1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 1992.
2 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 This file is about changes in emacs versions 19.
9 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
13 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
15 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
16 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
18 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
19 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
20 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
24 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
26 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
27 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
29 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
30 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
31 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
32 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
33 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
36 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
37 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
39 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
40 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
41 as in previous Emacs versions.
43 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
44 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
45 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
48 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
49 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
50 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
51 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
54 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
55 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
56 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
57 line and then executing the macro.
59 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
61 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
62 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
63 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
68 *** Font Lock support modes
70 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
71 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
72 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
73 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
74 Font Lock mode is enabled.
76 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
78 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
84 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
85 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
86 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
87 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
88 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
89 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
90 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
92 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
94 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
96 To control the package behavior, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
98 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
100 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
103 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
108 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
109 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
110 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
111 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
113 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
114 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
116 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
117 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
120 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
121 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
123 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
125 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
127 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
129 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
132 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
134 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
136 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
138 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
140 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
143 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
145 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
147 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
149 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
151 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
153 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
155 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
157 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
160 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
162 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
165 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
167 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
168 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
170 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
172 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
174 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
176 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
178 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
181 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
183 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
184 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
186 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
187 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
188 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
190 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
191 articles with the `*' command.
193 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
195 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
197 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
199 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
201 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
202 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
204 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
207 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
209 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
211 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
213 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
215 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
217 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
219 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
221 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
223 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
225 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
226 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
228 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
231 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
233 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
234 buffer to allow easier treatment.
236 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
238 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
240 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
242 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
245 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
247 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
249 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
250 cited text to hide is now customizable.
252 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
254 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
256 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
258 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
260 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
262 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
266 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
268 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
269 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
270 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
273 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
276 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
279 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
280 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
283 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
284 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
285 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
286 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
287 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
292 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
294 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
296 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
297 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
298 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
299 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
300 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
302 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
303 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
304 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
306 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
308 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
309 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
310 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
311 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
312 chapter of the manual for details.
314 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
315 customization variables take effect.
317 ** Marking with the mouse.
319 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
320 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
321 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
323 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
325 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
327 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
328 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
330 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
331 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
332 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
333 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
334 applications, these problems are significant.
336 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
337 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
338 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
339 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
340 other DOS application as a subprocess.
342 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
343 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
345 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
346 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
347 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
348 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
349 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
350 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
352 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
354 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
355 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
358 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
360 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
361 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
362 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
363 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
365 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
366 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
367 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
368 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
370 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
371 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
373 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
374 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
375 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
377 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
378 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
379 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
380 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
382 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
384 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
385 to replace the characters it "deletes".
387 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
389 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
390 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
391 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
392 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
393 immediately after the selected one.
395 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
396 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
398 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
400 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
401 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
402 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
403 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
406 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
407 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
410 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
411 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
412 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
413 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
414 now that the bug is fixed.
416 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
418 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
419 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
420 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
421 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
423 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
424 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
425 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
426 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
428 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
429 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
430 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
432 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
433 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
434 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
435 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
438 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
439 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
441 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
442 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
443 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
444 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
446 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
447 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
448 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
449 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
450 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
451 `mail-directory-stream'.)
453 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
454 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
455 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
456 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
458 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
459 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
460 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
462 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
463 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
464 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
465 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
466 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
467 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
468 to a limitation in font-lock).
470 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
472 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
473 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
474 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
477 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
478 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
480 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
482 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
484 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
486 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
488 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
489 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
490 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
491 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
492 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
493 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
495 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
498 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
499 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
501 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
506 *** Global Font Lock mode
508 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
509 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
510 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
511 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
512 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
514 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
516 (global-font-lock-mode t)
520 *** Local Refontification
522 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
523 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
524 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
525 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
527 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
528 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
529 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
530 above and below point.
532 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
536 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
537 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
538 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
539 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
540 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
543 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
545 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
546 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
548 ** hide-show changes.
550 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
551 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
554 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
555 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
557 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
558 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
559 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
563 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
564 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
566 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
567 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
569 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
571 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
572 pressing both mouse buttons.
574 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
575 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
578 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
581 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
583 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
584 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
586 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
588 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
590 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
592 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
594 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
597 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
599 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
600 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
601 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
602 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
603 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
605 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
607 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
608 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
609 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
612 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
615 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
617 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
618 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
620 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
621 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
623 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
624 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
625 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
627 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
628 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
631 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
633 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
634 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
635 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
637 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
638 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
639 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
641 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
642 up if too much time passes.
644 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
646 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
647 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
648 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
651 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
652 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
653 call looks like this:
655 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
657 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
658 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
659 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
662 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
663 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
666 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
667 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
668 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
669 each time Emacs becomes idle.
671 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
672 idle for SECS seconds.
674 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
675 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
676 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
679 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
680 there is no answer within a certain time.
682 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
684 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
685 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
686 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
688 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
689 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
690 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
691 arguments in between are ignored.
693 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
694 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
696 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
697 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
698 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
699 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
702 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
703 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
704 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
705 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
706 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
707 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
709 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
710 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
711 systems with limited file name syntax.
713 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
714 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
715 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
718 (defvar save-completions-file-name
719 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
720 "*The filename to save completions to.")
722 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
723 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
724 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
725 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
726 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
728 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
729 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
730 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
732 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
733 marker from its buffer position.
735 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
736 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
737 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
739 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
740 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
741 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
742 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
743 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
744 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
746 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
747 errors that happen often during editing.
749 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
750 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
751 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
753 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
754 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
756 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
757 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
758 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
759 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
760 and not get-buffer-window.
762 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
763 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
764 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
766 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
767 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
768 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
769 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
770 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
771 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
772 over and over for the same text.
774 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
776 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
777 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
782 in addition to the normal
786 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
787 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
788 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
792 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.30.
794 ** Be sure to recompile your byte-compiled Emacs Lisp files
795 if you last compiled them with Emacs 19.28 or earlier.
796 You can use M-x byte-force-recompile to recompile all the .elc files
797 in a specified directory.
799 ** Emacs now provides multiple-frame support on Windows NT
802 ** M-x column-number-mode toggles a minor mode which displays
803 the current column number in the mode line.
805 ** Line Number mode is now enabled by default.
807 ** M-x what-line now displays the line number in the accessible
808 portion of the buffer as well as the line number in the full buffer,
809 when narrowing is in effect.
811 ** If you type a M-x command that has an equivalent key binding,
812 the equivalent is shown in the minibuffer before the command executes.
813 This feature is enabled by default for the sake of beginning users.
814 You can turn the feature off by setting suggest-key-bindings to nil.
816 ** The menu bar is now visible on text-only terminals. To choose a
817 command from the menu bar when you have no mouse, type M-`
818 (Meta-Backquote) or F10. To turn off menu bar display,
819 do (menu-bar-mode -1).
821 ** Whenever you invoke a minibuffer, it appears in the minibuffer
822 window that the current frame uses.
824 Emacs can only use one minibuffer window at a time. If you activate
825 the minibuffer while a minibuffer window is active in some other
826 frame, the outer minibuffer window disappears while the inner one is
829 ** Echo area messages always appear in the minibuffer window that the
830 current frame uses. If a minibuffer is active in some other frame,
831 the echo area message does not hide it even temporarily.
833 ** The minibuffer now has a menu-bar menu. You can use it to exit or
834 abort the minibuffer, or to ask for completion.
836 ** Dead-key and composite character processing is done in the standard
837 X11R6 manner (through the default "input method" using the
838 /usr/lib/X11/locale/*/Compose databases of key combinations). I.e. if
839 it works in xterm, it should also work in emacs now.
843 *** You can now use the mouse when running Emacs in an xterm.
844 Use M-x xterm-mouse-mode to let emacs take control over the mouse.
846 *** C-mouse-1 now once again provides a menu of buffers to select.
