1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 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 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
15 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option to list them.
18 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
20 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
23 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
24 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to executable-chmod.
26 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
27 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
28 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
29 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
30 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
31 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
32 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
34 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
35 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
37 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
38 point in a pop-up window.
40 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
41 displays all characters in that character set.
43 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
44 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
46 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
49 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
51 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
52 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
54 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
55 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
56 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
57 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
59 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
60 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
61 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
62 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
64 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
65 on the display using several methods
67 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
68 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
69 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
71 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
72 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
74 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
76 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
77 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
79 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
80 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
81 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
82 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
84 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
85 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
86 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
88 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
89 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
91 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
92 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
95 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
96 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
99 ** New X resources recognized
101 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
102 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
103 is useful for debugging X problems.
107 emacs.synchronous: true
109 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
110 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
111 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
112 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
113 visual class names are
122 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
123 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
126 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
127 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
128 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
133 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
135 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
136 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
137 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
138 resource values are `true' or `on'.
142 emacs.privateColormap: true
144 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
145 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
146 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
148 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
149 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
150 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
153 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
155 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
156 all frames except the selected one.
158 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
159 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
161 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
162 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
163 area or with tooltips.
165 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
166 read mail from the menu etc.
168 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
169 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
171 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
173 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
177 -------------------------
184 ** Changes in Outline mode.
186 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
187 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
188 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
190 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
191 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
193 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
194 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
195 several other special buffers.
197 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
198 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
201 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
202 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
204 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
205 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
206 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
208 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
209 is running in batch mode. For example,
211 (message "%s" (read t))
213 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
216 ** Faces and frame parameters.
218 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
219 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
220 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
221 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
222 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
223 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
224 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
226 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
227 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
228 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
229 `default' face and vice versa.
233 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
234 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
235 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
237 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
239 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
240 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
241 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
242 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
244 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
245 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
246 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
248 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
251 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
253 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
254 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
255 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
256 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
259 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
261 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
262 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
263 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
264 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
267 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
268 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
269 under Lisp changes, below.
271 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
273 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
274 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
277 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
278 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
279 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
280 customizing face `fringe'.
282 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
283 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
287 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
288 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
290 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
292 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
293 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
294 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
295 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
296 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
299 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
300 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
301 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
302 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
303 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
304 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
306 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
307 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
308 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
309 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
310 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
311 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
313 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
314 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
315 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
316 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
317 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
319 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
321 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
322 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
323 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
325 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
327 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
328 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
329 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
330 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
331 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
336 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
337 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
341 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
342 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
343 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
346 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
348 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
349 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
350 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
353 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
354 have to do anything to activate it.
356 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
358 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
359 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
360 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
361 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
363 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
365 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
367 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
369 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
372 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
375 ** Hscrolling in C code.
377 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
378 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
383 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
384 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
386 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
388 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
389 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
390 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
391 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
392 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
394 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
396 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
399 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
400 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
402 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
404 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
405 toggles the read-only status.
407 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
409 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
411 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
412 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
415 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
417 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
418 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
419 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
420 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
421 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
422 attributes like overlines, strike-through, box are ignored.
426 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
427 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
428 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
429 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
430 to enable sound support.
432 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
433 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
434 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
435 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
436 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
437 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
439 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
441 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
443 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
444 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
445 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
447 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
448 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
450 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
451 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
452 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
454 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
456 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
457 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
458 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
459 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
461 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
462 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
463 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
464 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
466 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
467 notably at the end of lines.
469 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
470 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
472 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
474 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
475 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
476 after each match to get the replacement text.
478 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `E' that lets you
479 edit the replacement string.
481 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', let's
482 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
483 lisp-complete-symbol.
485 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
487 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
488 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
489 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
490 by setting the following variable:
492 - User option: max-mini-window-height
494 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
495 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
496 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
500 ** Changes to hideshow.el
502 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
503 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
505 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
507 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
508 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
509 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
510 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
511 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
512 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
514 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
515 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
516 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
517 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
519 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
521 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
522 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
523 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
524 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
525 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
527 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
528 something like this in your .emacs.
530 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
532 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
534 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
536 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
537 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
538 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
540 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
541 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
543 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
544 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
546 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
547 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
548 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
551 ** Changes in Font Lock
553 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
554 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
557 ** Comint (subshell) changes
559 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
560 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
562 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
563 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
564 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
566 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
567 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
568 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
570 ** Changes to Rmail mode
572 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
573 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
574 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
575 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
576 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
579 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
580 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
581 regexp matching your mail addresses.
583 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
584 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
585 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
586 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
587 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
589 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
592 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
593 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
596 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
597 in which folder to put messages automatically.
599 ** Changes to TeX mode
601 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
604 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
606 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
607 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
608 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
609 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
610 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
611 can be edited from that buffer.
613 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
614 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
615 `A' to use all marked entries).
617 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
618 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
620 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
621 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
622 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
625 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
626 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
627 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
628 in column 1 are always made leaves.
630 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
631 has the following new features:
633 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
634 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
635 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
636 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
638 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
639 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
640 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
641 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
642 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
645 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
650 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
651 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
652 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
654 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
655 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
656 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
657 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
661 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
662 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
663 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
665 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
666 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
669 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
670 between custom options. Example:
672 (defcustom default-input-method nil
673 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
674 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
675 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
677 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
678 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
680 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
681 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
682 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
684 ** New features in evaluation commands
686 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
687 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
688 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
689 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
690 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
694 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
695 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
696 is, delete only empty directories.
698 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
699 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
700 copy directories recursively.
702 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
703 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
704 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
706 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
707 use the -f option when sending mail.
711 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
712 current user setups (although it's believed that these
713 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
714 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
715 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
716 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
719 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
720 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
721 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
722 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
723 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
724 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
725 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
726 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
728 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
729 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
730 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
731 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
734 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
735 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
736 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
737 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
738 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
739 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
740 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
741 function documentation for more info.
743 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
744 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
745 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
746 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
747 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
748 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
749 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
750 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
752 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
754 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
755 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
757 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
758 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
759 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
760 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
761 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
764 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
765 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
766 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
769 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
770 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
771 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
772 chapter about this in the manual.
774 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
775 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
776 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
777 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
778 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
780 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
781 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
782 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
784 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
785 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
787 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
788 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
789 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
792 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
793 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
794 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
795 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
798 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
799 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
800 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
803 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
804 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
805 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
806 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
809 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
810 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
811 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
812 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
815 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
816 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
817 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
819 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
821 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
822 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
823 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
824 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
826 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
827 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
828 the column specified by comment-column.
830 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
831 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
832 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
833 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
834 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
835 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
837 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
838 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
841 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
843 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
844 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
845 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
846 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
849 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
851 ** Makefile mode changes
853 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
855 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
856 Fontlock mode is active.
860 ** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
861 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
862 that started the search.
864 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
865 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
867 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
869 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
870 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
871 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
872 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
873 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
874 `secondary-selection'.
876 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
877 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
878 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
879 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
880 usual snappy response.
882 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
883 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
884 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
885 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
887 ** Changes in sort.el
889 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
890 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
891 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
894 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
896 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
897 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
898 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
900 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
901 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
903 ** Shell script mode changes.
905 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
906 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
907 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
911 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
913 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
914 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
915 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
916 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
917 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
919 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
920 declarations when given the --declarations option.
922 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
923 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
925 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
928 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
930 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
932 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
935 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
936 variables are tagged.
938 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
940 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
943 ** Changes in etags.el
945 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
946 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
947 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
949 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
950 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
952 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
953 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
954 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
955 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
957 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
959 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
960 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
962 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
964 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
965 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
966 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
968 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
969 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
971 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
972 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
974 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
975 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
976 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
978 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
979 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
980 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
981 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
983 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
984 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
985 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
987 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
989 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
991 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
992 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
993 expression from that list, are not checked.
995 ** New modes and packages
997 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
998 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
999 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1001 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1002 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1003 separate Texinfo file.
1005 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine
1006 or by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1007 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS.
1008 It comes with log-view-mode to view RCS and SCCS logs and log-edit-mode
1009 used to enter checkin log messages.
1011 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1012 without invoking external programs.
1014 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1015 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1016 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1017 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1018 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1020 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1021 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1023 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1024 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1026 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1027 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1028 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1029 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1030 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1033 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1034 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1035 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1036 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1038 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1039 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1040 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1042 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1045 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1047 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1049 ; comment (until end of line)
1053 $A default non-terminal
1054 $"C" default terminal
1055 $?C? default special
1056 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1057 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1058 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1059 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1060 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1061 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1062 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1063 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1064 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1065 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1066 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1067 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1068 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1069 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1070 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1072 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1074 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1075 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1076 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1077 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1078 equal signs of assignments.
