1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 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 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
16 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
17 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
20 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
21 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
23 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
24 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
25 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
27 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
28 is running in batch mode. For example,
30 (message "%s" (read t))
32 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
35 ** Faces and frame parameters.
37 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
38 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
39 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
40 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
41 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
42 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
43 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
45 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
46 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
47 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
48 `default' face and vice versa.
52 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
53 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
54 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
56 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
58 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
59 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
60 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
61 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
63 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
64 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
65 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
67 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
70 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
72 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
73 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
74 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
75 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
78 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
80 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
81 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
82 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
83 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
86 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
87 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
88 under Lisp changes, below.
90 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
92 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
93 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
96 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
97 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
98 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
99 customizing face `fringe'.
101 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
102 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
106 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
107 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
109 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
111 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
112 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
113 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
114 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
115 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
118 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
119 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
120 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
121 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
122 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
123 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
125 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
126 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
127 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
128 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
129 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
130 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
132 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
133 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
134 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
135 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
136 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
138 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
140 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
141 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
142 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
144 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
146 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
147 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
148 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
149 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
150 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
155 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
156 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
160 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
161 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
162 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
165 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
167 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
168 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
169 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
172 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
173 have to do anything to activate it.
175 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
177 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
178 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
179 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
180 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
182 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
184 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
186 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
188 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
191 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
194 ** Hscrolling in C code.
196 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
200 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
201 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
203 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
205 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
206 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
207 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
208 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
209 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
211 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
213 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
216 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
217 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
219 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
221 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
222 toggles the read-only status.
224 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
226 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
228 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
229 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
232 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
234 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
235 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
236 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
237 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
238 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
239 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
243 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
244 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
245 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
246 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
247 to enable sound support.
249 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
250 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
251 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
252 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
253 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
254 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
256 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
258 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
260 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
261 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
262 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
264 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
265 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
267 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
268 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
269 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
271 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
273 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
274 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
275 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
276 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
278 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
279 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
280 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
281 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
283 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
284 notably at the end of lines.
286 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
287 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
289 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
290 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
291 after each match to get the replacement text.
293 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
295 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
296 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
297 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
298 by setting the following variable:
300 - User option: max-mini-window-height
302 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
303 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
304 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
308 ** Comint (subshell) changes
310 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
311 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
313 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
314 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
315 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
317 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
318 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
319 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
321 ** Changes to TeX mode
323 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
326 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
328 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
329 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
330 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
331 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
332 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
333 can be edited from that buffer.
335 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
336 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
337 `A' to use all marked entries).
339 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
340 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
342 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
343 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
344 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
347 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
348 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
349 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
350 in column 1 are always made leaves.
352 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
353 has the following new features:
355 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
356 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
357 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
358 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
360 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
361 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
362 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
363 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
364 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
369 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
370 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
371 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
373 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
374 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
375 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
376 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
380 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
381 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
382 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
384 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
385 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
388 ** New features in evaluation commands
390 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
391 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
392 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
393 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
394 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
398 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
399 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
400 is, delete only empty directories.
402 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
403 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
404 copy directories recursively.
406 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
407 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
408 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
410 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
411 use the -f option when sending mail.
415 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
416 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
418 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
420 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
421 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
422 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
423 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
424 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
425 `secondary-selection'.
427 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
428 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
429 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
430 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
431 usual snappy response.
433 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
434 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
435 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
436 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
439 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
440 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
441 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
443 ** Shell script mode changes.
445 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
446 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
447 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
451 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
453 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
454 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
455 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
456 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
457 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
459 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
460 declarations when given the --declarations option.
462 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
463 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
465 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
468 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
470 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
472 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
475 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
476 variables are tagged.
478 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
480 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
483 ** Changes in etags.el
485 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
486 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
488 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
489 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
490 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
491 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
493 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
495 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
496 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
498 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
500 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
501 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
502 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
504 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
505 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
507 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
508 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
510 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
511 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
512 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
514 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
515 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
516 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
517 currently no specific input method support for them.
519 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
520 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
521 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
523 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
525 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
527 ** New modes and packages
529 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
531 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
533 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
535 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
538 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
541 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
543 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
545 *** whitespace.el ???
547 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
548 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
549 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
550 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
551 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
552 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
553 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
555 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
557 Here is an example of columns:
560 dog pineapple car EXTRA
561 porcupine strawberry airplane
563 Doing the following settings:
565 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
566 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
567 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
568 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
571 Selecting the lines above and typing:
573 M-x delimit-columns-region
577 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
578 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
579 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
581 delim-col has the following options:
583 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
586 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
589 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
592 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
595 delim-col has the following commands:
597 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
598 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
600 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
601 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
602 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
604 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
606 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
608 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
609 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
611 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
612 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
614 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
617 *** footnote.el provides `foornote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
618 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
619 specific to Message mode.
621 ** Withdrawn packages
623 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
624 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
626 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
628 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
630 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
631 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
632 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
633 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
635 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
636 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
637 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
639 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
640 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
643 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
645 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
646 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
647 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
650 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
651 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
653 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
654 instead of being optional.
656 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
657 modify read-only text.
659 ** New functions and variables for locales.
661 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
662 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
663 time functions like strftime. The new variables
664 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
665 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
667 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
668 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
669 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
670 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
671 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
672 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
673 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
675 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
676 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
677 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
680 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
681 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
683 ** New function `propertize'
685 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
686 strings with text properties.
688 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
690 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
691 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
692 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
693 specified value of that property. Example:
695 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
698 ** push and pop macros.
700 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
701 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
702 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
704 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
705 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
706 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
709 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
710 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
712 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
713 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
714 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
715 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
716 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
718 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
720 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
721 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
722 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
723 [:alpha:] matches letters.
724 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
725 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
726 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
727 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
728 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
729 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
730 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
731 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
732 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
733 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
734 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
737 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
739 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
741 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
743 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
744 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
748 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
749 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
750 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
754 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
755 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
757 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
759 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
760 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
761 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
762 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
763 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
765 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
767 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
768 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
769 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
773 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
774 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
775 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
776 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
778 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
780 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
782 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
784 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
786 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
788 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
791 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
793 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
795 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
797 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
799 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
801 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
803 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
805 Returns the size of TABLE.
807 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
809 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
811 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
813 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
815 - Function: clrhash TABLE
819 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
821 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
824 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
826 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
827 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
829 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
831 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
833 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
835 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
836 arguments KEY and VALUE.
838 - Function: sxhash OBJ
840 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
842 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
844 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
845 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
846 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
847 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
848 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
850 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
852 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
853 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
854 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
856 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
857 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
859 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
860 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
862 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
865 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
866 'case-fold-string-hash))
868 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
871 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
873 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
874 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
875 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
878 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
880 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
881 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
884 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
885 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
886 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
887 is too short to reach that column.
890 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
891 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
892 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
893 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
895 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
896 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
897 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
900 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
901 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
904 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
905 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
908 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
909 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
910 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
911 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
912 temporary-file-directory instead.
915 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
916 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
917 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
918 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
921 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
922 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
925 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
927 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
928 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
929 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
932 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
934 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
935 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
936 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
937 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
938 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
939 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
941 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
942 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
943 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
944 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
947 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
949 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
950 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
951 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
954 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
955 string where arguments appear in the result string.
