1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
46 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
47 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
48 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
51 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available.
52 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
53 automatically select it.
56 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
58 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
59 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
60 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
62 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
63 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
65 ** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used,
66 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
69 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
71 ** emacsclient changes
73 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
74 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
75 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
78 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
80 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
81 error, its exit status is 1.
84 *** Many packages have been changed to use completion-at-point rather than
85 their own completion code.
87 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
88 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
90 *** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
92 *** New completion style `substring'.
94 *** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
95 `completing-read-function'.
97 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
99 ** Internationalization changes
102 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
104 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
105 initial documentation.
107 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
108 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
110 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
111 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
112 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
113 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
114 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
115 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
117 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
118 value of paragraph base direction at point.
120 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
121 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
124 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
125 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
126 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
129 *** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts.
130 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
131 default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
132 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
133 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
134 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
135 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
137 On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
138 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
140 *** There are two new input methods for Persian/Farsi: farsi and farsi-translit.
142 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
143 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
145 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
146 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
147 is taken from the desktop settings.
149 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
150 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
151 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
154 ** ImageMagick support.
155 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
156 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
157 libraries if they are present at build time. This needs ImageMagick
158 6.2.8 or newer (versions newer than 6.0.7 _may_ work but have not been
159 tested). To disable ImageMagick support, use the configure option
160 `--without-imagemagick'.
162 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
163 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
164 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
165 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
167 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
169 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
170 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
172 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
173 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
175 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
176 with Xft. To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
177 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
179 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
181 ** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
182 ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.
184 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
185 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
187 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
188 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
189 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
190 context in their return values.
192 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
193 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
195 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
196 for remote machines which support SELinux.
199 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
200 higher-resolution time stamps.
202 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
203 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
205 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
206 If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
207 consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.
209 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
210 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
211 of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
212 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
214 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
215 scroll a line instead of full screen.
217 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
218 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
221 ** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
222 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
223 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
224 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
225 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
228 ** ``Aggressive'' scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
229 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
230 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
231 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
236 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
237 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
239 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
240 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
242 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
243 for `list-colors-display'.
245 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
246 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
247 from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.
249 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
250 selected for installation.
252 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
254 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
255 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
256 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
257 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
259 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
260 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
261 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
265 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
267 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
268 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
269 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
270 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
272 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
273 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
274 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
275 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
277 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
278 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
281 ** The use of a "mode: minor" specification in a file local variables section
282 to enable a minor-mode is deprecated. Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode)".
284 ** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
285 replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
288 ** The standalone program `fakemail' has been removed.
289 If you need it, feedmail.el ought to provide a superset of the functionality.
291 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
294 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
299 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
303 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-pop, instead of
307 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.
310 ** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.
312 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
314 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
316 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
317 also deletes newlines around point.
321 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
322 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
323 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
326 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
327 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
328 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
330 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
331 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
332 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
333 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
335 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
337 ** Selection changes.
339 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
340 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
341 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
342 use the primary selection.
344 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
345 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
347 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
348 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
349 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
350 the kill-ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
351 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
353 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
354 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
355 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
356 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
357 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
359 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
360 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
361 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
363 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
364 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
365 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
366 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
368 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
369 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
371 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
372 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
373 between applications.
375 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
377 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
378 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
379 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
380 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
381 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
383 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
385 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
386 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
387 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
389 ** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
390 directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
391 $ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
394 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
396 ** comint and modes derived from it use the generic completion code.
400 *** Compilation mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
401 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
403 *** `compilation-filter-start' is let-bound to the start of the text
404 inserted by the compilation filter function, when calling
405 compilation-filter-hook.
407 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
409 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
410 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
411 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
413 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
414 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
416 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
418 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
420 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
422 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
424 ** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
425 `browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.
427 ** `url-queue-retrieve' downloads web pages asynchronously, but allow
428 controlling the degree of parallelism.
430 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers, in certain modes
431 (eg dired, vc-dir, log-edit). For example, adding
432 "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your .dir-locals.el file,
433 will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should
434 call `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
437 ** You can prevent directory local variables from applying to subdirectories.
438 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
439 settings to indicate said section should not be applied to subdirectories.
443 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
444 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
445 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
446 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
449 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
450 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
451 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
452 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
456 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
457 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
458 exists, that is used instead.
460 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
461 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
463 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
464 You can get a comparable behavior with:
465 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
466 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
468 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
470 ** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.
472 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
475 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing `comments'.
476 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
479 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
480 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
483 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
486 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
487 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
490 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
491 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
494 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
495 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
496 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
499 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
500 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
504 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
505 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
506 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
508 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
509 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
511 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
513 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
514 choose a color via list-colors-display.
518 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
519 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
522 *** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
523 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
525 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
527 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
529 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
530 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
531 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
532 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
535 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
536 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
537 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
538 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
539 creating the session.
541 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
542 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
543 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
544 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
545 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
547 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
548 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
549 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
550 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
551 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
552 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
553 `sql-send-*' functions.
555 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
556 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
557 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
558 connection is established.
560 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
561 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
562 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
563 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
564 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
565 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
566 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
567 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
568 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
569 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
570 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
571 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
574 (database :default DEF
576 :completion COMPLETE)
579 :completion COMPLETE)
581 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
582 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
583 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
585 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
586 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
587 possible values or a function returning such a list).