1080 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1081 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1083 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1084 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1085 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1086 customize the package.
1088 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1090 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1091 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1092 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1093 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1094 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1095 which answers different needs.
1097 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1098 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1099 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1100 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1101 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1104 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1105 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1107 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1109 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1111 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1113 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1116 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1119 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1121 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1123 *** whitespace.el ???
1125 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1126 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1127 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1128 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1129 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1130 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1131 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1133 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1135 Here is an example of columns:
1138 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1139 porcupine strawberry airplane
1141 Doing the following settings:
1143 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1144 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1145 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1146 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1149 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1151 M-x delimit-columns-region
1155 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1156 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1157 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1159 delim-col has the following options:
1161 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1164 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1165 between each column.
1167 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1170 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1173 delim-col has the following commands:
1175 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1176 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1178 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1179 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
1180 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
1182 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
1184 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
1186 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
1187 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
1189 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
1190 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
1192 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1195 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1196 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1197 specific to Message mode.
1199 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1200 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1201 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1203 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1204 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1205 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1207 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1208 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1210 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1212 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1213 minibuffer with completion.
1215 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1216 with the diary features.
1218 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1219 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1221 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1224 ** Withdrawn packages
1226 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1227 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1229 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1231 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1234 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1235 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1237 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key
1238 and event names in ange brackets.
1240 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1241 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1242 message; it will be truncated instead.
1244 ** The user option line-number-display-limit can now be set to nil,
1247 ** select-safe-coding-system now also checks the most preferred
1248 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1249 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1251 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1254 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1255 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1256 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1257 than replacing the local map.
1259 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1260 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1262 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1265 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1267 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1268 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1269 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1270 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1272 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1273 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1274 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1275 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1277 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1278 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1279 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1281 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1282 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1283 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1284 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1285 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1286 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1287 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1290 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1292 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1293 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1294 character set as previously.
1296 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1297 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1298 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1300 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1301 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1302 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1303 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1305 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1306 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1308 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1309 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1312 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1313 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1315 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1316 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1317 buffers and strings.
1319 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1320 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1321 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1322 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1323 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1324 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1325 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1328 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1329 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1330 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1332 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1333 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1334 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1335 may differ between buffer and string text.
1337 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1338 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1340 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1341 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1342 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1343 `composition' from STRING.
1345 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1346 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1348 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1351 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1352 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1353 character set is not used.
1355 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1356 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1357 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1360 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1361 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1362 0xA0..0xFF repectively.
1365 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1366 that offset in the file before writing.
1368 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1371 ** The function `add-minor-mode' simplifies the definition of minor
1374 - Function: add-minor-mode TOGGLE NAME &optional KEYMAP AFTER TOGGLE-FUN
1376 Register a new minor mode.
1378 TOGGLE is a symbol which is the name of a buffer-local variable that
1379 is toggled on or off to say whether the minor mode is active or not.
1381 NAME specifies what will appear in the mode line when the minor mode
1382 is active. NAME should be either a string starting with a space, or a
1383 symbol whose value is such a string.
1385 Optional KEYMAP is the keymap for the minor mode that will be added
1386 to `minor-mode-map-alist'.
1388 Optional AFTER specifies that TOGGLE should be added after AFTER
1389 in `minor-mode-alist'.
1391 Optional TOGGLE-FUN is there for compatiblity with other Emacssen.
1392 It is currently not used.
1394 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1395 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1396 from which the command was issued.
1398 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1399 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1400 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1401 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1404 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1405 to `window-buffer-height'.
1407 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1409 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1410 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1411 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1413 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1416 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1417 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1419 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1420 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1421 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1423 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1424 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1425 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1426 is currently displayed in some window.
1428 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1429 argument function's results.
1431 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1432 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1434 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1435 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1437 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1438 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1440 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1441 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1444 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1445 nil don't display a cursor
1446 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1447 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1448 others display a box cursor.
1450 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1451 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1452 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1453 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1455 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1456 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1457 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1458 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1462 (string-to-syntax "()")
1465 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1468 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1469 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1476 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1481 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1486 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1493 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1494 the given property to obtain a a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1497 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1498 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1499 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1500 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1503 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1505 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1506 for a regexp in a string.
1508 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1509 `mouse-position-function'.
1511 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1512 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1514 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1515 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1518 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1521 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1522 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1525 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1526 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1527 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1528 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1532 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1533 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1536 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1537 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1538 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1539 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1542 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1543 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1544 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1545 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1548 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1549 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1550 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1553 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1554 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1557 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1559 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1560 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1561 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1565 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1566 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1569 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1570 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1573 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1574 instead of being optional.
1577 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1578 modify read-only text.
1581 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1583 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1584 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1585 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1586 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1587 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1589 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1590 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1591 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1592 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1593 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1594 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1595 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1598 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1599 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1600 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1604 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1605 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1608 ** New function `propertize'
1610 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1611 strings with text properties.
1613 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1615 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1616 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1617 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1618 specified value of that property. Example:
1620 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1623 ** push and pop macros.
1625 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1626 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1627 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1629 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1630 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1631 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1633 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1635 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1636 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1638 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1639 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1640 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1641 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1643 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1644 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1645 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1646 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1649 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1650 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1652 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1653 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1654 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1655 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1656 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1658 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1660 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1661 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1662 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1663 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1664 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1665 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1666 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1667 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1668 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1669 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1670 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1671 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1672 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1673 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1674 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1677 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1679 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1681 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1683 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1684 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1688 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1689 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1690 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1694 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1695 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1697 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1699 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1700 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1701 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1702 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1703 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1705 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1707 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1708 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1709 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1713 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1714 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1715 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1716 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1718 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1720 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1722 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1724 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1726 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1728 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1731 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1733 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1735 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1737 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1739 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1741 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1743 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1745 Returns the size of TABLE.
1747 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1749 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1751 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1753 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1755 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1759 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1761 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1764 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1766 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1767 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1769 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1771 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1773 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1775 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1776 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1778 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1780 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1782 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1784 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1785 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1786 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1787 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1788 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1790 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1792 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1793 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1794 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1796 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1797 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1799 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1800 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1802 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1803 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1805 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1806 'case-fold-string-hash))
1808 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1811 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1813 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1814 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1815 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1818 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1820 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1821 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1824 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1825 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1826 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1827 is too short to reach that column.
1830 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1831 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1832 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1833 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1835 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1836 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1837 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1840 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1841 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1844 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1845 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1848 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1849 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1850 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1851 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1852 temporary-file-directory instead.
1855 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1856 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1857 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1858 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1861 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1862 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1865 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1867 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1868 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1869 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1872 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1874 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1875 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1876 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1877 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1878 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1879 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1881 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1882 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1883 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1884 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1887 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1889 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1890 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1891 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1894 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
1895 string where arguments appear in the result string.
1899 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
1901 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
1902 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
1905 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
1908 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
1910 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
1911 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
1914 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
1916 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
1917 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
1923 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
1924 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
1926 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
1927 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
1928 to enable sound support.
1930 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
1931 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
1932 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
1933 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
1934 sound to play, before playing the sound.
1936 The following sound properties are supported:
1940 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
1941 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1945 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
1946 may be present, but not both.
1950 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1951 0..1. This property is optional.
1953 Other properties are ignored.
1955 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1957 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
1960 ** Changes to garbage collection
1962 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
1963 of live and free strings.
1965 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
1966 strings that have been consed so far.
1969 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
1972 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
1973 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
1976 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
1979 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
1981 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
1982 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
1983 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
1984 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
1987 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1989 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1990 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1991 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1992 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1994 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
1995 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
1997 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
1998 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
1999 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2000 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2001 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2002 just display it black instead.
2004 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2007 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2011 ** New face implementation.
2013 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2014 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2019 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2021 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2023 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2024 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2026 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2028 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2030 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2032 6. Foreground color.
2034 7. Background color.
2036 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2038 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2040 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2042 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2044 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2047 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2048 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2050 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2051 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2052 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2053 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2054 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2055 attributes mentioned above.
2057 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2058 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2061 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2062 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2068 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2069 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2070 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2071 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2072 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2073 results in a fully-specified face.
2076 *** Face realization.