847 S-mouse-1 is now the way to select a default font for the frame.
849 *** There is a new mouse-scroll-min-lines variable to control the
850 minimum number of lines scrolled by dragging the mouse outside a
853 *** Dragging mouse-1 on a vertical line that separates windows
854 now moves the line, thus changing the widths of the two windows.
855 (This feature is available only if you don't have vertical scroll bars.
856 If you do use them, a scroll bar separates two side-by-side windows.)
858 *** Double-click mouse-1 on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as
859 underscore, in C mode) selects the entire symbol surrounding that
860 character. (Double-click mouse-1 on a letter selects a whole word.)
862 ** When incremental search wraps around to the beginning (or end) of
863 the buffer, if you keep on searching until you go past the original
864 starting point of the search, the echo area changes from "Wrapped" to
865 "Overwrapped". That tells you that you are revisiting matches that
866 you have already seen.
870 *** If the variable colon-double-space is non-nil, the explicit fill
871 commands put two spaces after a colon.
873 *** Auto-Fill mode now supports Adaptive Fill mode just as the
874 explicit fill commands do. The variable adaptive-fill-regexp
875 specifies a regular expression to match text at the beginning of
876 a line that should be the fill prefix.
878 *** Adaptive Fill mode can take a fill prefix from the first line of a
879 paragraph, *provided* that line is not a paragraph-starter line.
881 Paragraph-starter lines are indented lines that start a new
882 paragraph because they are indented. This indentation shouldn't
883 be copied to additional lines.
885 Whether indented lines are paragraph lines depends on the value of the
886 variable paragraph-start. Some major modes set this; you can set it
887 by hand or in mode hooks as well. For editing text in which paragraph
888 first lines are not indented, and which contains paragraphs in which
889 all lines are indented, you should use Indented Text mode or arrange
890 for paragraph-start not to match these lines.
892 *** You can specify more complex ways of choosing a fill prefix
893 automatically by setting `adaptive-fill-function'. This function
894 is called with point after the left margin of a line, and it should
895 return the appropriate fill prefix based on that line.
896 If it returns nil, that means it sees no fill prefix in that line.
900 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has been rewritten and expanded. Most
901 things that worked with the old version should still work with the new
902 version. Code that relies heavily on Gnus internals is likely to
905 *** Incompatibilities with the old GNUS.
907 **** All interactive commands have kept their names, but many internal
908 functions have changed names.
910 **** The summary mode gnus-uu commands have been moved from the `C-c
911 C-v' keymap to the `X' keymap.
913 **** There can now be several summary buffers active at once.
914 Variables that are relevant to each summary buffer are buffer-local to
917 **** Old hilit code doesn't work at all. Gnus performs its own
918 highlighting based not only on what's visible in the buffer, but on
919 other data structures.
921 **** Old packages like `expire-kill' will no longer work.
923 **** `C-c C-l' in the group buffer no longer switches to a different
924 buffer, but instead lists killed groups in the group buffer.
928 **** The look of all buffers can be changed by setting format-like
931 **** Local spool and several NNTP servers can be used at once.
933 **** Groups can be combined into virtual groups.
935 **** Different mail formats can be read much the same way as one would
936 read newsgroups. All the mail backends implement mail expiry schemes.
938 **** Gnus can use various strategies for gathering threads that have
939 lost their roots (thereby gathering loose sub-threads into one thread)
940 or it can go back and retrieve enough headers to build a complete
943 **** Killed groups can be read.
945 **** Gnus can do partial group updates - you do not have to retrieve
946 the entire active file just to check for new articles in a few groups.
948 **** Gnus implements a sliding scale of subscribedness to groups.
950 **** You can score articles according to any number of criteria. You
951 can get Gnus to score articles for you using adaptive scoring.
953 **** Gnus maintains a dribble buffer that is auto-saved the normal
954 Emacs manner, so it should be difficult to lose much data on what you
955 have read if your machine should go down.
957 **** Gnus now has its own startup file (`.gnus.el') to avoid
958 cluttering up the `.emacs' file.
960 **** You can set the process mark on both groups and articles and
961 perform operations on all the marked items.
963 **** You can grep through a subset of groups and create a group from
966 **** You can list subsets of groups using matches on group names or
969 **** You can browse foreign servers and subscribe to groups from those
972 **** Gnus can pre-fetch articles asynchronously on a second connection
975 **** You can cache articles locally.
977 **** Gnus can fetch FAQs to and descriptions of groups.
979 **** Digests (and other files) can be used as the basis for groups.
981 **** Articles can be highlighted and customized.
983 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
985 *** General changes (all backends).
987 VC directory listings (C-x v d) are now kept up to date when you do a
988 vc-next-action (C-x v v) on the marked files. The `g' command updates
989 the buffer properly. `=' in a VC dired buffer produces a version
990 control diff, not an ordinary diff.
994 Under CVS, you no longer need to type C-x C-q before you can edit a
995 file. VC doesn't write-protect unmodified buffers anymore; you can
996 freely change them at any time. The mode line keeps track of the
999 If you do want unmodified files to be write-protected, set your
1000 CVSREAD environment variable. VC sees this and behaves accordingly;
1001 that will give you the behavior of Emacs 19.29, similar to that under
1002 RCS and SCCS. In this mode, if the variable vc-mistrust-permissions
1003 is nil, VC learns the modification state from the file permissions.
1004 When setting CVSREAD for the first time, you should check out the
1005 whole module anew, so that the file permissions are set correctly.
1007 VC also works with remote repositories now. When you visit a file, it
1008 doesn't run "cvs status" anymore, so there shouldn't be any long delays.
1010 Directory listings under VC/CVS have been enhanced. Type C-x v d, and
1011 you get a list of all files in or below the current directory that are
1012 not up-to-date. The actual status (modified, merge, conflict, ...) is
1013 displayed for each file. If you give a prefix argument (C-u C-x v d),
1014 up-to-date files are also listed. You can mark any number of files,
1015 and execute the next logical version control command on them (C-x v v).
1017 *** Starting a new branch.
1019 If you try to lock a version that is not the latest on its branch,
1020 VC asks for confirmation in the minibuffer. If you say no, it offers
1021 to lock the latest version instead.
1023 *** RCS non-strict locking.
1025 VC can now handle RCS non-strict locking, too. In this mode, working
1026 files are always writable and you needn't lock the file before making
1027 changes, similar to the default mode under CVS. To enable non-strict
1028 locking for a file, use the "rcs -U" command.
1030 *** Sharing RCS master files.
1032 If you share RCS subdirs with other users (through symbolic links),
1033 and you always want to work on the latest version, set
1034 vc-consult-headers to nil and vc-mistrust-permissions to `t'.
1035 Then you see the state of the *latest* version on the mode line, not
1036 that of your working file. When you do a check out, VC overwrites
1037 your working file with the latest version from the master.
1039 *** RCS customization.
1041 There is a new variable vc-consult-headers. If it is t (the default),
1042 VC searches for RCS headers in working files (like `$Id$') and
1043 determines the state of the file from them, not from the master file.
1044 This is fast and more reliable when you use branches. (The variable
1045 was already present in Emacs 19.29, but didn't get mentioned in the
1048 ** Calendar changes.
1050 *** New calendars supported: Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic
1052 Here are the commands for converting to and from these calendars:
1054 gC: calendar-goto-chinese-date
1055 gk: calendar-goto-coptic-date
1056 ge: calendar-goto-ethiopic-date
1058 pC: calendar-print-chinese-date
1059 pk: calendar-print-coptic-date
1060 pe: calendar-print-ethiopic-date
1062 *** Printed calendars
1064 Calendar mode now has commands to produce fancy printed calendars via
1065 LaTeX. You can ask for a calendar for one or more days, weeks, months
1066 or years. The commands all start with `t'; see the manual for a list
1069 *** New sexp diary entry type
1071 Reminders that apply in the days leading up to an event.
1073 ** The CC-mode package now provides the default C and C++ modes.