589 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
590 An alist for recording different username, database and server
591 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
592 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
594 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
596 (setq sql-connection-alist
597 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
598 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
599 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
601 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
603 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
605 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
606 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
607 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
608 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
610 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
611 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
612 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
613 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
614 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
616 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
617 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
618 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
619 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
622 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
623 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
624 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
625 session and save them as a new connection.
627 *** List database objects and details.
628 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
629 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
630 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
632 **** List all objects.
633 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
634 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
635 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceding the command by
636 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
637 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
638 separate window in view-mode.
640 **** List Table details.
641 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
642 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
643 the list of columns in the relation. Preceding the command with the
644 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
645 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
647 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
648 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
649 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
651 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
652 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
653 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
654 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
655 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
657 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
658 This prevents the command interpreter for MySQL and Postgres from
659 listing object name completions when being sent text via
660 `sql-send-*' functions.
662 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
664 ** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
666 ** s-region.el and pc-select are now declared obsolete,
667 superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
668 ** pc-mode.el is also declared obsolete.
671 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
672 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
673 threads simultaneously.
677 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
678 system or session bus.
680 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
681 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
684 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
685 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
689 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
691 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
692 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
694 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
697 ** VC and related modes
699 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
700 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
701 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
702 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
704 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
706 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
708 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
709 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
710 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
711 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
713 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
715 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
716 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
717 In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
718 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
720 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
722 **** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
723 binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.
725 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
726 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
731 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
733 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
735 *** The new command `info-display-manual' will display an Info manual
736 specified by its name. If that manual is already visited in some Info
737 buffer within the current session, the command will display that
738 buffer. Otherwise, it will load the manual and display it. This is
739 handy if you have many manuals in many Info buffers, and don't
740 remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual you want to
744 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
746 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
747 and electric-layout-mode.
749 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
750 from which other modes can be derived.
752 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
754 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
755 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
756 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
757 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
760 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
761 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
763 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
764 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
766 ** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.
769 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
772 ** `char-direction-table' and the associated function `char-direction'
773 were deleted. They were buggy and inferior to the new support of
774 bidirectional editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the
775 bidirectional properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property'
776 with the last argument `bidi-class'.
778 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
779 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
780 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
781 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
783 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
784 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
785 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
786 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
788 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
789 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
790 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
793 ** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
795 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
797 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
798 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
799 programmer-visible consequences.
801 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
804 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
805 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
806 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
807 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
808 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
809 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
811 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
812 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
813 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
814 has now been removed.
816 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
818 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
820 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
821 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
822 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
823 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
824 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
825 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
826 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
829 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
831 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
832 font-lock-defaults-alist
834 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
835 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
837 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
840 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
843 *** New variable completion-extra-properties used to specify extra properties
844 of the current completion:
845 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
846 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
848 *** Functions on completion-at-point-functions can return any of the properties
849 valid for completion-extra-properties.
851 *** completion-annotate-function is obsolete.
853 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
854 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
856 ** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
857 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
858 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
859 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
860 must also be supplied.
862 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
863 The `lexical-binding' variable lets code use lexical scoping for local
864 variables. It is typically set via file-local variables, in which case it
865 applies to all the code in that file.
867 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
868 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
870 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
871 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
873 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
875 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
876 declared as dynamically bound.
878 ** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
879 Instead, the offending function is removed.
881 ** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.
883 ** `server-eval-at' is provided to allow evaluating forms on different
884 Emacs server instances.
886 ** `call-process' allows a `(:file "file")' spec to redirect STDOUT to
889 ** byte-compile-disable-print-circle is obsolete.
890 ** deferred-action-list and deferred-action-function are obsolete.
891 ** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
892 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
893 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
894 jumping all the way to the top-level.
896 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
897 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
899 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
900 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
901 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
904 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
905 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
906 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
907 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
908 Together with this new variable come a new hook
909 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
910 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
911 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
914 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
917 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
918 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
919 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
920 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
922 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
923 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
924 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
925 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
927 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
929 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
930 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
931 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
934 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
935 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
936 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
940 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
941 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
942 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
943 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
944 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
945 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
947 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
949 ** XML and HTML parsing
951 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
952 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
953 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
954 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
955 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
957 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
961 *** Emacs can be compiled with libgnutls support
962 This is the default. You will then be able to use the functionality
963 in gnutls.el, namely the `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'
964 functions. It's easiest to use these functions through
965 `open-network-stream' because it can upgrade connections through
966 STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain SSL, depending on your needs.
968 Only versions 2.8.x and higher or GnuTLS have been tested.
971 Set `gnutls-log-level' higher than 0 to get debug output. 1 is for
972 important messages, 2 is for debug data, and higher numbers are as per
973 the GnuTLS logging conventions. The output is in *Messages*.
977 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
979 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
980 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
981 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
982 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
983 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
984 displayed with a "spinning bar".
986 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
987 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
989 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook' allow
990 deferring warnings until the main command loop is executed.
993 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
995 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
998 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
999 included in binary distribution.
1001 ** New configure.bat option --without-gnutls to disable automatic
1004 ** New configure.bat option --lib for general library linkage, works
1005 with the USER_LIBS build variable.
1007 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
1010 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1011 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1013 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1014 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1015 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1016 (at your option) any later version.
1018 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1019 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1020 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1021 GNU General Public License for more details.
1023 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1024 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1029 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"