2078 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2079 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2080 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2081 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2082 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2083 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2085 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2086 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2087 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2088 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2090 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2091 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2092 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2093 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2094 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2096 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2097 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2098 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2099 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2100 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2103 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2104 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2105 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2106 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2109 **** Clearing face caches.
2111 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2112 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2118 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2119 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2120 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2122 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2123 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2124 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2125 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2126 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2128 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2129 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2130 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2132 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2134 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2135 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2136 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2137 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2138 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2139 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2140 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2142 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2143 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2149 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2150 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2153 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2154 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2155 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2156 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2157 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2160 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2162 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2165 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2167 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2169 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2170 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2171 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2173 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2174 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2175 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2176 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2177 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2178 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2179 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2180 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2181 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2182 of the face font sort order.
2184 - Function: x-font-family-list
2186 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2187 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2188 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2189 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2191 - Variable: font-list-limit
2193 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2194 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2195 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2198 *** Setting face attributes.
2200 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2201 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2202 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2205 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2206 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2208 The following attributes are recognized:
2212 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2213 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2214 and `?' are allowed.
2218 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2219 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2220 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2221 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2225 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2230 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2231 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2232 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2236 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2237 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2240 `:foreground', `:background'
2242 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2246 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2247 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2248 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2253 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2254 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2255 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2260 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2261 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2262 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2263 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2267 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2268 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2269 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2270 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2271 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2272 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2273 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2274 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2275 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2276 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2277 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2278 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2279 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2280 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2281 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2282 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2287 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2288 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2292 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2293 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2294 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2295 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2296 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2297 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2299 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2300 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2304 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2305 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2306 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2309 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2310 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2311 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2313 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2316 *** Face attributes and X resources
2318 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2321 Face attribute X resource class
2322 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2323 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2324 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2325 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2326 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2327 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2328 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2329 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2330 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2331 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2332 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2333 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2334 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2335 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2336 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2337 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2338 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2339 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2340 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2341 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2344 *** Text property `face'.
2346 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2347 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2348 specification can be
2350 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2352 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2353 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2354 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2355 for face attribute names.
2357 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2358 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2359 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2362 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2364 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2365 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2366 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2367 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2368 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2369 used to clear the mapping table.
2371 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2373 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2374 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2375 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2376 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2377 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2378 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2379 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2380 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2381 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2382 modify their color-related behavior.
2384 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2387 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2389 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2390 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2391 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2392 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2393 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2394 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2395 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2396 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2397 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2400 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2402 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2404 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2405 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2406 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2408 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2410 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2411 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2414 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2415 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2416 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2417 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2418 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2419 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2420 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2423 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2424 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2425 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2427 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2429 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2431 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2432 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2433 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2434 constrained position if that is is different.
2436 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2437 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2438 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2439 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2440 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2441 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2444 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2445 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2446 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2447 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2448 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2450 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2452 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2453 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2454 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2456 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2458 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2459 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2460 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2461 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2462 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2464 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2466 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2467 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2468 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2469 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2470 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2472 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2474 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2475 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2476 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2478 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2480 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2481 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2482 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2487 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2488 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2489 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2490 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2492 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2493 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2494 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2495 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2498 IMAGE is an image specification.
2500 *** Image specifications
2502 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2503 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2504 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2505 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2506 described below are ignored.
2508 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2512 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2513 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2514 to use for its ascent.
2516 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2517 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2519 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2520 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2521 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2522 overlays that apply to the image.
2526 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2527 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2531 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2536 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2537 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2538 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2539 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2541 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2543 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2544 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2545 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2546 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2547 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2548 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2549 background of the image.
2553 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2554 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2555 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2556 may be present in the image specification.
2560 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2561 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2562 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2563 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2565 *** Supported image types
2567 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2569 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2570 properties supported are
2574 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2575 is the frame's foreground.
2579 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2580 the frame's background color.
2582 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2583 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2584 instead of a `:file' property.
2588 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2592 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2598 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2599 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2601 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2603 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2606 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2607 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2610 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2612 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2613 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2614 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2615 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2617 Additional image properties supported are:
2619 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2621 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2622 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2625 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2626 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2628 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2629 to display compressed images.
2631 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2633 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2634 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2637 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2639 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2640 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2643 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2645 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2646 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2649 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2651 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2652 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2654 Additional image properties supported are:
2658 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2659 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2661 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2662 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2663 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2666 (defun show-anim (file max)
2667 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2668 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2670 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2673 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2676 (goto-char (point-min))
2677 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2678 (insert-image img "x"))
2679 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2681 **** PNG, image type `png'
2683 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2684 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2687 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2689 Additional image properties supported are:
2693 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2694 integer. This is a required property.
2698 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2699 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2703 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2704 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2705 files. This is an required property.
2707 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2712 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2713 which are supported in the current configuration.
2715 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2716 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2717 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2718 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
2719 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
2721 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2723 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2724 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2725 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2726 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2727 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2733 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2736 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2737 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2738 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2739 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2740 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2741 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2742 of the display margins.
2744 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2745 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2746 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2747 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2753 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2754 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2755 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2756 that have a `help-echo' property.
2758 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
2759 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
2760 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
2761 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
2762 tool-bar item is used.
2764 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2765 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
2766 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2769 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2771 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2772 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2774 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2775 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2776 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2777 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2780 (global-set-key [A-down]
2783 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2784 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2785 (global-set-key [A-up]
2788 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2789 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2792 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2794 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2795 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2796 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2797 is called with one argument, POS.
2799 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2800 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2801 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2802 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2803 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2806 ** Tool bar support.
2808 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2809 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2810 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2811 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2812 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2813 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2815 *** Tool bar item definitions
2817 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2818 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2819 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2821 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2822 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2823 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2824 property (see below).
2826 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2827 binding are currently ignored.
2829 The following properties are recognized:
2833 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2838 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2842 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2843 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2844 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2846 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2848 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2849 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2853 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2854 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2855 meaning of each of the four elements:
2857 Index Use when item is
2858 ----------------------------------------
2859 0 enabled and selected
2860 1 enabled and deselected
2861 2 disabled and selected
2862 3 disabled and deselected
2864 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
2865 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
2867 `:help HELP-STRING'.
2869 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
2870 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
2872 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
2874 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
2875 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
2876 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
2878 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
2879 raised when the mouse moves over them.
2881 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
2882 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
2883 pixels. Default is 1.
2885 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
2886 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
2888 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
2890 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
2893 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
2894 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
2895 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
2897 is the original tool bar item definition, then
2899 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
2901 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
2904 ** Mode line changes.
2907 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
2909 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
2910 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
2911 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
2913 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
2914 a `local-map' text property.
2916 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
2917 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
2919 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
2920 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
2921 `local-map' property.
2923 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
2924 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
2927 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
2928 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
2931 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
2932 variable mode-line-format to nil.
2935 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
2937 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
2938 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
2939 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
2940 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
2943 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
2946 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
2947 position in the header-line.
2950 ** Text property `display'
2952 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
2953 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
2954 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
2955 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
2957 *** Variable width and height spaces
2959 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
2960 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
2961 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
2962 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
2963 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
2964 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
2965 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
2967 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
2968 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
2969 properties described below.
2971 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
2972 characters having the `display' property.
2976 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
2977 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
2979 - :relative-width FACTOR
2981 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
2982 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
2983 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
2984 width of that character by FACTOR.
2988 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
2989 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
2991 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
2995 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
2998 - :relative-height FACTOR
3000 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3001 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3005 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3006 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3007 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3010 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3014 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3015 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3016 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3017 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3018 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3019 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3020 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3021 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3022 as display specification.
3024 *** Other display properties
3026 - :space-width FACTOR
3028 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3029 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3034 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3036 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3037 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3038 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3039 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3040 a font is available counts as a step.
3042 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3043 as tall as the frame's default font.
3045 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3046 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3048 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3049 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3053 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3054 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3055 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3056 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3057 `:height' subproperty.
3059 *** Conditional display properties
3061 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3062 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3063 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3064 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3065 the text having the `display' property.
3067 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3071 ** New menu separator types.
3073 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3074 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3075 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3076 to specify other menu separator types.
3078 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3080 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3083 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3085 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3087 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3089 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3091 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3093 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3095 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3097 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3099 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3101 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3102 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3104 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3106 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3108 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3110 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3112 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3114 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3116 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3118 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3120 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3122 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3124 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3126 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3128 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3130 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3132 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3133 the corresponding single-line separators.
3136 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3138 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3139 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3140 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3141 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3142 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3143 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3144 default foreground is black.