959 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
961 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
962 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
965 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
968 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
970 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
971 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
974 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
976 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
977 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
983 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
984 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
986 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
987 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
988 to enable sound support.
990 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
991 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
992 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
993 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
994 sound to play, before playing the sound.
996 The following sound properties are supported:
1000 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
1001 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1005 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1006 0..1. This property is optional.
1008 Other properties are ignored.
1010 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1012 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1014 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1015 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1016 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1017 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1019 ** New face implementation.
1021 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
1022 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
1027 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
1029 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
1031 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
1032 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
1034 3. Font height in 1/10pt
1036 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
1038 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
1040 6. Foreground color.
1042 7. Background color.
1044 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
1046 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1048 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1050 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1052 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1055 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1056 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1058 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1059 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1060 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1061 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1062 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1063 attributes mentioned above.
1065 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1066 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1069 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1070 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1076 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1077 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1078 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1079 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1080 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1081 results in a fully-specified face.
1084 *** Face realization.
1086 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1087 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1088 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1089 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1090 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1091 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1093 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1094 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1095 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1096 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1098 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1099 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1100 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1101 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1102 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1104 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1105 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1106 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1107 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1108 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1111 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1112 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1113 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1114 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1117 **** Clearing face caches.
1119 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1120 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1126 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1127 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1128 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1130 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1131 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1132 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1133 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1134 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1136 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1137 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1138 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1140 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1142 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1143 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1144 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1145 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1146 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1147 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1148 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1150 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1151 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1157 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1158 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1161 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1162 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1163 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1164 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1165 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1168 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1170 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1173 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1175 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1177 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1178 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1179 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1181 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1182 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1183 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1184 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1185 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1186 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1187 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1188 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1189 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1190 of the face font sort order.
1192 - Function: x-font-family-list
1194 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1195 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1196 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1197 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1199 - Variable: font-list-limit
1201 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1202 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1203 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1206 *** Setting face attributes.
1208 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1209 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1210 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1213 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1214 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1216 The following attributes are recognized:
1220 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1221 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1222 and `?' are allowed.
1226 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1227 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1228 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1229 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1233 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1238 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1239 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1240 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1244 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1245 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1248 `:foreground', `:background'
1250 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1254 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1255 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1256 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1261 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1262 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1263 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1268 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1269 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1270 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1271 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1275 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1276 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1277 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1278 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1279 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1280 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1281 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1282 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1283 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1284 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1285 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1286 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1287 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1288 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1289 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1290 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1295 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1296 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1300 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1301 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1302 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1303 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1304 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1305 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1307 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1308 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1312 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1313 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1314 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1317 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1318 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1319 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1321 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1324 *** Face attributes and X resources
1326 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1329 Face attribute X resource class
1330 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1331 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1332 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1333 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1334 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1335 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1336 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1337 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1338 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1339 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1340 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1341 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1342 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1343 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1344 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1345 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1346 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1347 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1348 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1349 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1352 *** Text property `face'.
1354 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1355 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1356 specification can be
1358 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1360 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1361 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1362 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1363 for face attribute names.
1365 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1366 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1367 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1370 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1372 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1373 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1374 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1375 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1376 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1377 used to clear the mapping table.
1380 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1382 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1384 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1385 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1386 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1388 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1390 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1391 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1394 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1395 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1396 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1397 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1398 commands continue into the next field if repeated.
1400 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1401 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1402 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1404 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1406 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1408 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1409 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1410 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1411 constrained position if that is is different.
1413 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1414 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1415 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1416 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1417 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1418 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1421 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1422 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1423 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1424 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1425 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1427 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1429 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1430 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1431 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1433 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1435 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1436 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1437 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1438 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1439 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1441 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1443 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1444 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1445 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1446 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1447 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1449 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1451 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1452 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1453 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1455 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1457 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1458 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1459 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1464 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1465 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1466 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1467 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1469 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1470 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1471 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1472 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1475 IMAGE is an image specification.
1477 *** Image specifications
1479 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1480 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1481 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1482 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1483 described below are ignored.
1485 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1489 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1490 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1494 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1495 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1499 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1504 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1505 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1506 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1507 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1509 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1511 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1512 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1513 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1514 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1515 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1516 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1517 background of the image.
1521 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1522 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1523 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1524 may be present in the image specification.
1526 *** Supported image types
1528 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1530 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1531 properties supported are
1535 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1536 is the frame's foreground.
1540 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1541 the frame's background color.
1543 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1544 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1545 instead of a `:file' property.
1549 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1553 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1559 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1560 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1562 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1564 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1567 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1569 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1570 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1571 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1572 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1574 Additional image properties supported are:
1576 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1578 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1579 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1582 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1583 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1587 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1588 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1590 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1591 to display compressed images.
1593 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1595 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1596 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1599 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1601 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1602 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1605 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1607 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1608 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1611 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1613 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1614 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1616 Additional image properties supported are:
1620 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1621 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1623 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1624 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1625 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1628 (defun show-anim (file max)
1629 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1630 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1632 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1635 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1638 (goto-char (point-min))
1639 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1640 (insert-image img "x"))
1641 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1643 **** PNG, image type `png'
1645 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1646 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1649 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1651 Additional image properties supported are:
1655 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1656 integer. This is a required property.
1660 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1661 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1665 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1666 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1667 files. This is an required property.
1669 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1674 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1675 which are supported in the current configuration.
1677 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1678 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1679 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1682 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1684 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1685 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1686 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1687 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1688 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1694 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1697 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1698 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1699 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1700 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1701 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1702 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1703 of the display margins.
1705 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1706 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1707 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1708 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1714 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1715 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1716 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1717 that have a `help-echo' property.
1719 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1720 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1721 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1722 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1723 tool-bar item is used.
1725 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1726 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1727 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1730 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1732 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1733 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1735 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1736 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1737 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1738 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1741 (global-set-key [A-down]
1744 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1745 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1746 (global-set-key [A-up]
1749 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1750 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1753 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1755 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1756 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1757 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1758 is called with one argument, POS.
1760 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1761 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1762 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1763 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1764 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1767 ** Tool bar support.
1769 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1770 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1771 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1772 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1773 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1774 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1776 *** Tool bar item definitions
1778 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1779 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1780 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1782 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1783 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1784 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1785 property (see below).
1787 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1788 binding are currently ignored.
1790 The following properties are recognized:
1794 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1799 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1803 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1804 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1805 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1807 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1809 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1810 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1814 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1815 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1816 meaning of each of the four elements:
1818 Index Use when item is
1819 ----------------------------------------
1820 0 enabled and selected
1821 1 enabled and deselected
1822 2 disabled and selected
1823 3 disabled and deselected
1825 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1827 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1828 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1830 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1832 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1833 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1834 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1836 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1837 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1839 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1840 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1841 pixels. Default is 1.
1843 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1844 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1846 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1848 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1851 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1852 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1853 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1855 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1857 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1859 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1862 ** Mode line changes.
1865 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1867 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1868 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1869 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1871 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1872 a `local-map' text property.
1874 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1875 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1877 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1878 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1879 `local-map' property.