1074 See the manual for documentation of its features.
1076 ** The uniquify package chooses buffer names differently when you
1077 visit multiple files with the same name (in different directories).
1079 ** RMAIL now always uses the movemail program when it renames an
1080 inbox file, so that it can interlock properly with the mailer
1081 no matter where it is delivering mail.
1083 ** tex-start-of-header and tex-end-of-header are now regular expressions,
1086 ** To enable automatic uncompression of compressed files,
1087 type M-x auto-compression-mode. (This command used to be called
1088 toggle-auto-compression, but was not documented before.) In Lisp,
1091 (auto-compression-mode 1)
1093 to turn the mode on.
1095 ** The new pc-select package emulates the key bindings for cutting and
1096 pasting, and selection of regions, found in Windows, Motif, and the
1099 ** Help buffers now use a special major mode, Help mode. This mode
1100 normally turns on View mode; it also provides a hook, help-mode-hook,
1101 which you can use for other customization.
1103 ** Apropos now uses faces for enhanced legibility. It now describes
1104 symbol properties as well as their function definitions and variable
1105 values. You can use Mouse-2 or RET to get more information about a
1106 function definition, variable, or property.
1110 *** Supports Scheme, TCL and Help modes
1112 For example, to automatically turn on Font Lock mode in the *Help*
1115 (add-hook 'help-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
1119 *** Enhanced fontification
1121 The structure of font-lock-keywords is extended to allow "anchored" keywords.
1122 Typically, a keyword item of font-lock-keywords comprises a regexp to search
1123 for and information to specify how the regexp should be highlighted. However,
1124 the highlighting information is extended so that it can be another keyword
1125 item. This keyword item, its regexp and highlighting information, is processed
1126 before resuming with the keyword item of which it is part.
1128 For example, a typical keyword item might be:
1130 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face))
1132 which fontifies each occurrence of the discrete word "anchor" in the value of
1133 the variable anchor-face. However, the highlighting information can be used to
1134 fontify text that is anchored to the word "anchor". For example:
1136 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face) ("\\=[ ,]*\\(item\\)" nil nil (1 item-face)))
1138 which fontifies each occurrence of "anchor" as above, but for each occurrence
1139 of "anchor", each occurrence of "item", in any following comma separated list,
1140 is fontified in the value of the variable item-face. Thus the "item" text is
1141 anchored to the "anchor" text. See the variable documentation for further
1144 This feature is used to extend the level and quality of fontification in a
1145 number of modes. For example, C/C++ modes now have level 3 decoration that
1146 includes the fontification of variable and function names in declaration lists.
1147 In this instance, the "anchor" described in the above example is a type or
1148 class name, and an "item" is a variable or function name.
1150 *** Fontification levels
1152 The variables font-lock-maximum-decoration and font-lock-maximum-size are
1153 extended to specify levels and sizes for specific modes. The variable
1154 font-lock-maximum-decoration specifies the preferred level of fontification for
1155 modes that provide multiple levels (typically from "subdued" to "gaudy"). The
1156 variable font-lock-maximum-size specifies the buffer size for which buffer
1157 fontification is suppressed when Font Lock mode is turned on (typically because
1158 it would take too long).
1160 These variables can now specify values for individual modes, by supplying
1161 lists of mode names and values. For example, to use the above mentioned level
1162 3 decoration for buffers in C/C++ modes, and default decoration otherwise, put:
1164 (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration '((c-mode . 3) (c++-mode . 3)))
1166 in your ~/.emacs. Maximum buffer size values for individual modes are
1167 specified in the same way with the variable font-lock-maximum-size.
1169 *** Font Lock configuration
1171 The mechanism to provide default settings for Font Lock mode are the variables
1172 font-lock-defaults and font-lock-maximum-decoration. Typically, you should
1173 only need to change the value of font-lock-maximum-decoration. However, to
1174 support Font Lock mode for buffers in modes that currently do not support Font
1175 Lock mode, you should set a buffer local value of font-lock-defaults for that
1176 mode, typically via its mode hook.
1178 These variables are used by Font Lock mode to set the values of the variables
1179 font-lock-keywords, font-lock-keywords-only, font-lock-syntax-table,
1180 font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function and font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search.
1182 You need not set these variables directly, and should not set them yourself
1183 since the underlining mechanism may change in future.
1185 ** Archive mode is now the default mode for various sorts of
1186 archive files (files whose names end with .arc, .lzh, .zip, and .zoo).
1188 ** You can automatically update the years in copyright notice by
1189 means of (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'copyright-update).
1190 Optionally it can update the GPL version as well.
1192 ** Scripts of various languages (Shell, AWK, Perl, makefiles ...) can
1193 be automatically provided with a magic number and be made executable
1194 by their respective modes under control of various user variables.
1195 The mode must call (executable-set-magic "perl") or
1196 (executable-set-magic "make" "-f"). The latter for example has no
1197 effect on [Mm]akefile.
1199 ** Shell script mode now supports over 15 different shells. The new
1200 command C-c ! executes the region, and optionally beginning of script
1201 as well, by passing them to the shell.
1203 Cases such as `sh' being a `bash' are now accounted for.
1204 Fontification now also does variables, the magic number and all
1205 builtin commands. Shell script mode no longer mingles `tab-width' and
1206 indentation style. The variable `sh-tab-width' has been renamed to
1207 `sh-indentation'. Empty lines are now indented like previous
1208 non-empty line, rather than just previous line.
1210 The annoying $ variable prompting has been eliminated. Instead, shell
1211 script mode uses `comint-dynamic-completion' for commands, variables
1214 ** Two-column mode now automatically scrolls both buffers together,
1215 which makes it possible to eliminate the special scrolling commands
1218 The commands that operate in two-column mode are no longer bound to
1219 keys outside that mode. f2 o will now position at the same point in
1222 the new command f2 RET inserts a newline in both buffers, at point and
1223 at the corresponding position in the associated buffer.
1225 ** Skeleton commands now work smoothly as abbrev definitions. The
1226 element < no longer exists, ' is a new element.
1228 ** The autoinsert insert facility for prefilling empty files as soon
1229 as they are found has been extended to accommodate skeletons or calling
1230 functions. See the function auto-insert.
1234 Loading tpu-edt no longer turns on tpu-edt mode. In fact, it is no
1235 longer necessary to explicitly load tpu-edt. All you need to do to
1236 turn on tpu-edt is run the tpu-edt function. Here's how to run
1237 tpu-edt instead of loading the file:
1239 Running Emacs: Type emacs -f tpu-edt
1240 not emacs -l tpu-edt
1242 Within Emacs: Type M-x tpu-edt <ret>
1243 not M-x load-library <ret> tpu-edt <ret>
1245 In .emacs: Use (tpu-edt)
1246 not (load "tpu-edt")
1248 The default name of the tpu-edt X key definition file has changed from
1249 ~/.tpu-gnu-keys to ~/.tpu-keys. If you don't rename the file yourself,
1250 tpu-edt will offer to rename it the first time you invoke it under
1253 ** MS-DOS Enhancements:
1255 *** Better mouse control by adding the following functions [in dosfns.c]
1256 msdos-mouse-enable, msdos-mouse-disable, msdos-mouse-init.
1258 *** If another foreground/background color than the default is setup in
1259 your ~/_emacs, then the screen briefly flickers with the default
1260 colors before changing to the colors you have specified. To avoid
1261 this, the EMACSCOLORS environment variable exists. It shall be
1262 defined as a string with the following elements:
1264 set EMACSCOLORS=fb;fb
1266 The first set of "fb" defines the initial foreground and background
1267 colors using standard dos color numbers (0=black,.., 7=white).