3146 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3147 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3148 `ScrollBarBackground').
3150 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3151 settings for scroll bar colors.
3154 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3155 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3158 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3159 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3160 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3161 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3162 the original window start.
3165 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3166 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3167 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3170 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3172 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3173 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3174 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3175 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3177 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3178 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3180 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3182 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3183 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3184 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3185 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3186 temporarily to nil, for example
3188 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3189 (enlarge-window 10))
3191 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3192 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3194 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3195 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3196 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3197 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3198 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3199 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3201 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3203 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3206 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3208 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3210 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3211 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3212 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3213 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3214 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3216 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3220 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3222 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3225 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3227 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3228 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3230 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3232 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3234 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3235 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3236 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3238 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3239 is the one that is used.
3241 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3242 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3243 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3244 separate from the command's regular output.
3245 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3246 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3247 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3250 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3251 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3252 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3253 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3255 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3256 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3257 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3258 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3260 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3261 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3262 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3263 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3265 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3266 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3267 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3268 they never ignore case.
3270 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3271 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3272 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3273 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3274 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3275 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3276 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3278 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3279 the same format that was used in the file before.
3281 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3282 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3284 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3285 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3286 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3288 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3289 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3290 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3291 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3292 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3293 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3294 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3296 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3297 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3298 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3299 format. You can now customize these variables.
3301 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3302 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3303 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3304 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3306 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3307 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3308 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3310 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3311 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3312 doesn't have any effect.
3314 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3317 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3318 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3319 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3321 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3322 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3323 `auto-show-mode' command.
3325 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3326 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3327 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3328 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3329 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3331 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3332 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3334 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3335 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3336 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3338 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3339 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3340 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3341 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3343 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3345 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3346 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3347 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3348 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3349 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3351 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3352 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3354 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3355 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3356 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3357 `?' on other systems.
3359 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3360 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3363 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3364 current codepage when it starts.
3368 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3369 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3370 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3371 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3372 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3373 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3377 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3378 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3380 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3381 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3382 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3383 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3384 buffer-file-coding-system.
3386 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3387 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3390 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3391 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3392 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3393 list of possible coding systems.
3397 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3398 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3399 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3400 docstring for details.
3402 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3403 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3404 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3405 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3406 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3408 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3409 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3411 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3412 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3414 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3415 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3416 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3417 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3420 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3421 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3423 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3424 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3425 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3426 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3428 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3429 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3430 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3431 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3432 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3434 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3436 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3438 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3439 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3441 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3443 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3444 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3445 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3446 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3447 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3451 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3452 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3453 Gnus manual for the full story.
3455 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3456 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3457 group, which is created automatically.
3459 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3462 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3464 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3465 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3467 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3470 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3472 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3473 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3475 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3477 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3478 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3480 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3481 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3483 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3484 control over simplification.
3486 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3488 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3491 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3493 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3495 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3496 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3497 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3499 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3500 `a' forces normal posting method.
3502 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3505 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3508 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3509 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3511 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3514 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3516 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3518 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3519 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3521 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3522 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3524 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3526 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3529 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3530 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3532 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3533 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3535 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3537 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3539 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3541 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3543 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3544 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3545 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3547 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3548 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3549 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3550 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3551 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3553 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3554 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3555 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3556 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3558 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3559 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3560 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3563 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3565 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3566 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3568 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3569 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3570 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3571 removed from the label.
3573 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3574 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3576 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3577 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3579 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3580 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3583 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3585 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3587 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3588 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3590 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3591 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3592 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3594 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3595 changes with a special face.
3597 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3598 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3599 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3601 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3603 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3604 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3605 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3606 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3607 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3609 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3610 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3611 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3613 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3614 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3615 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3616 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3617 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3618 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3619 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3620 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3621 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3623 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3624 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3625 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3626 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3627 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3630 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3631 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3632 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3633 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3634 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3635 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3637 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3638 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3639 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3640 was not documented clearly before.
3642 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3643 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3645 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3647 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3648 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3649 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3650 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3652 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3653 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3654 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3656 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3658 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3659 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3661 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3662 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3665 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3666 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3667 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3668 file names and attributes are returned.
3670 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3671 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3672 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3673 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3676 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3677 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3679 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3681 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3682 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3683 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3686 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3687 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3690 The new function process-running-child-p
3691 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3692 terminal to its own child process.
3694 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3695 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3696 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3697 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3699 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3700 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3702 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3703 :included is an alias for :visible.
3705 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3706 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3707 to move or copy menu entries.
3709 ** Multibyte editing changes
3711 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3712 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3713 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3714 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3715 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3716 (setq char (sref str idx)
3717 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3718 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3720 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3721 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3722 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3724 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3725 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3726 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3728 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3730 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3731 across the boundary.
3733 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3734 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3735 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3736 contains 8-bit characters.
3737 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3738 contains invalid characters.
3740 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3741 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3742 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3743 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3746 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3747 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3748 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3749 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3751 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3752 compose Thai characters in a string.
3754 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3755 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3756 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3757 menus should always use the third argument.
3759 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3760 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3761 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3762 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3764 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3765 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3766 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3767 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3769 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3770 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3771 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3774 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3776 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3777 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3778 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3780 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3781 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3782 means to clear out that attribute.
3784 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3785 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3787 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3788 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3789 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3790 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3792 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3793 the gap of the current buffer.
3795 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3796 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3799 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3800 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3801 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3802 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3804 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3806 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3807 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3808 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3809 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3810 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3812 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3813 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3814 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3815 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3816 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3818 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3819 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3820 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3822 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3823 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3824 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3825 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3826 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3829 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3830 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3831 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3832 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3834 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3836 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3837 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3838 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3839 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3841 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3842 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3843 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3844 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3845 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3846 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3847 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3850 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3853 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3854 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3855 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3856 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3857 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3859 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
3860 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
3861 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
3862 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
3864 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
3865 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
3866 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
3867 something that most users not do.
3869 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
3870 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
3871 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
3874 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
3877 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
3878 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
3879 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
3880 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
3883 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
3884 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
3885 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
3886 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
3887 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
3890 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
3891 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
3892 to be confused by TeX commands.
3894 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
3895 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
3896 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
3897 of various alternative replacements and actions.
3899 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
3900 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
3901 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
3902 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
3903 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
3905 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
3906 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
3908 ** Changes in input method usage.
3910 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
3911 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
3914 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
3916 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
3917 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
3919 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
3920 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
3922 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
3924 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
3926 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
3927 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
3929 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
3930 given in the following case:
3931 o When you are using a complex input method.
3932 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
3934 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
3935 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
3936 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
3937 setting it to t is helpful.
3939 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
3941 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
3943 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
3944 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
3945 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
3946 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
3949 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
3950 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
3951 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
3954 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
3956 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
3958 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
3959 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
3961 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
3962 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
3963 its owner and group.
3965 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
3966 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
3968 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
3969 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
3971 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
3972 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
3973 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
3974 by the left edge of the rectangle.
3976 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
3977 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
3978 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
3979 for writing keyboard macros.
3981 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
3982 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
3983 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
3984 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
3985 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
3988 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
3990 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
3991 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
3994 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
3995 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
3996 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
3997 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
3999 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4000 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4001 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4003 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4004 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4005 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4006 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4008 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4009 failure if the command produces no output.
4011 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4012 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4015 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4016 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4017 function and variable names.
4019 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4020 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4021 file-coding-system-alist.
4023 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4024 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4025 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4026 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4027 according to the current fontset.
4029 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4031 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4032 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4033 nonascii-insert-offset.
4035 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4036 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4037 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4038 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4040 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4041 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4043 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4044 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4046 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4047 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4050 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4051 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4053 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4054 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4055 all variables that have documentation.
4057 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4058 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4059 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4060 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4061 it should show; the default is 20.
4063 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4064 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4067 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4068 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4069 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4070 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4071 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4072 Newly added options are included as well.
4074 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4075 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4076 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4078 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4081 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4082 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4084 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4085 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4088 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4089 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4092 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4093 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4094 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4095 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4098 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4100 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4101 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4102 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4104 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4105 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4106 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4111 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4112 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4114 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4115 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4117 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4118 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4120 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4121 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4122 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4123 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4124 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4125 made invisible again.
4127 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4129 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4130 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4131 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4134 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4135 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4136 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4137 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4138 rmail-default-body-file.