1881 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1882 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1885 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
1886 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
1889 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1890 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1893 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1895 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1896 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1897 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1898 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1901 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1904 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1905 position in the header-line.
1908 ** Text property `display'
1910 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1911 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1912 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1913 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1915 *** Variable width and height spaces
1917 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1918 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1919 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1920 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1921 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1922 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1923 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1925 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1926 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1927 properties described below.
1929 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1930 characters having the `display' property.
1934 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1935 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1937 - :relative-width FACTOR
1939 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1940 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1941 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1942 width of that character by FACTOR.
1946 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1947 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1949 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1953 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1956 - :relative-height FACTOR
1958 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1959 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1963 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1964 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1965 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1968 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1972 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1973 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1974 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1975 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1976 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1977 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1978 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1979 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1980 as display specification.
1982 *** Other display properties
1984 - :space-width FACTOR
1986 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1987 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1992 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1994 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1995 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1996 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1997 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1998 a font is available counts as a step.
2000 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
2001 as tall as the frame's default font.
2003 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
2004 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
2006 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
2007 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
2011 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
2012 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
2013 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
2014 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
2015 `:height' subproperty.
2017 *** Conditional display properties
2019 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
2020 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
2021 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
2022 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
2023 the text having the `display' property.
2025 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
2029 ** New menu separator types.
2031 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
2032 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
2033 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
2034 to specify other menu separator types.
2036 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
2038 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
2041 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
2043 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
2045 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2047 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2049 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2051 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2053 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2055 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2057 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2059 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2060 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2062 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2064 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2066 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2068 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2070 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2072 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2074 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2076 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2078 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2080 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2082 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2084 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2086 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2088 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2090 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2091 the corresponding single-line separators.
2094 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2096 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2097 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2098 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2099 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2100 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2101 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2102 default foreground is black.
2104 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2105 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2106 `ScrollBarBackground').
2108 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2109 settings for scroll bar colors.
2112 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2113 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2116 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2117 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2118 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2119 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2120 the original window start.
2123 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2124 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2125 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2128 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2130 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2131 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2132 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2133 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2135 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2136 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2138 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2140 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2141 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2142 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2143 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2144 temporarily to nil, for example
2146 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2147 (enlarge-window 10))
2149 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2150 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2152 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2154 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2155 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2157 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2159 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2161 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2162 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2163 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2165 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2166 is the one that is used.
2168 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2169 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2170 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2171 separate from the command's regular output.
2172 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2173 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2174 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2177 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2178 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2179 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2180 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2182 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2183 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2184 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2185 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2187 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2188 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2189 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2190 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2192 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2193 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2194 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2195 they never ignore case.
2197 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2198 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2199 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2200 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2201 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2202 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2203 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2205 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2206 the same format that was used in the file before.
2208 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2209 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2211 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2212 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2213 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2215 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2216 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2217 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2218 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2219 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2220 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2221 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2223 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2224 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2225 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2226 format. You can now customize these variables.
2228 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2229 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2230 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2231 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2233 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2234 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2235 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2237 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2238 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2239 doesn't have any effect.
2241 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2244 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2245 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2246 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2248 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2249 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2250 `auto-show-mode' command.
2252 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2253 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2254 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2255 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2256 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2258 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2259 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2261 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2262 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2263 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2265 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2266 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2267 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2268 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2270 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2272 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2273 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2274 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2275 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2276 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2278 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2279 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2281 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2282 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2283 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2284 `?' on other systems.
2286 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2287 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2290 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2291 current codepage when it starts.
2295 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2296 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2297 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2298 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2299 buffer-file-coding-system.
2301 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2302 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2305 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2306 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2307 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2308 list of possible coding systems.
2312 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2313 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2314 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2315 docstring for details.
2317 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2318 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2319 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2320 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2321 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2323 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2324 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2326 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2327 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2329 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2330 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2331 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2332 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2335 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2336 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2338 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2339 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2340 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2341 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2343 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2344 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2345 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2346 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2347 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2349 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2351 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2353 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2354 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2356 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2358 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2359 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2360 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2361 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2362 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2366 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2367 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2368 Gnus manual for the full story.
2370 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2371 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2372 group, which is created automatically.
2374 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2377 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2379 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2380 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2382 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2385 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2387 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2388 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2390 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2392 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2393 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2395 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2396 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2398 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2399 control over simplification.
2401 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2403 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2406 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2408 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2410 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2411 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2412 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2414 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2415 `a' forces normal posting method.
2417 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2420 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2423 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2424 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2426 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2429 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2431 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2433 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2434 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2436 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2437 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2439 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2441 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2444 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2445 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2447 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2448 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2450 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2452 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2454 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2456 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2458 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2459 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2460 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2462 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2463 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2464 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2465 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2466 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2468 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2469 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2470 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2471 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2473 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2474 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2475 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2478 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2480 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2481 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2483 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2484 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2485 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2486 removed from the label.
2488 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2489 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2491 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2492 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2494 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2495 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2498 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2500 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2502 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2503 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2505 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2506 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2507 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2509 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2510 changes with a special face.
2512 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2513 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2514 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2516 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2518 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2519 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2520 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2521 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2522 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2524 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2525 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2526 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2528 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2529 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2530 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2531 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2532 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2533 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2534 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2535 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2536 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2538 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2539 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2540 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2541 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2542 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2545 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2546 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2547 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2548 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2549 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2550 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2552 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2553 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2554 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2555 was not documented clearly before.
2557 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2558 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2560 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2562 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2563 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2564 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2565 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2567 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2568 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2569 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2571 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2573 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2574 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2576 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2577 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2580 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2581 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2582 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2583 file names and attributes are returned.
2585 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2586 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2587 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2588 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2591 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2592 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2594 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2596 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2597 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2598 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2601 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2602 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2605 The new function process-running-child-p
2606 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2607 terminal to its own child process.
2609 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2610 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2611 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2612 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2614 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2615 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2617 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2618 :included is an alias for :visible.
2620 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2621 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2622 to move or copy menu entries.
2624 ** Multibyte editing changes
2626 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2627 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2628 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2629 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2630 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2631 (setq char (sref str idx)
2632 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2633 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2635 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2636 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2637 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2639 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2640 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2641 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2643 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2645 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2646 across the boundary.
2648 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2649 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2650 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2651 contains 8-bit characters.
2652 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2653 contains invalid characters.
2655 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2656 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2657 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2658 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2661 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2662 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2663 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2664 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2666 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2667 compose Thai characters in a string.
2669 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2670 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2671 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2672 menus should always use the third argument.
2674 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2675 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2676 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2677 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2679 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2680 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2681 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2682 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2684 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2685 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2686 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2689 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2691 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2692 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2693 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2695 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2696 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2697 means to clear out that attribute.
2699 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2700 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2702 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2703 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2704 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2705 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2707 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2708 the gap of the current buffer.
2710 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2711 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2714 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2715 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2716 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2717 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2719 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2721 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2722 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2723 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2724 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2725 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2727 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2728 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2729 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2730 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2731 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2733 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2734 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2735 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2737 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2738 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2739 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2740 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2741 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2744 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2745 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2746 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2747 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2749 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2751 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2752 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2753 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2754 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2756 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2757 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2758 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2759 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2760 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2761 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2762 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2765 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2768 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2769 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2770 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2771 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2772 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2774 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2775 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2776 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2777 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2779 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2780 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2781 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2782 something that most users not do.
