 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
10656 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
10657 Here is an example of how to do this:
10659 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
10660 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
10661 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
10662 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
10665 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
10668 ;; When done with the overlays:
10669 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
10670 ;; Or respectively:
10671 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
10673 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
10675 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
10676 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
10677 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
10678 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
10680 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
10681 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
10682 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
10684 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
10685 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
10687 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
10688 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
10690 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
10691 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
10692 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
10694 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
10695 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
10696 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
10697 determine the syntax type of the character.
10699 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
10700 of the current buffer.
10702 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
10703 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
10704 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
10706 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
10707 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
10708 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
10709 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
10710 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
10712 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
10715 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
10716 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
10717 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
10719 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
10720 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
10721 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
10722 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
10723 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
10725 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
10726 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
10727 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
10729 ** Changes in face features
10731 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
10732 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
10734 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
10735 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
10737 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
10738 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
10740 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
10741 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
10743 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
10744 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
10745 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
10746 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
10749 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
10750 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
10752 ** Changes in file-handling functions
10754 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
10755 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
10756 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
10757 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
10759 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
10762 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
10763 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
10765 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10766 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
10768 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
10769 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
10771 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
10772 character code conversion as well as other things.
10774 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
10775 (formerly it did not).
10777 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
10778 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
10780 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
10781 instead of constant strings.
10783 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
10784 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
10785 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
10787 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
10788 in the same way as before.
10790 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
10791 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
10792 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
10794 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
10795 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
10796 else, and returns nil.
10798 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
10799 directory cannot be listed.
10801 ** Changes in minibuffer input
10803 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
10804 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
10805 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
10806 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
10809 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
10810 It is available through the history command M-n.
10812 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
10813 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
10814 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
10815 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
10816 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
10818 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
10819 argument in this way.
10821 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
10822 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
10823 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
10825 ** Echo area features
10827 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
10828 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
10829 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
10830 after the echo area is cleared.
10832 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
10833 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
10835 ** Keyboard input features
10837 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
10838 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
10840 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
10841 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
10842 by keyboard macros.
10844 ** Frame-related changes
10846 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
10847 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
10848 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
10850 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
10851 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
10852 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
10854 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10855 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
10856 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
10857 in the selected frame.
10859 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
10860 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
10861 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
10863 ** X Windows features
10865 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
10866 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
10867 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
10869 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
10870 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
10872 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
10873 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
10874 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
10876 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
10877 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
10879 ** Subprocess features
10881 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
10882 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
10885 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
10886 and returns the output from the command as a string.
10888 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
10889 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
10891 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
10892 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
10894 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
10895 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
10896 goes after the other menu items.
10898 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
10899 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
10900 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
10903 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
10904 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
10906 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
10907 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
10910 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
10911 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
10912 but its hook is still run.
10914 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
10915 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
10917 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
10918 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
10919 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
10921 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
10922 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
10923 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
10926 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
10927 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
10929 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
10930 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
10931 functions like display-time.
10933 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
10934 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
10936 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
10937 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
10938 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
10940 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
10941 if there is an error in compilation.
10943 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
10944 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
10945 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
10946 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
10948 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
10949 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
10950 the *scratch* buffer.
10952 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
10953 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
10954 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
10955 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
10957 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
10958 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
10959 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
10961 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
10962 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
10963 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
10964 and compose-mail-other-frame.
10966 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
10967 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
10968 full name of the specified user will be returned.
10970 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
10971 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
10972 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
10973 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
10974 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
10977 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
10978 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
10979 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
10980 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
10982 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
10983 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
10984 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
10985 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
10987 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
10989 ** imenu.el changes.
10991 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
10992 item from menu created by imenu.
10994 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
10995 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
10996 select one of those items.
10998 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
11000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
11001 Copyright information:
11003 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
11005 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
11006 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
11007 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
11008 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
11010 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
11011 of this document, or of portions of it,
11012 under the above conditions, provided also that they
11013 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
11017 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"