4140 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4141 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4142 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4144 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4145 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4146 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4148 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4149 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4150 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4151 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4152 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4153 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4155 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4156 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4157 provided by feedmail are:
4159 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4160 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4161 there is also a queue for draft messages
4163 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4164 be prompted for confirmation
4166 **** does smart filling of address headers
4168 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4169 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4170 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4172 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4173 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4174 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4175 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4179 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4180 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4182 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4183 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4185 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4186 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4187 for a specified regexp.
4191 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4194 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4195 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4198 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4199 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4200 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4201 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4203 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4204 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4205 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4206 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4207 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4209 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4210 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4211 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4212 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4213 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4215 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4216 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4217 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4218 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4220 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4221 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4222 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4224 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4225 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4226 session to resolve them.
4228 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4229 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4230 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4233 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4234 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4235 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4236 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4237 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4238 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4241 ** Changes in Font Lock
4243 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4244 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4245 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4246 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4247 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4249 ** Frame name display changes
4251 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4252 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4253 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4254 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4256 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4257 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4260 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4262 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4263 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4264 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4266 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4268 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4269 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4270 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4272 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4273 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4276 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4277 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4278 previously sent input.
4280 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4281 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4282 as the search string.
4284 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4285 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4289 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4290 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4291 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4294 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4295 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4296 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4297 style is still the default however.
4299 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4301 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4302 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4303 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4305 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4306 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4308 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4309 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4311 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4312 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4314 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4315 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4317 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4318 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4319 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4320 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4322 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4324 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4325 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4326 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4328 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4329 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4330 expanding dynamically.
4332 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4333 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4335 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4336 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4337 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4338 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4340 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4342 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4344 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4345 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4346 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4347 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4348 against the first word in the title.
4350 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4351 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4352 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4353 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4354 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4355 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4357 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4358 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4359 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4360 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4362 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4364 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4365 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4366 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4367 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4368 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4369 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4371 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4372 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4374 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4375 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4376 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4378 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4379 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4383 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4384 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4385 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4387 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4388 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4389 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4390 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4393 o URLs are automatically skipped
4394 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4396 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4398 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4400 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4401 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4402 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4403 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4405 *** New recursive parser.
4407 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4408 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4409 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4411 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4413 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4414 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4415 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4417 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4419 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4421 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4423 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4425 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4427 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4428 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4430 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4432 *** References to external documents.
4434 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4435 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4436 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4437 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4438 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4439 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4440 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4442 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4444 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4445 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4447 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4448 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4450 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4452 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4453 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4455 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4457 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4458 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4459 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4460 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4461 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4462 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4465 *** Support for the varioref package
4467 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4471 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4472 and citations are created. These hooks are
4473 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4474 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4476 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4478 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4479 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4481 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4483 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4484 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4487 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4489 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4490 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4491 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4492 directories that contain the same file name.
4494 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4495 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4496 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4497 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4498 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4499 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4500 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4503 ** New modes and packages
4505 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4506 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4507 it, but some do not.
4509 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4512 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4513 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4516 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4518 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4519 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4520 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4521 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4523 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4524 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4525 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4527 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4528 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4529 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4530 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4531 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4534 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4535 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4537 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4538 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4539 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4540 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4542 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4544 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4545 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4546 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4547 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4548 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4549 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4550 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4551 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4552 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4553 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4554 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4556 Platform-specific modes:
4558 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4559 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4560 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4561 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4562 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4563 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4564 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4565 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4566 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4568 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4570 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4571 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4572 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4573 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4575 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4576 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4577 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4579 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4580 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4581 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4582 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4584 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4585 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4586 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4589 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4590 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4591 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4592 current input method for reading this one event.
4594 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4595 now control whether to output certain characters as
4596 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4597 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4598 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4599 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4601 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4603 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4604 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4606 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4607 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4608 always increases point by 1.
4610 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4611 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4613 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4615 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4616 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4617 default value changed. For example,
4619 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4624 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4627 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4628 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4629 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4630 `:version' in the top level group.
4632 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4634 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4635 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4637 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4638 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4639 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4642 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4643 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4646 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4647 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4648 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4650 ** Frame-local variables.
4652 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4653 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4654 local bindings for that variable.
4656 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4657 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4658 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4661 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4662 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4663 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4664 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4666 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4667 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4668 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4669 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4671 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4672 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4673 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4674 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4675 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4677 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4678 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4679 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4680 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4682 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4683 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4685 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4686 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4687 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4689 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4690 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4691 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4692 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4694 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4695 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4698 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4699 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4700 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4701 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4702 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4704 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4705 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4706 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4707 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4709 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4710 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4711 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4712 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4713 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4715 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4716 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4717 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4718 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4720 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4721 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4722 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4724 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4725 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4726 was directed to display this buffer.
4728 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4729 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4730 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4731 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4732 set-window-configuration.
4734 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4735 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4736 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4737 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4739 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4740 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4741 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4743 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4744 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4745 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4747 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4748 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4750 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4751 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4753 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4754 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4755 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4757 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4758 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4759 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4760 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4764 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4765 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4768 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4769 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4770 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4771 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4772 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4774 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4776 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4777 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4778 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4779 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4782 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4783 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4784 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4785 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4786 The supported properties include
4788 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4790 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4791 item should appear in the menu.
4793 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4794 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4795 It should return a binding to use instead.
4797 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4798 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4799 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4800 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4801 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4804 This means that the command normally has no
4805 keyboard equivalent.
4806 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4807 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4808 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4809 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4810 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4812 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4813 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4815 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4819 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4820 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4821 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4822 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4824 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4826 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4827 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4828 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4829 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4830 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4831 forward, away from the user.
4833 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4835 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4836 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4837 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4838 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4839 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4841 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4843 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4844 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4845 that were dragged and dropped.
4847 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4849 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4851 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4852 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4853 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4855 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4856 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4857 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4859 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
4860 in Emacs 19 and before.
4862 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
4863 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
4865 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
4866 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
4867 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
4868 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
4870 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
4871 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
4872 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
4873 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
4874 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
4876 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
4877 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
4878 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
4879 consistent with the new representation.
4881 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
4882 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
4883 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
4884 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4886 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
4887 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
4888 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
4890 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
4891 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
4892 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4894 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
4895 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
4896 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
4898 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4899 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
4901 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4902 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
4904 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
4905 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
4906 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
4907 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
4909 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
4910 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
4912 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
4913 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
4914 buffer or string being searched.
4916 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
4917 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
4918 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
4919 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
4920 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
4921 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
4922 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
4924 *** Structure of coding system changed.
4926 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
4927 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
4928 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
4929 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
4930 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
4931 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
4932 define-coding-system-alias.
4934 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
4935 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
4936 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
4937 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
4938 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
4939 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
4940 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
4943 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
4944 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
4945 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
4946 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
4948 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
4949 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
4950 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
4951 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
4953 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
4954 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
4955 This function requires a user interaction.
4957 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
4958 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
4959 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
4960 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
4961 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
4962 select-safe-coding-system.
4964 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
4965 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
4966 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
4969 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
4970 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
4971 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
4973 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
4974 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
4975 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
4976 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
4978 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
4979 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
4980 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
4983 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
4984 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
4986 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
4987 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
4988 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
4989 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
4990 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
4991 range of characters.
4993 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
4994 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
4996 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
4997 in the current buffer at position POS.
4999 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5000 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5001 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5002 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5003 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5004 binding input-method-function to nil.
5006 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5007 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5008 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5009 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5010 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5012 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5013 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5015 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5016 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5018 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5019 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5020 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5021 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5022 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5024 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5026 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5027 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5028 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5031 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5032 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5034 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5035 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5036 in your .emacs file.)
5038 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5039 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5041 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5042 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5044 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5045 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5048 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5049 delete the character before point, as usual.
5051 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5052 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5053 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5055 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5056 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5057 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5058 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5059 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5062 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5063 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5064 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5065 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5066 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5068 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5069 and is an alias for it.
5071 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5072 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5074 ** Scrolling changes
5076 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5077 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5079 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5080 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5083 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5084 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5085 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5086 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5088 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5089 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5090 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5091 recenters the window.
5093 ** International character set support (MULE)
5095 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5096 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5097 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5098 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5099 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5100 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5102 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5103 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5104 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5105 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5106 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5108 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5109 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5110 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5111 language, to make it possible to type them.
5113 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5114 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5116 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5117 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5119 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5121 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5123 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5124 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5125 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5126 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5127 characters for their work until they want to change.
5131 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5132 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5133 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5134 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5135 support several input methods.