2784 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2785 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2786 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2789 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2792 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2793 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2794 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2795 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2798 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2799 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2800 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2801 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2802 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2805 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2806 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2807 to be confused by TeX commands.
2809 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2810 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2811 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2812 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2814 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2815 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2816 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2817 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2818 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2820 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2821 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2823 ** Changes in input method usage.
2825 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2826 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2829 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2831 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2832 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2834 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2835 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2837 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2839 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2841 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2842 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2844 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2845 given in the following case:
2846 o When you are using a complex input method.
2847 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2849 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2850 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2851 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2852 setting it to t is helpful.
2854 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2856 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2858 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2859 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2860 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2861 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2864 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2865 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2866 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2869 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2871 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2873 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2874 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2876 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2877 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2878 its owner and group.
2880 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2881 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2883 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2884 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2886 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2887 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2888 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2889 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2891 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2892 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2893 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2894 for writing keyboard macros.
2896 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2897 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2898 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2899 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2900 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2903 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2905 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2906 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2909 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2910 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2911 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2912 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2914 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2915 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2916 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2918 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2919 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2920 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2921 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2923 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2924 failure if the command produces no output.
2926 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2927 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2930 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2931 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2932 function and variable names.
2934 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2935 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2936 file-coding-system-alist.
2938 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2939 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2940 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2941 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2942 according to the current fontset.
2944 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2946 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2947 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2948 nonascii-insert-offset.
2950 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2951 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2952 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2953 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2955 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2956 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2958 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2959 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2961 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2962 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2965 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2966 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2968 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2969 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2970 all variables that have documentation.
2972 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2973 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2974 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2975 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2976 it should show; the default is 20.
2978 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2979 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2982 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2983 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2984 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2985 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2986 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2987 Newly added options are included as well.
2989 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2990 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2991 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2993 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2996 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2997 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2999 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
3000 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
3003 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
3004 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
3007 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
3008 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
3009 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
3010 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
3013 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
3015 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
3016 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
3017 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
3019 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
3020 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
3021 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
3024 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
3025 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
3027 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
3028 read and post multi-lingual articles.
3030 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
3031 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
3032 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
3033 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
3034 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
3035 made invisible again.
3037 ** Mail reading and sending changes
3039 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
3040 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
3041 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
3044 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
3045 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3046 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3047 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3048 rmail-default-body-file.
3050 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3051 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3052 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3054 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3055 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3056 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3058 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3059 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3060 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3061 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3062 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3063 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3065 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3066 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3067 provided by feedmail are:
3069 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3070 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3071 there is also a queue for draft messages
3073 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3074 be prompted for confirmation
3076 **** does smart filling of address headers
3078 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3079 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3080 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3082 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3083 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3084 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3085 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3089 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3090 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3092 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3093 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3095 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3096 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3097 for a specified regexp.
3101 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3104 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3105 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3108 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3109 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3110 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3111 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3113 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3114 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3115 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3116 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3117 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3119 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3120 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3121 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3122 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3123 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3125 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3126 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3127 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3128 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3130 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3131 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3132 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3134 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3135 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3136 session to resolve them.
3138 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3139 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3140 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3143 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3144 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3145 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3146 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3147 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3148 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3151 ** Changes in Font Lock
3153 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3154 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3155 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3156 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3157 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3159 ** Frame name display changes
3161 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3162 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3163 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3164 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3166 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3167 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3170 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3172 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3173 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3174 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3176 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3178 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3179 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3180 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3182 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3183 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3186 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3187 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3188 previously sent input.
3190 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3191 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3192 as the search string.
3194 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3195 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3199 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3200 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3201 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3204 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3205 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3206 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3207 style is still the default however.
3209 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3211 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3212 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3213 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3215 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3216 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3218 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3219 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3221 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3222 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3224 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3225 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3227 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3228 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3229 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3230 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3232 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3234 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3235 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3236 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3238 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3239 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3240 expanding dynamically.
3242 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3243 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3245 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3246 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3247 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3248 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3250 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3252 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3254 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3255 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3256 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3257 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3258 against the first word in the title.
3260 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3261 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3262 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3263 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3264 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3265 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3267 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3268 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3269 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3270 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3272 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3274 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3275 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3276 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3277 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3278 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3279 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3281 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3282 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3284 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3285 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3286 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3288 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3289 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3293 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3294 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3295 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3297 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3298 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3299 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3300 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3303 o URLs are automatically skipped
3304 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3306 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3308 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3310 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3311 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3312 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3313 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3315 *** New recursive parser.
3317 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3318 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3319 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3321 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3323 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3324 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3325 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3327 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3329 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3331 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3333 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3335 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3337 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3338 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3340 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3342 *** References to external documents.
3344 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3345 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3346 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3347 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3348 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3349 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3350 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3352 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3354 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3355 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3357 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3358 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3360 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3362 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3363 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3365 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3367 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3368 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3369 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3370 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3371 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3372 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3375 *** Support for the varioref package
3377 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3381 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3382 and citations are created. These hooks are
3383 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3384 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3386 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3388 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3389 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3391 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3393 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3394 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3397 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3399 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3400 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3401 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3402 directories that contain the same file name.
3404 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3405 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3406 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3407 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3408 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3409 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3410 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3413 ** New modes and packages
3415 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3416 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3417 it, but some do not.
3419 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3422 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3423 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3426 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3428 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3429 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3430 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3431 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3433 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3434 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3435 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3437 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3438 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3439 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3440 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3441 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3444 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3445 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3447 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3448 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3449 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3450 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3452 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3454 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3455 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3456 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3457 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3458 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3459 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3460 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3461 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3462 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3463 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3464 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3466 Platform-specific modes:
3468 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3469 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3470 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3471 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3472 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3473 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3474 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3475 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3476 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3478 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3480 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3481 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3482 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3483 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3485 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3486 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3487 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3489 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3490 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3491 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3492 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3494 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3495 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3496 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3499 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3500 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3501 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3502 current input method for reading this one event.
3504 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3505 now control whether to output certain characters as
3506 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3507 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3508 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3509 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3511 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3513 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3514 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3516 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3517 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3518 always increases point by 1.
3520 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3521 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3523 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3525 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3526 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3527 default value changed. For example,
3529 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3534 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3537 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3538 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3539 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3540 `:version' in the top level group.
3542 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3544 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3545 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3547 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3548 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3549 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3552 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3553 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3556 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3557 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3558 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3560 ** Frame-local variables.
3562 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3563 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3564 local bindings for that variable.
3566 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3567 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3568 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3571 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3572 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3573 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3574 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3576 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3577 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3578 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3579 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3581 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3582 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3583 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3584 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3585 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3587 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3588 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3589 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3590 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3592 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3593 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3595 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3596 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3597 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3599 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3600 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3601 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3602 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3604 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3605 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3608 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3609 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3610 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3611 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3612 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3614 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3615 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3616 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3617 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3619 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3620 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3621 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3622 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3623 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3625 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3626 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3627 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3628 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3630 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3631 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3632 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3634 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3635 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3636 was directed to display this buffer.