1268 If specified, the second set of "fb" defines the colors which are
1269 restored when you leave emacs.
1271 *** The new SUSPEND environment variable can now be set as the shell to
1272 use when suspending emacs. This can be used to override the stupid
1273 limitation on the environment of sub-shells in MS-DOS (they are just
1274 large enough to hold the currently defined variables, not leaving
1275 room for more); to overcome this limitation, add this to autoexec.bat:
1277 set SUSPEND=%COMSPEC% /E:2000
1279 ** The escape character can now be displayed on X frames. Try
1281 (aset standard-display-table 27 (vector 27))
1282 after first creating a display table (you can do that by loading
1283 the disp-table library).
1285 ** The new command-line option --eval specifies an expression to evaluate
1286 from the command line.
1288 ** etags has now the ability to tag Perl files. They are recognised
1289 either by the .pm and .pl suffixes or by a first line which starts
1290 with `#!' and specifies a Perl interpreter. The tagged lines are
1291 those beginning with the `sub' keyword.
1293 New suffixes recognised are .hpp for C++; .f90 for Fortran; .bib,
1294 .ltx, .TeX for TeX (.bbl, .dtx removed); .ml for Lisp; .prolog for
1295 prolog (.pl is now Perl).
1297 ** The files etc/termcap.dat and etc/termcap.ucb have been replaced
1298 with a new, merged, and much more comprehensive termcap file. The
1299 new file should include all the special entries from the old one.
1300 This new file is under active development as part of the ncurses
1301 project. If you have any questions about this file, or problems with
1302 an entry in it, email terminfo@ccil.org.
1305 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.30.
1309 *** There is a new data type called a char-table which is an array
1310 indexed by a character. Currently this is mostly equivalent to a
1311 vector of length 256, but in the future, when a wider character set is
1312 in use, it will be different. To create one, call
1313 (make-char-table SUBTYPE INITIAL-VALUE)
1315 SUBTYPE is a symbol that identifies the specific use of this
1316 character table. It can be any of these values:
1320 keyboard-translate-table
1323 The function `char-table-subtype' returns the subtype of a char-table.
1324 You cannot alter the subtype of an existing char-table.
1326 A char-table has an element for each character code. It also has some
1327 "extra slots". The number of extra slots depends on the subtype and
1328 their use depends on the subtype. (Each subtype symbol has a
1329 `char-table-extra-slots' property that says how many extra slots to
1330 make.) Use (char-table-extra-slot TABLE N) to access extra slot N and
1331 (set-char-table-extra-slot TABLE N VALUE) to store VALUE in slot N.
1333 A char-table T can have a parent, which should be another char-table
1334 P. If you look for the value in T for character C, and the table T
1335 actually holds nil, P's element for character C is used instead.
1336 The functions `char-table-parent' and `set-char-table-parent'
1337 let you read or set the parent of a char-table.
1339 To scan all the values in a char-table, do not try to loop through all
1340 possible character codes. That would work for now, but will not work
1341 in the future. Instead, call map-char-table. (map-char-table
1342 FUNCTION TABLE) calls FUNCTION once for each character or character
1343 set that has a distinct value in TABLE. FUNCTION gets two arguments,
1344 RANGE and VALUE. RANGE specifies a range of TABLE that has one
1345 uniform value, and VALUE is the value in TABLE for that range.
1347 Currently, RANGE is always a vector containing a single character
1348 and it refers to that character alone. In the future, other kinds
1349 of ranges will occur. You can set the value for a given range
1350 with (set-char-table-range TABLE RANGE VALUE) and examine the value
1351 for a range with (char-table-range TABLE RANGE).
1353 *** Syntax tables are now represented as char-tables.
1354 All syntax tables other than the standard syntax table
1355 normally have the standard syntax table as their parent.
1356 Their subtype is `syntax-table'.
1358 *** Display tables are now represented as char-tables.
1359 Their subtype is `display-table'.
1361 *** Case tables are now represented as char-tables.
1362 Their subtype is `case-table'.
1364 *** The value of keyboard-translate-table may now be a char-table
1365 instead of a string. Normally the char-tables used for this purpose
1366 have the subtype `keyboard-translate-table', but that is not required.
1368 *** A new data type called a bool-vector is a vector of values
1369 that are either t or nil. To create one, do
1370 (make-bool-vector LENGTH INITIAL-VALUE)
1372 ** You can now specify, for each marker, how it should relocate when
1373 text is inserted at the place where the marker points. This is called
1374 the "insertion type" of the marker.
1376 To set the insertion type, do (set-marker-insertion-type MARKER TYPE).
1377 If TYPE is t, it means the marker advances when text is inserted. If
1378 TYPE is nil, it means the marker does not advance. (In Emacs 19.29,
1379 markers did not advance.)
1381 The function marker-insertion-type reports the insertion type of a
1382 given marker. The function copy-marker takes a second argument TYPE
1383 which specifies the insertion type of the new copied marker.
1385 ** When you create an overlay, you can specify the insertion type of
1386 the beginning and of the end. To do this, you can use two new
1387 arguments to make-overlay: front-advance and rear-advance.
1389 ** The new function overlays-in returns a list of the overlays that
1390 overlap a specified range of the buffer. The returned list includes
1391 empty overlays at the beginning of this range, as well as within the
1394 ** The new hook window-scroll-functions is run when a window has been
1395 scrolled. The functions in this list are called just before
1396 redisplay, after the new window-start has been computed. Each function
1397 is called with two arguments--the window that has been scrolled, and its
1398 new window-start position.
1400 This hook is useful for on-the-fly fontification and other features
1401 that affect how the redisplayed text will look when it is displayed.
1403 The window-end value of the window is not valid when these functions
1404 are called. The computation of window-end is byproduct of actual
1405 redisplay of the window contents, which means it has not yet happened
1406 when the hook is run. Computing window-end specially in advance for
1407 the sake of these functions would cause a slowdown.
1409 The hook functions can determine where the text on the window will end
1410 by calling vertical-motion starting with the window-start position.
1412 ** The new hook redisplay-end-trigger-functions is run whenever
1413 redisplay in window uses text that extends past a specified end
1414 trigger position. You set the end trigger position with the function
1415 set-window-redisplay-end-trigger. The functions are called with two
1416 arguments: the window, and the end trigger position. Storing nil for
1417 the end trigger position turns off the feature, and the trigger value
1418 is automatically reset to nil just after the hook is run.
1420 You can use the function window-redisplay-end-trigger to read a
1421 window's current end trigger value.
1423 ** The new function insert-file-contents-literally inserts the
1424 contents of a file without any character set translation or decoding.
1426 ** The new function safe-length computes the length of a list.
1427 It never gets an error--it treats any non-list like nil.
1428 If given a circular list, it returns an upper bound for the number
1429 of elements before the circularity.
1431 ** replace-match now takes a fifth argument, SUBEXP. If SUBEXP is
1432 non-nil, that says to replace just subexpression number SUBEXP of the
1433 regexp that was matched, not the entire match. For example, after
1434 matching `foo \(ba*r\)' calling replace-match with 1 as SUBEXP means
1435 to replace just the text that matched `\(ba*r\)'.
1437 ** The new keymap special-event-map defines bindings for certain
1438 events that should be handled at a very low level--as soon as they
1439 are read. The read-event function processes these events itself,
1440 and never returns them.
1442 Events that are handled in this way do not echo, they are never
1443 grouped into key sequences, and they never appear in the value of
1444 last-command-event or (this-command-keys). They do not discard a
1445 numeric argument, they cannot be unread with unread-command-events,
1446 they may not appear in a keyboard macro, and they are not recorded
1447 in a keyboard macro while you are defining one.