5137 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5138 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5141 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5142 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5143 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5144 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5145 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5148 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5149 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5150 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5151 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5152 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5154 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5155 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5156 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5157 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5159 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5160 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5161 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5162 the first guess is wrong.
5164 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5165 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5167 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5168 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5169 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5170 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5172 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5173 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5174 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5175 translate automatically to and from either one.
5177 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5179 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5180 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5181 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5184 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5185 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5186 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5187 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5189 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5190 character conversion as well.
5192 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5194 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5195 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5196 requires using many fonts.
5198 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5199 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5201 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5202 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5203 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5204 you would use a font.
5206 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5207 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5208 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5210 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5211 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5212 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5213 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5214 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5216 *** Defining fontsets.
5218 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5219 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5220 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5222 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5223 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5224 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5225 standard fontset are created automatically.
5227 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5228 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5229 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5230 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5231 name is `fontset-startup'.
5233 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5234 The resource value should have this form:
5235 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5236 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5237 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5238 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5239 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5240 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5241 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5242 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5243 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5245 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5246 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5247 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5249 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5250 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5252 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5253 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5254 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5255 Here is the substitution rule:
5256 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5257 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5258 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5259 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5260 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5262 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5263 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5264 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5266 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5267 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5268 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5269 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5272 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5273 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5275 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5276 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5277 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5278 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5279 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5280 system for new files that you create.
5282 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5283 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5284 whole Emacs session.
5286 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5287 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5288 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5290 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5291 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5292 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5293 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5294 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5296 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5297 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5298 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5299 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5300 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5302 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5303 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5305 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5306 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5308 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5309 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5311 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5312 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5313 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5314 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5317 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5318 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5319 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5320 translated into that character code.
5322 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5323 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5325 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5327 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5328 the coding system for keyboard input.
5330 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5331 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5332 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5334 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5336 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5337 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5338 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5339 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5340 designed to work with terminals.
5342 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5343 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5344 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5345 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5346 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5347 in the corresponding buffer.
5349 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5351 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5352 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5353 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5355 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5356 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5357 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5360 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5361 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5363 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5364 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5365 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5366 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5368 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5369 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5370 related information.
5372 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5373 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5376 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5377 information about the support for a particular language.
5378 You specify the language as an argument.
5380 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5381 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5384 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5385 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5386 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5387 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5389 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5391 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5392 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5393 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5394 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5395 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5396 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5397 K euc-korea (Korean)
5400 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5403 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5404 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5405 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5409 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5410 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5411 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5412 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5414 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5415 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5417 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5418 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5419 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5420 Rmail files themselves.
5422 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5423 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5425 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5428 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5429 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5430 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5431 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5432 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5434 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5435 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5436 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5439 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5440 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5441 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5442 without any conversion.
5444 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5445 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5446 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5447 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5449 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5450 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5452 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5453 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5455 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5456 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5458 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5459 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5460 in the buffer before point.
5462 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5463 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5466 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5467 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5469 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5471 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5472 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5474 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5475 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5476 can become a bottleneck.
5478 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5479 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5480 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5481 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5482 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5483 so useful that the change is worth while.
5485 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5486 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5487 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5488 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5490 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5491 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5494 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5495 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5496 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5498 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5499 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5500 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5502 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5503 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5504 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5506 ** Changes in View mode.
5508 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5509 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5511 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5512 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5514 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5517 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5518 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5520 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5521 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5522 not just the selected window.
5524 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5525 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5526 turns View mode on or off.
5528 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5529 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5530 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5532 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5533 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5535 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5536 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5537 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5538 which version to compare with.
5540 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5541 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5543 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5544 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5545 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5546 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5548 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5549 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5550 blocks, all of them or none.
5552 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5553 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5556 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5557 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5558 However, the mode will not be changed if
5559 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5560 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5561 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5562 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5564 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5566 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5567 these commands do not change the major mode.
5569 ** M-x occur changes.
5571 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5572 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5574 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5575 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5576 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5578 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5579 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5580 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5581 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5582 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5584 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5585 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5586 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5587 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5589 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5590 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5591 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5593 ** Outline mode changes.
5595 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5597 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5599 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5600 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5601 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5604 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5605 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5608 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5609 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5611 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5613 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5614 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5615 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5616 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5618 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5619 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5620 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5622 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5623 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5626 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5627 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5628 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5629 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5631 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5632 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5633 can be. The default value is 30.
5635 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5637 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5638 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5639 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5640 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5641 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5644 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5645 compose-mail-other-frame.
5647 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5648 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5649 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5650 buffer that shows the original message.
5652 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5653 with separator lines around the contents.
5655 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5656 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5657 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5658 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5660 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5662 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5663 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5664 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5665 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5667 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5668 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5671 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5672 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5675 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5676 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5677 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5678 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5680 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5681 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5682 be taken to be magic.
5684 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5685 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5686 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5688 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5689 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5691 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5692 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5694 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5696 new key dired.el binding old key
5697 ------- ---------------- -------
5698 * c dired-change-marks c
5700 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5701 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5702 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5704 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5705 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5706 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5707 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5708 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5709 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5713 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5714 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5715 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5716 each time you run it.
5718 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5719 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5721 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5722 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5723 means to move in the opposite direction.
5725 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5726 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5728 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5729 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5730 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5731 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5736 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5738 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5741 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5742 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5744 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5747 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5749 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5751 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5753 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5754 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5755 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5757 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5759 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5761 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5762 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5764 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5765 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5766 used to pick articles.
5768 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5769 another have been added.
5771 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5773 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5774 generating lines in buffers.
5776 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5779 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5781 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5783 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5785 *** Scores can be decayed.
5787 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5789 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5790 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5792 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5795 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5797 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5798 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5800 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5802 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5803 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5805 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5806 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5808 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5811 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5812 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5814 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5816 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5818 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5820 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5822 Use the `Y c' command.
5824 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5826 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5828 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5830 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5831 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5833 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5835 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5837 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5838 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5840 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5842 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5843 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5844 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5845 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5848 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5849 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5850 particular news group. This can be done by:
5852 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5854 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5855 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5856 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5857 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5858 for reading and posting).
5860 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
5861 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
5862 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
5863 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
5866 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
5867 default. Here are some of these default settings:
5869 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
5870 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
5871 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
5872 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
5873 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
5875 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
5876 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
5880 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
5881 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
5882 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
5883 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
5884 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
5887 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
5888 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
5889 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
5890 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
5891 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
5892 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
5894 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
5895 of the current buffer.
5897 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
5898 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
5899 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
5901 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
5902 style that the Python developers like.
5904 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
5905 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
5906 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
5910 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
5911 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
5912 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
5914 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
5915 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
5918 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
5919 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
5921 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
5922 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
5923 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
5924 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
5926 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
5927 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
5929 ** Calendar changes.
5931 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
5932 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
5933 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
5937 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
5939 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
5941 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
5942 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
5943 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
5944 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
5945 It defaults to `letter'.
5946 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
5948 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
5949 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
5950 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
5952 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
5953 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
5956 *** Horizontal layout
5958 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
5959 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
5960 All are measured in points.
5964 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
5965 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
5966 All are measured in points.
5970 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
5971 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
5972 margin above the text.
5974 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
5975 framing box is printed around the header.
5977 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
5978 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
5980 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
5981 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
5982 `ps-header-font-size'.
5986 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
5987 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
5988 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
5989 elements to this alist.
5991 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
5992 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
5994 ** hideshow changes.
5996 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
5999 *** Support for java-mode added.
6001 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6002 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6004 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6005 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6006 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6008 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6009 robust and a lot faster.
6011 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6013 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6014 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6015 documentation for more details.
6017 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6019 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6020 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6021 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6022 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6023 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6025 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6026 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6027 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6028 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6034 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6035 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6036 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6037 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6038 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6039 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6041 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6043 *** Maximum decoration
6045 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6046 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6047 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6048 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6049 to get the old behavior.
6053 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6055 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6056 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6058 *** Configurable support
6060 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6061 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6062 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6063 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6064 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6065 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6066 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6068 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6069 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6070 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6072 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6074 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6075 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6078 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6080 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6086 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6087 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6088 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6089 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6091 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6093 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6094 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6095 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6097 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6099 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6100 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6101 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6102 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6103 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6104 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6105 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6107 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6108 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6109 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6110 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6111 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6112 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6114 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6116 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6117 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6118 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6119 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6121 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6124 ** Ada mode changes.