3638 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3639 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3640 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3641 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3642 set-window-configuration.
3644 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3645 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3646 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3647 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3649 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3650 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3651 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3653 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3654 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3655 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3657 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3658 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3660 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3661 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3663 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3664 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3665 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3667 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3668 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3669 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3670 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3674 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3675 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3678 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3679 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3680 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3681 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3682 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3684 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3686 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3687 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3688 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3689 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3692 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3693 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3694 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3695 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3696 The supported properties include
3698 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3700 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3701 item should appear in the menu.
3703 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3704 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3705 It should return a binding to use instead.
3707 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3708 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3709 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3710 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3711 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3714 This means that the command normally has no
3715 keyboard equivalent.
3716 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3717 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3718 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3719 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3720 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3722 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3723 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3725 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3729 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3730 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3731 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3732 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3734 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3736 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3737 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3738 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3739 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3740 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3741 forward, away from the user.
3743 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3745 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3746 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3747 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3748 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3749 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3751 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3753 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3754 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3755 that were dragged and dropped.
3757 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3759 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3761 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3762 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3763 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3765 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3766 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3767 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3769 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3770 in Emacs 19 and before.
3772 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3773 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3775 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3776 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3777 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3778 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3780 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3781 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3782 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3783 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3784 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3786 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3787 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3788 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3789 consistent with the new representation.
3791 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3792 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3793 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3794 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3796 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3797 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3798 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3800 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3801 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3802 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3804 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3805 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3806 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3808 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3809 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3811 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3812 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3814 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3815 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3816 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3817 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3819 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3820 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3822 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3823 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3824 buffer or string being searched.
3826 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3827 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3828 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3829 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3830 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3831 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3832 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3834 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3836 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3837 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3838 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3839 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3840 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3841 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3842 define-coding-system-alias.
3844 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3845 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3846 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3847 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3848 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3849 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3850 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3853 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3854 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3855 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3856 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3858 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3859 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3860 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3861 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3863 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3864 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3865 This function requires a user interaction.
3867 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3868 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3869 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3870 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3871 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3872 select-safe-coding-system.
3874 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3875 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3876 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3879 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3880 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3881 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3883 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3884 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3885 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3886 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3888 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3889 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3890 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3893 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3894 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3896 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3897 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3898 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3899 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3900 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3901 range of characters.
3903 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3904 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3906 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3907 in the current buffer at position POS.
3909 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3910 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3911 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3912 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3913 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3914 binding input-method-function to nil.
3916 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3917 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3918 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3919 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3920 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3922 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3923 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3925 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3926 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3928 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3929 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3930 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3931 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3932 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3934 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3936 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3937 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3938 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3941 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3942 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3944 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3945 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3946 in your .emacs file.)
3948 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3949 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3951 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3952 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3954 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3955 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3958 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3959 delete the character before point, as usual.
3961 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3962 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3963 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3965 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3966 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3967 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3968 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3969 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3972 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3973 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3974 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3975 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3976 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3978 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3979 and is an alias for it.
3981 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3982 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3984 ** Scrolling changes
3986 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3987 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3989 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3990 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3993 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3994 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3995 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3996 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3998 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3999 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
4000 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
4001 recenters the window.
4003 ** International character set support (MULE)
4005 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
4006 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
4007 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
4008 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
4009 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
4010 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
4012 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
4013 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
4014 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
4015 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
4016 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
4018 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
4019 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
4020 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
4021 language, to make it possible to type them.
4023 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
4024 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
4026 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
4027 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
4029 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
4031 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
4033 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
4034 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
4035 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
4036 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
4037 characters for their work until they want to change.
4041 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
4042 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
4043 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
4044 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
4045 support several input methods.
4047 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4048 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4051 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4052 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4053 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4054 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4055 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4058 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4059 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4060 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4061 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4062 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4064 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4065 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4066 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4067 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4069 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4070 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4071 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4072 the first guess is wrong.
4074 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4075 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4077 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4078 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4079 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4080 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4082 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4083 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4084 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4085 translate automatically to and from either one.
4087 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4089 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4090 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4091 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4094 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4095 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4096 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4097 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4099 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4100 character conversion as well.
4102 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4104 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4105 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4106 requires using many fonts.
4108 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4109 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4111 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4112 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4113 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4114 you would use a font.
4116 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4117 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4118 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4120 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4121 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4122 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4123 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4124 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4126 *** Defining fontsets.
4128 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4129 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4130 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4132 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4133 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4134 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4135 standard fontset are created automatically.
4137 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4138 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4139 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4140 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4141 name is `fontset-startup'.
4143 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4144 The resource value should have this form:
4145 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4146 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4147 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4148 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4149 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4150 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4151 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4152 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4153 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4155 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4156 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4157 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4159 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4160 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4162 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4163 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4164 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4165 Here is the substitution rule:
4166 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4167 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4168 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4169 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4170 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4172 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4173 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4174 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4176 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4177 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4178 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4179 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4182 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4183 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4185 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4186 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4187 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4188 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4189 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4190 system for new files that you create.
4192 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4193 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4194 whole Emacs session.
4196 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4197 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4198 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4200 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4201 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4202 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4203 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4204 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4206 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4207 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4208 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4209 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4210 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4212 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4213 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4215 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4216 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4218 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4219 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4221 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4222 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4223 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4224 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4227 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4228 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4229 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4230 translated into that character code.
4232 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4233 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4235 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4237 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4238 the coding system for keyboard input.
4240 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4241 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4242 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4244 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4246 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4247 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4248 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4249 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4250 designed to work with terminals.
4252 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4253 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4254 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4255 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4256 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4257 in the corresponding buffer.
4259 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4261 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4262 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4263 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4265 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4266 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4267 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4270 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4271 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4273 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4274 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4275 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4276 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4278 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4279 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4280 related information.
4282 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4283 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4286 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4287 information about the support for a particular language.
4288 You specify the language as an argument.
4290 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4291 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4294 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4295 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4296 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4297 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4299 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4301 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4302 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4303 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4304 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4305 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4306 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4307 K euc-korea (Korean)
4310 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4313 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4314 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4315 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4319 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4320 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4321 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4322 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4324 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4325 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4327 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4328 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4329 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4330 Rmail files themselves.
4332 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4333 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4335 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4338 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4339 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4340 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4341 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4342 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4344 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4345 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4346 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4349 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4350 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4351 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4352 without any conversion.
4354 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4355 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4356 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4357 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4359 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4360 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4362 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4363 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4365 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4366 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4368 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4369 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4370 in the buffer before point.
4372 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4373 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4376 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4377 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4379 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4381 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4382 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4384 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4385 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4386 can become a bottleneck.
4388 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4389 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4390 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4391 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4392 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4393 so useful that the change is worth while.
4395 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4396 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4397 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4398 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4400 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4401 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4404 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4405 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4406 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4408 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4409 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4410 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4412 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4413 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4414 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4416 ** Changes in View mode.
4418 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4419 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4421 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4422 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4424 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4427 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4428 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4430 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4431 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4432 not just the selected window.
4434 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4435 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4436 turns View mode on or off.