1449 These events do, however, appear in last-input-event immediately after
1450 they are read, and this is the way for the event's definition to find
1453 The events types iconify-frame, make-frame-visible and delete-frame
1454 are normally handled in this way.
1456 ** encode-time now supports simple date arithmetic by means of
1457 out-of-range values for its SEC, MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, and MONTH
1458 arguments; for example, day 0 means the day preceding the given month.
1459 Also, the ZONE argument can now be a TZ-style string.
1461 ** command-execute and call-interactively now accept an optional third
1462 argument KEYS. If specified and non-nil, this specifies the key
1463 sequence containing the events that were used to invoke the command.
1465 ** The environment variable NAME, if set, now specifies the value of
1466 (user-full-name), when Emacs starts up.
1470 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.29
1472 ** If you run out of memory.
1474 If you get the error message "Virtual memory exhausted", type C-x s.
1475 That way of saving files has the least additional memory needs. Emacs
1476 19.29 keeps a reserve of memory which it makes available when this
1477 error happens; that is to ensure that C-x s can complete its work.
1479 Once you have saved your data, you can exit and restart Emacs, or use
1480 M-x kill-some-buffers to free up space. If you kill buffers
1481 containing a substantial amount of text, you can go on editing.
1483 Do not use M-x buffer-menu to save or kill buffers when you are out of
1484 memory, because that needs a fair amount memory itself and you may not
1485 have enough to get it started.
1487 ** The format of compiled files has changed incompatibly.
1489 Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19.29 normally use a new format
1490 that will not work in older Emacs versions. You can compile files
1491 in the old format if you wish; see "Changes in compilation," below.
1493 ** Emacs 19.29 supports the DEC Alpha.
1495 ** Emacs runs on Windows NT.
1497 This port does not yet support windowing features. It works like a
1498 text-only terminal, but it does support a mouse.
1500 In general, support for non-GNU-like operating systems is not a high
1501 priority for the GNU project. We merged in the support for Windows NT
1502 because that system is expected to be very widely used.
1504 ** Emacs supports Motif widgets.
1506 You can build Emacs with Motif widgets by specifying --with-x-toolkit=motif
1507 when you run configure.
1509 Motif defines collections of windows called "tab groups", and uses the
1510 tab key and the cursor keys to move between windows in a tab group.
1511 Emacs naturally does not support this--it has other uses for the tab
1512 key and cursor keys. Emacs does not support Motif accelerators either,
1513 because it uses its normal keymap event binding features.
1515 We give higher priority to operation with a free widget set than to
1516 operation with a proprietary one.
1518 ** If Emacs or the computer crashes, you can recover all the files you
1519 were editing from their auto save files by typing M-x recover-session.
1520 This first shows you a list of recorded interrupted sessions. Move
1521 point to the one you choose, and type C-c C-c.
1523 Then recover-session asks about each of the files that were being
1524 edited during that session, asking whether to recover that file. If
1525 you answer y, it calls recover-file, which works in its normal
1526 fashion. It shows the dates of the original file and its auto-save
1527 file and asks once again whether to recover that file.
1529 When recover-session is done, the files you've chosen to recover
1530 are present in Emacs buffers. You should then save them.
1531 Only this--saving them--updates the files themselves.
1533 ** Menu bar menus now stay up if you click on the menu bar item and
1534 release the mouse button within a certain amount of time. This is in
1535 the X Toolkit version.
1537 ** The menu bar menus have been rearranged and split up to make for a
1538 better organization. Two new menu bar menus, Tools and Search,
1539 contain items that were formerly in the Files and Edit menus, as well
1540 as some that did not exist in the menu bar menus before.
1542 ** Emacs can now display on more than one X display at the same time.
1543 Use the command make-frame-on-display to create a frame, specifying
1544 which display to use.
1546 ** M-x talk-connect sets up a multi-user talk connection
1547 via Emacs. Specify the X display of the person you want to talk to.
1548 You can talk to any number of people (within reason) by using
1549 this command repeatedly to specify different people.
1551 Emacs does not make a fuss about security; the people who you talk to
1552 can use all Emacs features, including visiting and editing files. If
1553 this frightens you, don't use M-x talk-connect.
1555 ** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
1556 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
1559 ** When you start Emacs, you can now specify option names in
1560 long GNU form (starting with `--') and you can abbreviate the names.
1562 You can now specify the options in any order.
1563 The previous requirements about the order of options
1564 have been eliminated.
1566 The -L or --directory option lets you specify an additional
1567 directory to search for Lisp libraries (including libraries
1568 that you specify with the -l or --load options).
1570 ** Incremental search in Transient Mark mode, if the mark is already
1571 active, now leaves the mark active and does not change its position.
1572 You can make incremental search deactivate the mark once again with
1575 (add-hook 'isearch-mode-hook 'deactivate-mark)
1577 ** C-delete now deletes a word backwards. This is for compatibility
1578 with some editors in the PC world. (This key is not available on
1579 ordinary ASCII terminals, because C-delete is not a distinct character
1580 on those terminals.)
1582 ** ESC ESC ESC is now a command to escape from various temporary modes
1585 ** M-x pc-bindings-mode sets up bindings compatible with many PC editors.
1586 In particular, Delete and its variants delete forward instead of backward.
1587 Use Backspace to delete backward.
1589 C-Backspace kills backward a word (as C-Delete normally would).
1590 M-Backspace does undo.
1591 Home and End move to beginning and end of line
1592 C-Home and C-End move to beginning and end of buffer.
1594 ** The key sequence for evaluating a Lisp expression using the minibuffer
1595 is now ESC :. It used to be ESC ESC, but we moved it to make way for
1596 the ESC ESC ESC feature, on the grounds that people who evaluate Lisp
1597 expressions are experienced users and can cope with a change.
1598 If you prefer the old ESC ESC binding, put in your `~/.emacs':
1600 (global-set-key "\e\e" 'eval-expression)
1602 ** The f1 function key is now equivalent to the help key. This is
1603 done with key-translation-map; delete the binding for f1 in that map
1604 if you want to use f1 for something else.
1606 ** Mouse-3, in the simplest case, still sets the region. But now, it
1607 places the mark where point was, and sets point where you click.
1608 (It used to set the mark where you click and leave point alone.)
1610 If you position point with Mouse-1, then scroll with the scroll bar
1611 and use Mouse-3, Mouse-3 uses the position you specified with Mouse-1
1612 even if it has scrolled off the screen (and point is no longer there).
1613 This makes it easier to select a region with the mouse which is bigger
1616 Any editing of the buffer, and any cursor motion or scrolling for any
1617 reason other than the scroll bar, cancels the special state set up by
1618 Mouse-1--so that a subsequent Mouse-3 click will use the actual value
1621 ** C-mouse-3 now pops up a mode-specific menu of commands--normally
1622 the same ones available in the mode's own menu bar menus.
1624 ** C-mouse-2 now pops up a menu of faces, indentation, justification,
1625 and certain other text properties. This menu is also available
1626 through the menu-bar Edit menu. It is meant for use with Enriched
1629 *** You can use this menu to change the face of the region.
1630 You can also set the face of the region with the new M-g command.
1632 *** The menu also includes commands for indenting the region,
1633 which locally changes the values of left-margin and fill-column that
1636 *** All fill functions now indent every line to the left-margin. If
1637 there is also a fill-prefix, that goes after the margin indentation.
1639 *** Open-line and newline also make sure that the lines they create
1640 are indented to the left margin.
1642 *** It also allows you to set the "justification" of the region:
1643 whether it should be centered, flush right, and so forth. The fill
1644 functions (including auto-fill-mode) will maintain the justification
1645 and indentation that you request.