6126 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6127 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6128 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6129 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6132 *** There are two new commands:
6133 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6134 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6136 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6137 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6138 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6140 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6141 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6142 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6144 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6145 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6146 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6147 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6149 ** Scheme mode changes.
6151 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6152 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6153 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6154 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6157 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6158 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6159 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6160 variables as buffer-local variables.
6162 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6165 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6167 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6168 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6169 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6170 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6172 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6173 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6176 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6177 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6178 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6179 option takes precedence.
6181 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6182 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6183 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6185 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6186 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6189 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6190 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6192 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6193 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6196 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6197 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6198 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6199 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6200 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6201 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6203 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6204 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6205 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6206 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6208 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6209 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6210 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6211 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6212 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6214 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6215 since it applies only to the current frame.
6217 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6218 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6219 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6221 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6222 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6223 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6224 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6225 instead of just the file you are editing.
6229 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6230 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6231 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6232 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6233 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6236 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6237 knows which kind of label is needed.
6239 C-c ) reftex-reference
6240 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6241 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6243 C-c [ reftex-citation
6244 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6245 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6247 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6248 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6251 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6252 can quickly jump to every section.
6254 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6255 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6256 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6257 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6258 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6260 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6262 *** Info documentation is now available.
6264 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6265 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6267 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6268 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6270 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6271 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6273 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6274 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6275 appropriate functions.
6277 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6278 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6280 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6283 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6284 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6286 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6289 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6290 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6291 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6293 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6294 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6295 prefixed with `ALT'.
6297 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6298 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6299 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6302 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6303 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6304 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6306 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6307 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6309 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6310 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6311 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6313 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6315 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6317 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6320 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6321 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6324 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6327 *** Added support for imenu.
6329 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6330 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6331 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6332 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6334 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6335 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6337 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6339 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6341 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6342 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6343 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6346 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6347 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6349 ** browse-url changes
6351 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6352 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6353 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6354 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6355 customization variables.
6357 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6359 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6360 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6361 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6365 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6366 pops up the Info file for this command.
6368 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6369 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6370 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6373 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6374 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6375 files in the same directory.
6377 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6378 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6379 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6383 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6384 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6386 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6387 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6388 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6389 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6390 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6391 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6392 color when Viper is in insert state.
6393 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6394 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6395 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6399 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6400 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6401 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6402 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6403 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6405 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6407 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6408 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6410 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6411 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6412 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6414 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6415 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6416 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6417 methods and protocols.
6419 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6420 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6421 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6424 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6425 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6426 at least M times and as many as N times.
6428 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6429 in files has changed slightly.
6431 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6432 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6433 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6434 with old time-stamp-format values.
6436 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6437 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6438 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6441 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6442 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6443 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6444 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6445 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6446 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6448 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6449 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6450 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6452 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6453 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6454 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6455 recommended now will continue to work then.
6457 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6460 ** There are some additional major modes:
6462 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6463 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6464 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6466 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6467 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6470 ** New Lisp packages include:
6472 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6474 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6475 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6477 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6479 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6482 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6483 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6486 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6487 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6488 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6489 strings or comments.
6491 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6492 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6493 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6494 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6497 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6498 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6500 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6501 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6503 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6505 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6506 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6508 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6510 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6512 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6514 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6515 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6517 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6518 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6519 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6520 original place after inserting the copy.
6522 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6525 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6526 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6527 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6529 Enable mouse-drag with:
6530 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6532 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6534 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6535 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6537 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6538 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6542 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6543 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6544 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6545 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6546 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6547 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6548 instance) and vice versa.
6550 To use this package load it using
6551 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6552 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6553 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6554 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6555 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6556 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6558 *** Interface to ph.
6560 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6562 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6563 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6566 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6568 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6569 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6570 while the real cursor does not move.
6572 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6573 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6575 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6576 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6580 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6581 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6582 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6583 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6585 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6587 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6589 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6591 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6592 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6593 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6594 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6595 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6597 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6598 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6599 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6600 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6601 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6602 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6604 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6606 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6607 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6608 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6609 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6611 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6612 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6614 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6615 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6618 ** Basic Lisp changes
6620 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6621 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6623 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6624 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6627 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6629 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6631 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6632 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6634 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6635 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6638 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6640 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6642 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6644 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6645 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6646 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6649 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6650 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6651 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6653 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6654 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6655 adding one of these suffixes.
6657 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6658 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6659 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6661 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6662 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6664 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6666 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6667 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6669 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6670 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6672 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6674 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6675 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6677 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6678 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6679 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6680 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6682 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6683 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6686 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6687 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6688 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6691 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6692 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6695 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6697 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6698 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6699 Then it returns that string.
6701 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6703 (with-output-to-string
6704 (princ "The buffer is ")
6705 (princ (buffer-name)))
6707 returns "The buffer is foo".
6709 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6712 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6713 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6714 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6716 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6717 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6719 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6720 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6721 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6722 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6723 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6724 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6726 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6727 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6728 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6731 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6732 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6733 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6734 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6735 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6737 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6738 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6739 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6740 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6742 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6743 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6745 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6747 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6748 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6749 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6750 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6753 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6754 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6757 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6759 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6760 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6761 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6762 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6763 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6765 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6767 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6768 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6769 more than the number of characters.
6771 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6772 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6773 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6774 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6775 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6776 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6778 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6779 and returns a string containing those characters.
6781 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6782 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6783 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6784 character, sref signals an error.
6786 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6787 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6788 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6790 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6791 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6792 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6794 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6795 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6796 to a vector of the characters in it.
6798 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6799 of a string. You call it as follows:
6801 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6803 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6804 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6805 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6806 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6807 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6809 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6810 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6812 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6813 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6815 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6816 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6817 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6818 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6820 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6822 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6824 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6825 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6826 are not included in the resulting value.
6828 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6829 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6830 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6831 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6833 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6834 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6835 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6836 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6837 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6838 column START-COLUMN.
6840 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6841 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6842 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6843 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6844 changed text, before the change.
6846 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6847 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6848 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6850 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6852 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6854 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6855 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6857 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6858 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6859 which identify the character within that character set.
6861 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
6862 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
6863 opposite of split-char.
6865 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
6866 of all the characters between BEG and END.
6868 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
6869 of all the characters in a string.
6871 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
6872 and specifying coding systems.
6874 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
6875 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
6876 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
6877 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
6878 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
6879 as what to do about code conversion.)
6881 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
6882 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
6884 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6885 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6886 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
6888 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6889 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
6890 to match against a file name.
6892 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6893 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6894 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6895 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6896 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6897 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6899 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6900 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6902 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
6903 the coding system to use for network sockets.
6905 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6906 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
6907 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
6910 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6911 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6912 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6913 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6914 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6915 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6917 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6918 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6920 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6921 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6922 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
6923 start the subprocess.
6925 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
6926 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
6927 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
6928 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
6929 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
6931 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
6932 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
6935 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
6936 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
6937 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
6938 connection permanently or until overridden.
6940 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
6941 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
6942 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
6943 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
6944 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
6945 system for one operation at a time.
6947 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
6948 files, subprocesses or network connections.
6950 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
6951 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
6952 The value is a cons cell,
6953 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
6954 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
6955 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
6956 input to the subprocess.
6958 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
6959 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
6961 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
6962 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
6963 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
6965 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
6966 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
6967 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
6968 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
6971 Thus, instead of writing
6973 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
6974 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
6976 you would now write this:
6978 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
6979 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
6983 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
6984 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
6985 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
6986 for a description of them.
6988 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
6989 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
6991 (defgroup ispell nil
6992 "Spell checking using Ispell."
6995 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
6996 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
6997 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
6998 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
6999 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7001 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7002 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7003 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7004 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7005 first-level subgroups.
7007 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7009 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7010 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7014 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7015 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7016 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7017 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7018 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7019 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7021 ** Text property changes
7023 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7026 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7027 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7028 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7029 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7030 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7032 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7033 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7034 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7035 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7037 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7038 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7039 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7041 ** Changes in invisibility features
7043 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7044 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7045 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7046 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7047 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7048 make the overlay visible.
7050 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7051 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7052 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7053 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7054 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7055 t when it should hide it.
7057 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7059 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7060 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7061 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7062 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7063 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7064 Here is an example of how to do this:
7066 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7067 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7068 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7069 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7072 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7075 ;; When done with the overlays:
7076 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7078 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7080 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7082 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7083 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7084 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7085 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7087 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7088 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7089 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7091 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7092 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7094 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7095 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7097 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7098 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7099 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7101 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7102 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7103 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7104 determine the syntax type of the character.