4438 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4439 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4440 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4442 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4443 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4445 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4446 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4447 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4448 which version to compare with.
4450 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4451 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4453 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4454 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4455 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4456 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4458 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4459 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4460 blocks, all of them or none.
4462 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4463 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4466 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4467 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4468 However, the mode will not be changed if
4469 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4470 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4471 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4472 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4474 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4476 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4477 these commands do not change the major mode.
4479 ** M-x occur changes.
4481 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4482 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4484 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4485 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4486 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4488 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4489 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4490 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4491 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4492 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4494 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4495 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4496 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4497 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4499 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4500 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4501 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4503 ** Outline mode changes.
4505 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4507 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4509 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4510 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4511 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4514 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4515 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4518 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4519 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4521 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4523 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4524 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4525 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4526 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4528 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4529 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4530 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4532 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4533 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4536 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4537 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4538 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4539 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4541 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4542 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4543 can be. The default value is 30.
4545 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4547 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4548 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4549 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4550 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4551 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4554 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4555 compose-mail-other-frame.
4557 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4558 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4559 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4560 buffer that shows the original message.
4562 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4563 with separator lines around the contents.
4565 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4566 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4567 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4568 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4570 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4572 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4573 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4574 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4575 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4577 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4578 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4581 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4582 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4585 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4586 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4587 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4588 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4590 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4591 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4592 be taken to be magic.
4594 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4595 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4596 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4598 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4599 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4601 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4602 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4604 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4606 new key dired.el binding old key
4607 ------- ---------------- -------
4608 * c dired-change-marks c
4610 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4611 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4612 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4614 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4615 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4616 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4617 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4618 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4619 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4623 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4624 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4625 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4626 each time you run it.
4628 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4629 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4631 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4632 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4633 means to move in the opposite direction.
4635 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4636 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4638 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4639 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4640 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4641 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4646 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4648 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4651 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4652 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4654 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4657 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4659 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4661 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4663 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4664 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4665 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4667 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4669 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4671 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4672 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4674 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4675 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4676 used to pick articles.
4678 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4679 another have been added.
4681 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4683 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4684 generating lines in buffers.
4686 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4689 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4691 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4693 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4695 *** Scores can be decayed.
4697 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4699 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4700 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4702 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4705 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4707 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4708 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4710 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4712 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4713 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4715 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4716 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4718 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4721 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4722 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4724 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4726 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4728 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4730 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4732 Use the `Y c' command.
4734 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4736 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4738 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4740 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4741 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4743 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4745 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4747 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4748 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4750 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4752 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4753 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4754 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4755 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4758 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4759 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4760 particular news group. This can be done by:
4762 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4764 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4765 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4766 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4767 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4768 for reading and posting).
4770 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4771 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4772 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4773 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4776 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4777 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4779 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4780 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4781 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4782 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4783 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4785 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4786 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4790 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4791 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4792 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4793 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4794 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4797 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4798 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4799 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4800 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4801 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4802 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4804 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4805 of the current buffer.
4807 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4808 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4809 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4811 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4812 style that the Python developers like.
4814 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4815 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4816 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4820 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4821 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4822 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4824 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4825 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4828 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4829 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4831 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4832 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4833 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4834 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4836 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4837 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4839 ** Calendar changes.
4841 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4842 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4843 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4847 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4849 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4851 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4852 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4853 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4854 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4855 It defaults to `letter'.
4856 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4858 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4859 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4860 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4862 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4863 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4866 *** Horizontal layout
4868 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4869 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4870 All are measured in points.
4874 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4875 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4876 All are measured in points.
4880 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4881 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4882 margin above the text.
4884 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4885 framing box is printed around the header.
4887 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4888 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4890 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4891 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4892 `ps-header-font-size'.
4896 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4897 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4898 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4899 elements to this alist.
4901 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4902 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4904 ** hideshow changes.
4906 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4909 *** Support for java-mode added.
4911 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4912 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4914 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4915 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4916 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4918 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4919 robust and a lot faster.
4921 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4923 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4924 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4925 documentation for more details.
4927 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4929 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4930 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4931 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4932 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4933 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4935 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4936 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4937 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4938 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4944 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4945 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4946 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4947 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4948 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4949 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4951 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4953 *** Maximum decoration
4955 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4956 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4957 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4958 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4959 to get the old behavior.
4963 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4965 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4966 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4968 *** Configurable support
4970 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4971 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4972 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4973 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4974 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4975 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4976 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4978 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4979 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4980 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4982 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4984 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4985 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4988 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4990 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4996 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4997 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4998 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4999 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
5001 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
5003 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
5004 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
5005 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
5007 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
5009 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
5010 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
5011 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
5012 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
5013 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
5014 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
5015 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
5017 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
5018 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
5019 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
5020 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
5021 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
5022 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
5024 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
5026 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
5027 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
5028 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
5029 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
5031 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
5034 ** Ada mode changes.
5036 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
5037 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
5038 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
5039 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
5042 *** There are two new commands:
5043 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
5044 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
5046 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5047 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5048 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5050 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5051 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5052 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5054 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5055 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5056 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5057 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5059 ** Scheme mode changes.
5061 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5062 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5063 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5064 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5067 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5068 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5069 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5070 variables as buffer-local variables.
5072 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5075 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5076 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5079 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5080 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5081 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5083 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5084 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5087 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5088 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5090 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5091 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5094 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5095 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5096 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5097 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5098 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5099 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5101 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5102 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5103 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5104 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5106 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5107 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5108 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5109 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5110 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5112 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5113 since it applies only to the current frame.
5115 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5116 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5117 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5119 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5120 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5121 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5122 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5123 instead of just the file you are editing.
5127 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5128 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5129 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5130 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5131 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5134 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5135 knows which kind of label is needed.
5137 C-c ) reftex-reference
5138 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5139 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5141 C-c [ reftex-citation
5142 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5143 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5145 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5146 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5149 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5150 can quickly jump to every section.
5152 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5153 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5154 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5155 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5156 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5158 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5160 *** Info documentation is now available.
5162 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5163 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5165 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5166 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5168 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5169 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5171 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5172 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5173 appropriate functions.
5175 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5176 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5178 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5181 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5182 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5184 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5187 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5188 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5189 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5191 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5192 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5193 prefixed with `ALT'.
5195 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5196 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5197 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5200 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5201 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5202 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5204 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5205 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5207 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5208 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5209 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5211 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5213 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5215 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5218 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5219 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5222 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5225 *** Added support for imenu.
5227 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5228 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5229 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5230 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5232 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5233 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5235 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5237 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5238 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5239 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5242 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5243 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5245 ** browse-url changes
5247 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5248 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5249 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5250 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5251 customization variables.
5253 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5255 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5256 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5257 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5261 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5262 pops up the Info file for this command.
5264 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5265 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5266 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5269 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5270 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5271 files in the same directory.
5273 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5274 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5275 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5279 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5280 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5282 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5283 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5284 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5285 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5286 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5287 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5288 color when Viper is in insert state.
5289 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5290 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5291 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5295 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5296 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5297 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5298 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5299 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5301 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5303 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5304 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5306 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5307 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5308 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5310 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5311 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5312 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5313 methods and protocols.