1647 *** The new function `list-colors-display' shows you what colors are
1648 available. This is also accessible from the C-mouse-2 menu.
1650 ** You can now save and load files including their faces and other
1651 text-properties by using Enriched-mode. Files are saved in an
1652 extended version of the MIME text/enriched format. You can use the
1653 menus described above, or M-g and other keyboard commands, to
1654 alter the formatting information.
1656 ** C-mouse-1 now pops up the menu for changing the frame's default font.
1658 ** You can input Hyper, Super, Meta, and Alt characters, as well as
1659 non-ASCII control characters, on an ASCII-only terminal.
1669 These are not ordinary key sequences; they operate through
1670 function-key-map, which means they can be used even in the
1671 middle of an ordinary key sequence.
1673 ** Outline minor mode and Hideif mode now use C-c @ as their prefix
1676 ** Echo area messages are now logged in the "*Messages*" buffer. The
1677 size of this buffer is limited to message-log-max lines.
1679 ** RET in various special modes for read-only buffers that contain
1680 lists of items now selects the item point is on. These modes include
1681 Dired, Compilation buffers, Buffer-menu, Tar mode, and Occur mode.
1682 (In Info, RET follows the reference near point; in completion list
1683 buffers, RET chooses the completion around point.)
1685 ** set-background-color now updates the modeline face in a special
1686 way. If that face was previously set up to be reverse video, the
1687 reverse of the default face, then set-background-color updates it so
1688 that it remains the reverse of the default face.
1690 ** The functions raise-frame and lower-frame are now commands.
1691 When used interactively, they apply to the selected frame.
1693 ** M-x buffer-menu now displays the buffer list in the selected window.
1694 Use M-x buffer-menu-other-window to display it in another window.
1696 ** M-w followed by a kill command now *does not* append the text in
1697 the kill ring. In consequence, M-w followed by C-w works as you would
1698 expect: it leaves the top of the kill ring matching the region that
1701 ** In Lisp mode, the C-M-x command now executes defvar forms in a
1702 special way: it unconditionally sets the variable to the specified
1703 default value, if there is one. Normal execution of defvar does not
1704 alter the variable if it already has a non-void value.
1706 ** In completion list buffers, the left and right arrow keys run the
1707 new commands previous-completion and next-completion. They move one
1708 completion at a time.
1710 ** While doing completion in the minibuffer, the `prior' or `pageup'
1711 key switches to the completion list window.
1713 ** When you exit the minibuffer with empty contents, the empty string
1714 is not put in the minibuffer history.
1716 ** The default buffer for insert-buffer is now the "first" buffer
1717 other than the current one. If you have more than one window, this
1718 is a buffer visible in another window. (Usually it is the buffer
1719 that C-M-v would scroll.)
1721 ** The etags program is now capable of recording tags based on regular
1722 expressions provided on the command line.
1724 This new feature allows easy support for constructs not normally
1725 handled by etags, such as the macros frequently used in big C/C++
1726 projects to define project-specific structures. It also enables the
1727 use of etags and TAGS files for languages not supported by etags.
1729 The Emacs manual section on Tags contains explanations and examples
1730 for Emacs's DEFVAR, VHDL, Cobol, Postscript and TCL.
1732 ** Various mode-specific commands that used to be bound to C-c LETTER
1735 *** In gnus-uu mode, gnus-uu-interactive-scan-directory is now on C-c C-d,
1736 and gnus-uu-interactive-save-current-file is on C-c C-z.
1738 *** In Scribe mode, scribe-insert-environment is now on C-c C-v,
1739 scribe-chapter is on C-c C-c, scribe-subsection is on C-c C-s,
1740 scribe-section is on C-c C-t, scribe-bracket-region-be is on C-c C-e,
1741 scribe-italicize-word is on C-c C-i, scribe-bold-word is on C-c C-b,
1742 and scribe-underline-word is on C-c C-u.
1744 *** In Gomoku mode, gomoku-human-takes-back is now on C-c C-b,
1745 gomoku-human-plays is on C-c C-p, gomoku-human-resigns is on C-c C-r,
1746 and gomoku-emacs-plays is on C-c C-e.
1748 *** In the Outline mode defined in allout.el,
1749 outline-rebullet-current-heading is now on C-c *.
1751 ** M-s in Info now searches through the nodes of the Info file,
1752 just like s. The alias M-s was added so that you can use the same
1753 command for searches in both Info and Rmail.
1755 ** iso-acc.el now lets you enter inverted-! and inverted-?
1756 with the sequences ~! and ~?.
1758 ** M-x compare-windows now pushes mark in both windows before
1759 it starts moving point.
1761 ** There are two new commands in Dired, A (dired-do-search)
1762 and Q (dired-do-query-replace). These are similar to tags-search and
1763 tags-query-replace, but instead of searching the list of files that
1764 appears in a tags table, they search all the files marked in Dired.
1766 ** Changes to dabbrev.
1768 A new function, `dabbrev-completion' (bound to M-C-/), expands the
1769 unique part of an abbreviation.
1771 Dabbrev now looks for expansions in other buffers, looks for symbols
1772 instead of words and it works in the minibuffer.
1774 Dabbrev can be customized to work for shell scripts, with variables
1775 that sometimes have and sometimes haven't a leading "$". See the
1776 variable 'dabbrev-abbrev-skip-leading-regexp'.
1778 ** In Rmail, the command rmail-input-menu has been eliminated. The
1779 feature of selecting an Rmail file from a menu is now implemented in
1782 ** Bookmarks changes.
1784 *** It now works to set bookmarks in Info nodes.
1786 *** Bookmarks can have annotations; type "C-h m" after doing
1787 "M-x list-bookmarks", for more information on annotations.
1789 *** The bookmark-jump popup menu function is now `bookmark-menu-jump', for
1790 those who bind it to a mouse click.
1792 *** The default bookmarks file name is now "~/.emacs.bmk". If you
1793 already have a bookmarks file, it will be renamed automagically when
1796 ** New package, ps-print.
1798 The ps-print package generates PostScript printouts of buffers or
1799 regions, and includes face attributes such as color, underlining,
1800 boldface and italics in the printed output.
1802 ** New package, msb.
1804 The msb package provides a buffer-menu in the menubar with separate
1805 menus for different types of buffers.
1807 ** `cpp.el' is a new library that can highlight or hide parts of a C
1808 file according to C preprocessor conditionals. To try it, run the
1809 command M-x cpp-highlight-buffer.
1811 ** Changes in CC mode.
1813 *** c-set-offset and related functions and variables can now accept
1814 variable symbols. Also ++ and -- which mean 2* positive and negative
1815 c-basic-offset respectively.
1817 *** New variable, c-recognize-knr-p, which controls whether K&R C
1818 constructs will be recognized. Trying to recognize K&R constructs is a
1819 time hog so if you're programming strictly in ANSI C, set this
1820 variable to nil (it should already be nil in c++-mode).
1822 *** New variable, c-hanging-comment-ender-p for controlling
1823 c-fill-paragraph's behavior.
1825 *** New syntactic symbol: statement-case-open. This is assigned to lines
1826 containing an open brace just after a case/default label.
1828 *** New variable, c-progress-interval, which controls minibuffer update
1829 message displays during long re-indention. This is a new feature
1830 which prints percentage complete messages at specified intervals.
1832 ** Makefile mode changes.
1834 *** The electric keys are not enabled by default.
1836 *** There is now a mode-specific menu bar menu.
1838 *** The mode supports font-lock, add-log, and imenu.
1840 *** The command M-TAB does completion of target names and variable names.
1842 ** icomplete.el now works more like a minor mode. Use M-x icomplete-mode
1843 to turn it on and off.