7106 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7107 of the current buffer.
7109 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7110 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7111 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7113 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7114 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7115 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7116 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7117 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7119 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7122 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7123 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7124 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7126 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7127 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7128 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7129 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7130 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7132 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7133 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7134 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7136 ** Changes in face features
7138 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7139 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7141 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7142 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7144 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7145 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7147 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7148 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7150 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7151 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7152 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7153 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7156 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7157 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7159 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7161 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7162 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7163 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7164 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7166 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7169 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7170 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7172 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7173 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7175 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7176 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7178 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7179 character code conversion as well as other things.
7181 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7182 (formerly it did not).
7184 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7185 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7187 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7188 instead of constant strings.
7190 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7191 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7192 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7194 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7195 in the same way as before.
7197 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7198 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7199 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7201 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7202 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7203 else, and returns nil.
7205 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7206 directory cannot be listed.
7208 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7210 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7211 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7212 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7213 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7216 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7217 It is available through the history command M-n.
7219 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7220 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7221 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7222 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7223 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7225 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7226 argument in this way.
7228 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7229 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7230 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7232 ** Echo area features
7234 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7235 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7236 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7237 after the echo area is cleared.
7239 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7240 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7242 ** Keyboard input features
7244 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7245 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7247 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7248 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7251 ** Frame-related changes
7253 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7254 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7255 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7257 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7258 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7259 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7261 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7262 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7263 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7264 in the selected frame.
7266 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7267 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7268 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7270 ** X Windows features
7272 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7273 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7274 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7276 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7277 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7279 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7280 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7281 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7283 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7284 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7286 ** Subprocess features
7288 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7289 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7292 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7293 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7295 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7296 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7298 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7299 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7301 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7302 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7303 goes after the other menu items.
7305 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7306 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7307 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7310 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7311 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7313 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7314 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7317 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7318 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7319 but its hook is still run.
7321 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7322 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7324 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7325 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7326 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7328 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7329 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7330 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7333 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7334 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7336 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7337 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7338 functions like display-time.
7340 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7341 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7343 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7344 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7345 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7347 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7348 if there is an error in compilation.
7350 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7351 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7352 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7353 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7355 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7356 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7357 the *scratch* buffer.
7359 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7360 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7361 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7362 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7364 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7365 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7366 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7368 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7369 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7370 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7371 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7373 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7374 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7375 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7377 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7378 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7379 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7380 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7381 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7384 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7385 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7386 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7387 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7389 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7390 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7391 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7392 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7394 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7396 ** imenu.el changes.
7398 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7399 item from menu created by imenu.
7401 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7402 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7403 select one of those items.
7405 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7407 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7409 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7410 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7412 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7413 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7414 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7416 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7418 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7419 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7421 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7422 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7423 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7424 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7425 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7428 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7429 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7431 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7432 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7433 as in previous Emacs versions.
7435 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7436 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7437 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7440 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7441 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7442 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7443 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7446 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7447 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7448 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7449 line and then executing the macro.
7451 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7453 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7454 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7455 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7460 *** Font Lock support modes
7462 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7463 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7464 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7465 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7466 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7468 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7470 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7476 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7477 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7478 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7479 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7480 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7481 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7482 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7484 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7486 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7488 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7490 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7492 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7495 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7500 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7501 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7502 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7503 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7505 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7506 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7508 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7509 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7512 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7513 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7515 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7517 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7519 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7521 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7524 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7526 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7528 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7530 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7532 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7535 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7537 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7539 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7541 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7543 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7545 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7547 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7549 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7552 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7554 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7557 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7559 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7560 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7562 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7564 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7566 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7568 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7570 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7573 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7575 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7576 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7578 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7579 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7580 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7582 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7583 articles with the `*' command.
7585 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7587 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7589 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7591 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7593 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7594 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7596 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7599 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7601 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7603 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7605 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7607 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7609 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7611 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7613 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7615 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7617 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7618 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7620 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7623 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7625 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7626 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7628 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7630 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7632 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7634 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7637 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7639 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7641 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7642 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7644 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7646 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7648 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7650 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7652 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7654 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7657 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7659 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7660 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7661 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7664 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7667 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7670 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7671 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7674 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7675 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7676 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7677 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7678 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7681 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7683 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7685 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7686 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7687 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7688 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7689 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7691 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7692 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7693 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7695 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7697 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7698 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7699 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7700 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7701 chapter of the manual for details.
7703 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7704 customization variables take effect.
7706 ** Marking with the mouse.
7708 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7709 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7710 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7712 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7714 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7716 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7717 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7719 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7720 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7721 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7722 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7723 applications, these problems are significant.
7725 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7726 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7727 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7728 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7729 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7731 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7732 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7734 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7735 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7736 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7737 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7738 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7739 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7741 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7743 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7744 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7745 minibuffer contains.
7747 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7749 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7750 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7751 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7752 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7754 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7755 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7756 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7757 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7759 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7760 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7762 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7763 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7764 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7766 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7767 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7768 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7769 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7771 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7773 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7774 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7776 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7778 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7779 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7780 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7781 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7782 immediately after the selected one.
7784 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7785 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7787 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7789 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7790 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7791 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7792 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7795 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7796 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7799 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7800 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7801 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7802 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7803 now that the bug is fixed.
7805 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7807 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7808 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7809 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7810 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7812 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7813 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7814 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7815 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7817 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7818 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7819 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7821 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7822 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7823 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7824 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7827 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7828 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7830 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7831 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7832 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7833 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7835 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7836 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7837 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7838 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7839 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7840 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7842 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7843 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7844 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7845 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7847 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7848 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7849 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7851 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7852 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7853 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7854 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7855 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7856 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7857 to a limitation in font-lock).
7859 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
7861 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
7862 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
7863 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
7866 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
7867 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
7869 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7871 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
7873 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
7875 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
7877 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
7878 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
7879 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
7880 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
7881 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
7882 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
7884 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
7887 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
7888 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
7890 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
7895 *** Global Font Lock mode
7897 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
7898 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
7899 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
7900 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
7901 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
7903 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
7905 (global-font-lock-mode t)
7909 *** Local Refontification
7911 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
7912 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
7913 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
7914 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
7916 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
7917 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
7918 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
7919 above and below point.
7921 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
7925 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
7926 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
7927 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
7928 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
7929 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
7932 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
7934 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
7935 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
7937 ** hide-show changes.
7939 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
7940 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
7943 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
7944 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
7946 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
7947 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
7948 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
7952 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
7953 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
7955 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
7956 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
7958 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
7960 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
7961 pressing both mouse buttons.
7963 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
7964 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
7967 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
7970 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
7972 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
7973 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
7975 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
7977 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
7979 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
7981 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
7983 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
7985 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
7987 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
7988 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
7989 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
7990 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
7991 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
7993 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
7995 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
7996 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
7997 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8000 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8003 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8005 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8006 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8008 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8009 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8011 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8012 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8013 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8015 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8016 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8019 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8021 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8022 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8023 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8025 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8026 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8027 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8029 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8030 up if too much time passes.
8032 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8034 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8035 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8036 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8039 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8040 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8041 call looks like this:
8043 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8045 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8046 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8047 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8050 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8051 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8054 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8055 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8056 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8057 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8059 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8060 idle for SECS seconds.
8062 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8063 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8064 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8067 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8068 there is no answer within a certain time.
8070 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8072 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8073 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8074 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8076 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8077 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8078 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8079 arguments in between are ignored.
8081 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8082 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8084 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8085 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8086 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8087 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8090 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8091 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8092 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8093 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8094 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8095 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8097 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8098 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8099 systems with limited file name syntax.
8101 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8102 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8103 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8106 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8107 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8108 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8110 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8111 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8112 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8113 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8114 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8116 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8117 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8118 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8120 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8121 marker from its buffer position.
8123 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8124 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8125 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8127 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8128 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8129 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8130 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8131 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8132 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8134 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8135 errors that happen often during editing.
8137 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8138 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8139 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8141 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8142 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8144 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8145 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8146 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8147 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8148 and not get-buffer-window.
8150 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8151 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8152 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8154 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8155 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8156 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8157 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8158 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8159 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8160 over and over for the same text.
8162 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8164 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8165 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8167 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8170 in addition to the normal
8174 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8175 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8176 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8178 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
8180 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8181 Copyright information:
8183 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8185 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8186 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8187 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8188 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8190 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8191 of this document, or of portions of it,
8192 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8193 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8197 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"