5315 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5316 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5317 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5320 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5321 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5322 at least M times and as many as N times.
5324 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5325 in files has changed slightly.
5327 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5328 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5329 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5330 with old time-stamp-format values.
5332 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5333 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5334 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5337 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5338 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5339 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5340 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5341 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5342 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5344 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5345 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5346 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5348 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5349 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5350 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5351 recommended now will continue to work then.
5353 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5356 ** There are some additional major modes:
5358 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5359 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5360 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5362 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5363 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5366 ** New Lisp packages include:
5368 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5370 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5371 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5373 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5375 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5378 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5379 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5382 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5383 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5384 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5385 strings or comments.
5387 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5388 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5389 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5390 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5393 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5394 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5396 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5397 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5399 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5401 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5402 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5404 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5406 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5408 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5410 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5411 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5413 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5414 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5415 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5416 original place after inserting the copy.
5418 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5421 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5422 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5423 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5425 Enable mouse-drag with:
5426 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5428 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5430 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5431 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5433 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5434 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5438 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5439 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5440 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5441 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5442 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5443 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5444 instance) and vice versa.
5446 To use this package load it using
5447 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5448 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5449 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5450 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5451 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5452 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5454 *** Interface to ph.
5456 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5458 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5459 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5462 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5464 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5465 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5466 while the real cursor does not move.
5468 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5469 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5471 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5472 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5476 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5477 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5478 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5479 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5481 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5483 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5485 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5487 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5488 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5489 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5490 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5491 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5493 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5494 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5495 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5496 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5497 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5498 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5500 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5502 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5503 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5504 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5505 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5507 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5508 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5510 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5511 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5514 ** Basic Lisp changes
5516 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5517 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5519 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5520 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5523 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5525 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5527 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5528 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5530 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5531 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5534 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5536 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5538 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5540 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5541 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5542 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5545 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5546 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5547 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5549 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5550 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5551 adding one of these suffixes.
5553 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5554 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5555 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5557 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5558 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5560 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5562 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5563 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5565 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5566 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5568 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5570 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5571 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5573 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5574 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5575 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5576 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5578 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5579 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5582 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5583 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5584 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5587 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5588 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5591 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5593 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5594 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5595 Then it returns that string.
5597 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5599 (with-output-to-string
5600 (princ "The buffer is ")
5601 (princ (buffer-name)))
5603 returns "The buffer is foo".
5605 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5608 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5609 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5610 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5612 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5613 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5615 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5616 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5617 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5618 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5619 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5620 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5622 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5623 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5624 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5627 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5628 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5629 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5630 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5631 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5633 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5634 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5635 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5636 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5638 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5639 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5641 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5643 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5644 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5645 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5646 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5649 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5650 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5653 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5655 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5656 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5657 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5658 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5659 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5661 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5663 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5664 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5665 more than the number of characters.
5667 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5668 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5669 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5670 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5671 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5672 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5674 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5675 and returns a string containing those characters.
5677 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5678 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5679 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5680 character, sref signals an error.
5682 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5683 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5684 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5686 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5687 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5688 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5690 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5691 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5692 to a vector of the characters in it.
5694 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5695 of a string. You call it as follows:
5697 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5699 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5700 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5701 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5702 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5703 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5705 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5706 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5708 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5709 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5711 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5712 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5713 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5714 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5716 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5718 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5720 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5721 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5722 are not included in the resulting value.
5724 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5725 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5726 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5727 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5729 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5730 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5731 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5732 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5733 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5734 column START-COLUMN.
5736 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5737 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5738 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5739 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5740 changed text, before the change.
5742 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5743 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5744 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5746 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5748 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5750 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5751 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5753 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5754 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5755 which identify the character within that character set.
5757 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5758 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5759 opposite of split-char.
5761 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5762 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5764 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5765 of all the characters in a string.
5767 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5768 and specifying coding systems.
5770 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5771 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5772 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5773 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5774 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5775 as what to do about code conversion.)
5777 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5778 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5780 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5781 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5782 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5784 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5785 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5786 to match against a file name.
5788 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5789 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5790 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5791 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5792 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5793 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5795 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5796 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5798 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5799 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5801 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5802 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5803 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5806 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5807 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5808 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5809 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5810 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5811 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5813 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5814 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5816 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5817 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5818 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5819 start the subprocess.
5821 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5822 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5823 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5824 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5825 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5827 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5828 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5831 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5832 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5833 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5834 connection permanently or until overridden.
5836 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5837 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5838 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5839 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5840 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5841 system for one operation at a time.
5843 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5844 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5846 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5847 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5848 The value is a cons cell,
5849 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5850 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5851 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5852 input to the subprocess.
5854 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5855 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5857 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5858 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5859 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5861 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5862 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5863 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5864 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5867 Thus, instead of writing
5869 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5870 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5872 you would now write this:
5874 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5875 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5879 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5880 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5881 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5882 for a description of them.
5884 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5885 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5887 (defgroup ispell nil
5888 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5891 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5892 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5893 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5894 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5895 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5897 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5898 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5899 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5900 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5901 first-level subgroups.
5903 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5905 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5906 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5910 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5911 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5912 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5913 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5914 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5915 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5917 ** Text property changes
5919 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5922 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5923 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5924 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5925 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5926 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5928 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5929 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5930 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5931 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5933 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5934 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5935 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5937 ** Changes in invisibility features
5939 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5940 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5941 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5942 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5943 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5944 make the overlay visible.
5946 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5947 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5948 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5949 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5950 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5951 t when it should hide it.
5953 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5955 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5956 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5957 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5958 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5959 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5960 Here is an example of how to do this:
5962 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5963 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5964 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5965 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5968 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5971 ;; When done with the overlays:
5972 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5974 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5976 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5978 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5979 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5980 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5981 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5983 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5984 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5985 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5987 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5988 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5990 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5991 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5993 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5994 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5995 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5997 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5998 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5999 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
6000 determine the syntax type of the character.
6002 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
6003 of the current buffer.
6005 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
6006 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
6007 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
6009 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
6010 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
6011 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
6012 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
6013 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
6015 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
6018 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
6019 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
6020 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
6022 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
6023 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
6024 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
6025 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
6026 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
6028 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
6029 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
6030 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
6032 ** Changes in face features
6034 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
6035 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
6037 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
6038 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
6040 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
6041 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
6043 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
6044 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
6046 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6047 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6048 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6049 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6052 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6053 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6055 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6057 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6058 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6059 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6060 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6062 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6065 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6066 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6068 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6069 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6071 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6072 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6074 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6075 character code conversion as well as other things.
6077 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6078 (formerly it did not).
6080 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6081 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6083 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6084 instead of constant strings.
6086 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6087 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6088 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6090 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6091 in the same way as before.
6093 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6094 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6095 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6097 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6098 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6099 else, and returns nil.
6101 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6102 directory cannot be listed.
6104 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6106 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6107 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6108 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6109 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6112 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6113 It is available through the history command M-n.
6115 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6116 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6117 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6118 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6119 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6121 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6122 argument in this way.
6124 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6125 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6126 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6128 ** Echo area features
6130 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6131 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6132 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6133 after the echo area is cleared.