1845 Icomplete now supports an `icomplete-minibuffer-setup-hook', which is
1846 run on minibuffer setup whenever icompletion will be occurring. This
1847 hook can be used to customize interoperation of icomplete with other
1848 minibuffer-specific packages, eg rsz-mini. See the doc string for
1853 Use ediff-revision instead of vc-ediff. It also replaces rcs-ediff,
1854 for those who use that; if you want to use a version control package
1855 other than vc.el, you must set the variable
1856 ediff-version-control-package to specify which package.
1858 ** VC now supports branches with RCS.
1860 You can use C-u C-x C-q to select any branch or version by number.
1861 It reads the version number or branch number with the minibuffer,
1862 then checks out the file unlocked.
1864 Type C-x C-q again to lock the selected branch or version.
1865 When you check in changes to that branch or version, there are two
1868 -- If you've selected a branch, or a version at the tip of a branch,
1869 then the new version adds to that branch. If you wish to create a
1870 new branch, use C-u C-x C-q to specify a version number when you check
1873 -- If you've selected an inner version which is not the latest in its
1874 branch, then the new version automatically creates a new branch.
1876 ** VC now supports CVS as well as RCS and SCCS.
1878 Since there are no locks in CVS, some things behave slightly
1879 different when the backend is CVS. When vc-next-action is invoked
1880 in a directory handled by CVS, it does the following:
1882 If the file is not already registered, this registers it for version
1883 control. This does a "cvs add", but no "cvs commit".
1884 If the file is added but not committed, it is committed.
1885 If the file has not been changed, neither in your working area or
1886 in the repository, a message is printed and nothing is done.
1887 If your working file is changed, but the repository file is
1888 unchanged, this pops up a buffer for entry of a log message; when you
1889 finish the log message with C-c C-c, that checks in the resulting
1890 changes along with the log message as change commentary. A writable
1891 file remains in existence.
1893 If vc-next-action changes the repository file, it asks you
1894 whether to merge in the changes into your working copy.
1896 vc-directory, when started in a CVS file hierarchy, reports
1897 all files that are modified (and thus need to be committed).
1898 (When the backend is RCS or SCCS vc-directory reports all
1901 VC has no support for running the initial "cvs checkout" to get a
1902 working copy of a module. You can only use VC in a working copy of
1905 You can disable the CVS support as follows:
1907 (setq vc-master-templates (delq 'vc-find-cvs-master vc-master-templates))
1909 or by setting vc-handle-cvs to nil.
1911 This may be desirable if you run a non-standard version of CVS, or
1912 if CVS was compiled with FORCE_USE_EDITOR or (possibly)
1915 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
1917 *** Completion works with file names containing quoted characters.
1919 File names containing special characters (such as " ", "!", etc.) that are
1920 quoted with a "\" character are recognised during completion. Special
1921 characters are quoted when they are inserted during completion.
1923 *** You can use M-x comint-truncate-buffer to truncate the buffer.
1925 When this command is run, the buffer is truncated to a maximum number
1926 of lines, specified by the variable comint-buffer-maximum-size. Just
1927 like the command comint-strip-ctrl-m, this can be run automatically
1928 during process output by doing this:
1930 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
1931 'comint-truncate-buffer)
1933 ** Telnet mode buffer name changed.
1935 The buffer name for a Telnet buffer is now *telnet-HOST*, not
1936 *HOST-telnet*. This is for consistency with other Emacs packages.
1938 ** M-x man (man) is now faster and more robust. On systems where the
1939 entire man page is indented, the indentation is removed.
1941 The user option names that used to end in -p now end in -flag. The
1942 new names are: Man-reuse-okay-flag, Man-downcase-section-letters-flag,
1943 Man-circular-pages-flag. The Man-notify user option has been renamed to
1944 Man-notify-method and accepts one more value, `pushy', that just
1945 switches the current buffer to the manpage buffer, without switching
1946 frames nor changing your windows configuration.
1948 A new user option Man-fontify-manpage-flag disables fontification
1949 (thus speeding up man) when set to nil. Default is to fontify if a
1950 window system is used. Two new user options Man-overstrike-face
1951 (default 'bold) and Man-underline-face (default 'underline) can be set
1952 to the preferred faces to be used for the words that man overstrikes
1953 and underlines. Useful for those who like coloured man pages.
1955 Two new interactive functions are provided: Man-cleanup-manpage and
1956 Man-fontify-manpage. Both can be used on a buffer that contains the
1957 output of a `rsh host man manpage' command, or the output of an
1958 `nroff -man -Tman manpage' command to make them readable.
1959 Man-cleanup-manpage is faster, but does not fontify.
1961 ** The new function modify-face makes it easy to specify
1962 all the attributes of a face, all at once.
1964 ** Faces now support background stippling.
1966 Use the command set-face-stipple to specify the stipple-pattern for a
1967 face. Use face-stipple to access the specified stipple pattern. The
1968 existing face functions now handle the stipple pattern when
1971 If you specify one of the standard gray colors as a face background
1972 color, and your display doesn't handle gray, Emacs automatically uses
1973 stipple instead to get the same effect.
1975 ** Changes in Font Lock mode.
1979 Two new default faces are provided; `font-lock-variable-name-face' and
1980 `font-lock-reference-face'. The face `font-lock-doc-string-face' has
1981 been removed since it is the same as the existing
1982 `font-lock-string-face'. Where appropriate, fontification
1983 automatically uses these new faces.
1985 Fontification via commands `font-lock-mode' and
1986 `font-lock-fontify-buffer' is now cleanly interruptible (i.e., with
1987 C-g). If you interrupt during the fontification process, the buffer
1988 remains in its previous modified state and all highlighting is removed
1991 For C/C++ modes, Font Lock mode is much faster but highlights much
1992 more. Other modes are faster/more extensive/more discriminatory, or a
1993 combination of these.
1995 To enable Font Lock mode, add the new function `turn-on-font-lock' in
1996 one of the following ways:
1998 (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
2000 Or for any visited file with:
2002 (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'turn-on-font-lock)
2004 *** Supports color and grayscale displays
2006 Font Lock mode supports different ways of highlighting, depending on
2007 the type of display and background shade. Attributes (face color,
2008 bold, italic and underline, and display type and background mode) can
2009 be controlled either from Emacs Lisp or X resources.
2011 See the new variables `font-lock-display-type' and
2012 `font-lock-face-attributes'.
2014 *** Supports more modes
2016 The following modes are directly supported:
2018 ada-mode, asm-mode, bibtex-mode, c++-c-mode, c++-mode, c-mode,
2019 change-log-mode, compilation-mode, dired-mode, emacs-lisp-mode,
2020 fortran-mode, latex-mode, lisp-mode, mail-mode, makefile-mode,
2021 outline-mode, pascal-mode, perl-mode, plain-tex-mode, rmail-mode,
2022 rmail-summary-mode, scheme-mode, shell-mode, slitex-mode, tex-mode,
2025 See the new variables `font-lock-defaults-alist' and
2026 `font-lock-defaults'.
2028 Some modes support different levels of fontification. You can choose
2029 to use the minimum or maximum available decoration by changing the
2030 value of the new variable `font-lock-maximum-decoration'.
2032 Programmers are urged to make available to the community their own
2033 keywords for modes not yet supported. See font-lock.el for
2034 information about efficiency.
2038 The fast-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by saving font choices
2039 in associated cache files. When you visit a file with Font Lock mode
2040 and Fast Lock mode turned on for the first time, the file's buffer is
2041 fontified as normal. When certain events occur (such as exiting
2042 Emacs), Fast Lock saves the highlighting in a cache file. When you
2043 subsequently visit this file, its cache is used to restore the
2046 To use this package, put in your `~/.emacs':
2048 (add-hook 'font-lock-mode-hook 'turn-on-fast-lock)
2050 To control the use of caches, see the documentation for `fast-lock-mode'.
2052 ** You can tell pop-to-buffer to display certain buffers in the selected
2053 window rather than finding some other window to display them in.