6135 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6136 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6138 ** Keyboard input features
6140 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6141 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6143 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6144 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6147 ** Frame-related changes
6149 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6150 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6151 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6153 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6154 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6155 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6157 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6158 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6159 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6160 in the selected frame.
6162 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6163 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6164 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6166 ** X Windows features
6168 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6169 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6170 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6172 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6173 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6175 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6176 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6177 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6179 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6180 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6182 ** Subprocess features
6184 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6185 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6188 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6189 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6191 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6192 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6194 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6195 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6197 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6198 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6199 goes after the other menu items.
6201 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6202 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6203 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6206 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6207 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6209 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6210 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6213 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6214 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6215 but its hook is still run.
6217 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6218 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6220 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6221 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6222 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6224 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6225 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6226 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6229 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6230 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6232 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6233 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6234 functions like display-time.
6236 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6237 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6239 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6240 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6241 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6243 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6244 if there is an error in compilation.
6246 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6247 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6248 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6249 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6251 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6252 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6253 the *scratch* buffer.
6255 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6256 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6257 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6258 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6260 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6261 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6262 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6264 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6265 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6266 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6267 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6269 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6270 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6271 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6273 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6274 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6275 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6276 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6277 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6280 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6281 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6282 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6283 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6285 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6286 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6287 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6288 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6290 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6292 ** imenu.el changes.
6294 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6295 item from menu created by imenu.
6297 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6298 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6299 select one of those items.
6301 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6303 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6305 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6306 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6308 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6309 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6310 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6312 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6314 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6315 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6317 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6318 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6319 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6320 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6321 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6324 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6325 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6327 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6328 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6329 as in previous Emacs versions.
6331 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6332 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6333 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6336 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6337 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6338 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6339 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6342 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6343 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6344 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6345 line and then executing the macro.
6347 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6349 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6350 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6351 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6356 *** Font Lock support modes
6358 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6359 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6360 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6361 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6362 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6364 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6366 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6372 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6373 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6374 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6375 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6376 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6377 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6378 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6380 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6382 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6384 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6386 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6388 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6391 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6396 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6397 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6398 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6399 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6401 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6402 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6404 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6405 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6408 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6409 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6411 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6413 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6415 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6417 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6420 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6422 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6424 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6426 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6428 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6431 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6433 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6435 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6437 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6439 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6441 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6443 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6445 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6448 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6450 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6453 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6455 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6456 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6458 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6460 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6462 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6464 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6466 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6469 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6471 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6472 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6474 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6475 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6476 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6478 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6479 articles with the `*' command.
6481 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6483 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6485 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6487 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6489 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6490 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6492 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6495 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6497 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6499 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6501 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6503 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6505 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6507 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6509 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6511 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6513 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6514 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6516 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6519 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6521 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6522 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6524 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6526 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6528 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6530 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6533 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6535 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6537 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6538 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6540 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6542 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6544 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6546 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6548 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6550 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6553 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6555 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6556 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6557 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6560 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6563 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6566 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6567 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6570 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6571 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6572 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6573 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6574 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6577 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6579 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6581 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6582 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6583 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6584 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6585 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6587 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6588 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6589 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6591 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6593 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6594 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6595 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6596 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6597 chapter of the manual for details.
6599 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6600 customization variables take effect.
6602 ** Marking with the mouse.
6604 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6605 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6606 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6608 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6610 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6612 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6613 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6615 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6616 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6617 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6618 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6619 applications, these problems are significant.
6621 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6622 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6623 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6624 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6625 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6627 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6628 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6630 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6631 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6632 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6633 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6634 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6635 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6637 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6639 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6640 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6641 minibuffer contains.
6643 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6645 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6646 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6647 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6648 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6650 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6651 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6652 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6653 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6655 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6656 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6658 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6659 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6660 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6662 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6663 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6664 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6665 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6667 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6669 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6670 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6672 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6674 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6675 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6676 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6677 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6678 immediately after the selected one.
6680 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6681 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6683 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6685 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6686 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6687 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6688 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6691 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6692 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6695 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6696 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6697 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6698 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6699 now that the bug is fixed.
6701 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6703 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6704 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6705 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6706 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6708 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6709 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6710 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6711 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6713 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6714 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6715 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6717 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6718 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6719 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6720 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6723 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6724 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6726 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6727 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6728 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6729 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6731 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6732 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6733 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6734 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6735 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6736 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6738 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6739 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6740 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6741 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6743 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6744 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6745 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6747 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6748 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6749 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6750 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6751 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6752 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6753 to a limitation in font-lock).
6755 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6757 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6758 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6759 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6762 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6763 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6765 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6767 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6769 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6771 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6773 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6774 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6775 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6776 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6777 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6778 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6780 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6783 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6784 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6786 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6791 *** Global Font Lock mode
6793 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6794 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6795 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6796 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6797 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6799 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6801 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6805 *** Local Refontification
6807 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6808 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6809 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6810 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6812 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6813 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6814 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6815 above and below point.
6817 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6821 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6822 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6823 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6824 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6825 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6828 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6830 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6831 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6833 ** hide-show changes.
6835 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6836 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6839 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6840 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6842 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6843 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6844 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6848 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6849 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6851 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6852 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6854 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6856 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6857 pressing both mouse buttons.
6859 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6860 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6863 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6866 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6868 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6869 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6871 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6873 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6875 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6877 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6879 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6881 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6883 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6884 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6885 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6886 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6887 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6889 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6891 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6892 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6893 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6896 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6899 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6901 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6902 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6904 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6905 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6907 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6908 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6909 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6911 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6912 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6915 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6917 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6918 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6919 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6921 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6922 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6923 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6925 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6926 up if too much time passes.
6928 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6930 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6931 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6932 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6935 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6936 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6937 call looks like this:
6939 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6941 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6942 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6943 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6946 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6947 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6950 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6951 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6952 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6953 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6955 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6956 idle for SECS seconds.
6958 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6959 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6960 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6963 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6964 there is no answer within a certain time.
6966 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6968 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6969 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6970 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6972 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6973 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6974 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6975 arguments in between are ignored.
6977 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6978 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6980 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6981 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6982 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6983 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6986 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6987 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6988 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6989 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6990 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6991 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6993 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6994 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6995 systems with limited file name syntax.
6997 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6998 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6999 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
7002 (defvar save-completions-file-name
7003 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
7004 "*The filename to save completions to.")
7006 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
7007 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
7008 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
7009 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
7010 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
7012 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
7013 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
7014 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
7016 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
7017 marker from its buffer position.
7019 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
7020 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
7021 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
7023 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
7024 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
7025 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
7026 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
7027 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
7028 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
7030 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
7031 errors that happen often during editing.
7033 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
7034 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
7035 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
7037 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
7038 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
7040 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
7041 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
7042 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
7043 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
7044 and not get-buffer-window.
7046 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7047 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7048 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7050 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7051 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7052 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7053 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7054 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7055 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7056 over and over for the same text.
7058 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7060 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7061 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7063 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7066 in addition to the normal
7070 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7071 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7072 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7074 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7076 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7077 Copyright information:
7079 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7081 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7082 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7083 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7084 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7086 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7087 of this document, or of portions of it,
7088 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7089 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7093 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"