2054 There are two variables you can use to specify these buffers.
2056 same-window-buffer-names holds a list of buffer names; if a buffer's
2057 name appears in this list, pop-to-buffer puts it in the selected window.
2059 same-window-regexps holds a list of regexps--if any one of them
2060 matches a buffer's name, then pop-to-buffer puts that buffer in the
2063 The default values of these variables are not nil: they list various
2064 buffers that normally appear, when you as for them, in the selected
2065 window. These include shell buffers, mail buffers, telnet buffers,
2066 and others. By removing elements from these variables, you can ask
2067 Emacs to display those buffers in separate windows.
2069 ** The special-display-buffer-names and special-display-regexps lists
2070 have been generalized. An element may now be a list. The car of the list
2071 is the buffer name or regular expression for matching buffer names.
2073 The cdr of the list can be an alist specifying additional frame
2074 parameters for use in constructing the special display frame.
2076 Alternatively, the cdr can have this form:
2080 where FUNCTION is a symbol. Then the frame is constructed by calling
2081 FUNCTION; its first argument is the buffer, and its remaining
2084 ** If the environment variable REPLYTO is set, its value is the default
2085 for mail-default-reply-to.
2087 ** When you send a message in Emacs, if you specify an Rmail file with
2088 the FCC: header field, Emacs converts the message to Rmail format
2089 before writing it. Thus, the file never contains anything but Rmail
2092 ** The new variable mail-from-style controls whether the From: header
2093 should include the sender's full name, and if so, which format to use.
2095 ** The new variable mail-personal-alias-file specifies the name of the
2096 user's personal aliases. This defaults to the file ~/.mailrc.
2097 mailabbrev.el used to have its own variable for this purpose
2098 (mail-abbrev-mailrc-file). That variable is no longer used.
2100 ** In Buffer-Menu mode, the d and C-d commands (which mark buffers for
2101 deletion) now accept a prefix argument which serves as a repeat count.
2103 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
2105 *** Reference keys can now be entered with TAB completion. All
2106 reference keys defined in that buffer and all labels that appear in
2107 crossreference entries are object to completion.
2109 *** Braces are supported as field delimiters in addition to quotes.
2110 BibTeX entries may have brace-delimited and quote-delimited fields
2111 intermixed. The delimiters generated for new entries are specified by
2112 the variables bibtex-field-left-delimiter and
2113 bibtex-field-right-delimiter on a buffer-local basis. Those variables
2114 default to braces, since it is easier to put quote accented characters
2115 (as the german umlauts) into a brace-delimited entry.
2117 *** The function bibtex-clean-entry can now be invoked with a prefix
2118 argument. In this case, a label is automatically generated from
2119 various fields in the record. If bibtex-clean-entry is invoked on a
2120 record without label, a label is also generated automatically.
2121 Various variables (all beginning with `bibtex-autokey-') control the
2122 creation of that key. The variable bibtex-autokey-edit-before-use
2123 determines, if the user is allowed to edit auto-generated reference
2124 keys before they are used.
2126 *** A New function bibtex-complete-string completes strings with
2127 respect to the strings defined in this buffer and a set of predefined
2128 strings (initialized to the string macros defined in the standard
2129 BibTeX style files) in the same way in which ispell-complete-word
2130 works with respect to words in a dictionary. Candidates for
2131 bibtex-complete-string are initialized from variable
2132 bibtex-predefined-strings and by parsing the files found in
2133 bibtex-string-files for @String definitions.
2135 *** Every reference/field pair has now attached a comment which
2136 appears in the echo area when this field is edited. These comments
2137 should provide useful hints for BibTeX usage, especially for BibTeX
2138 beginners. New variable bibtex-help-message determines if these help
2139 messages are to appear in the minibuffer when moving to a text entry.
2141 *** Inscriptions of menu bar changed from "Entry Types" to
2142 "Entry-Types" and "Bibtex Edit" to "BibTeX-Edit".
2144 *** The variable bibtex-include-OPTcrossref is now not longer a binary
2145 switch but a list of reference names which should contain a crossref
2146 field. E.g., you can tell bibtex-mode you want a crossref field for
2147 @InProceedings and @InBook entries but for no other.
2149 *** The function validate-bibtex-buffer was completely rewritten to
2150 validate if a buffer is syntactically correct. find-bibtex-duplicates
2151 is no longer a function itself but was moved into
2152 validate-bibtex-buffer.
2154 *** Cleaning a BibTeX entry tests, if necessary fields are there.
2155 E.g., if you tell bibtex-mode to include a crossref entry, some fields
2156 are optional which would be required without the crossref entry. If
2157 you now leave the crossref entry empty and do a bibtex-clean-entry
2158 with some now required fields left empty, version 2.0 of bibtex.el
2159 complains about the absence of these fields, whereas version 1.3
2162 *** Default value for variables bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries and
2163 bibtex-sort-ignore-string-entries is now t.
2165 *** All interactive functions are renamed to begin with `bibtex-'.
2167 *** Keybindings with \C-c\C-e entry changed for unification. Often
2168 used reference types are now on control-modified keys, mediocre used
2169 types are on unmodified keys, seldom used types are on shift-modified
2170 keys and almost never used types on meta-modified keys.
2173 * Configuration Changes in Emacs 19.29
2175 ** Emacs now uses directory /usr/local/share for most of its installed
2176 files. This follows a GNU convention for directory usage.
2178 ** The option --with-x11 is no longer supported.
2179 X11 is the only version of X that Emacs 19.29 supports;
2180 use --with-x if you need to request X support explicitly.
2181 (Normally this should not be necessary, since configure should
2182 automatically enable X support if X is installed on your machine.)
2184 ** If you use the site-init.el file to set the variable
2185 mail-host-address to a string in the dumped Emacs, that string becomes
2186 the default host address for initializing user-mail-address.
2187 It is used instead of the value of (system-name).
2190 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.29
2194 *** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
2195 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
2198 *** You can now use Common Lisp syntax for the backquote and comma
2199 macros. Thus, you can now write `(x ,y z) instead of (` (x (, y) z)).
2201 The old syntax is still accepted.
2203 *** The new function rassoc is like assoc, except that it compares the
2204 key against the cdr of each alist element, where assoc would compare
2205 it against the car of each alist element.
2207 *** The new function unintern deletes a symbol from an obarray. The
2208 first argument can be the symbol to delete, or a string giving its
2209 name. The second argument specifies the obarray (nil means the
2210 current default obarray).
2212 If the specified symbol is not in the obarray, or if there's no symbol
2213 in the obarray matching the specified string, unintern does nothing
2214 and returns nil. If it does delete a symbol, it returns t.
2216 *** You can specify an alternative read function for use by load and
2217 eval-region by binding the variable load-read-function to some other
2218 function. This function should accept one argument just like read.
2219 If load-read-function is nil, load and eval-region use ordinary read.
2221 *** The new function `type-of' takes any object as argument, and
2222 returns a symbol identifying the type of that object--one of `symbol',
2223 `integer', `float', `string', `cons', `vector', `marker', `overlay',
2224 `window', `buffer', `subr', `compiled-function',
2225 `window-configuration', `process'.
2227 *** When you use eval-after-load for a file that is already loaded, it
2228 executes the FORM right away. As before, if the file is not yet
2229 loaded, it arranges to execute FORM if and when the file is loaded
2230 later. The result is: if you have called eval-after-load for a file,
2231 and if that file has been loaded, then regardless of the order of
2232 these two events, the specified form has been evaluated.
2234 *** The Lisp construct #@NUMBER now skips the next NUMBER characters,
2235 treating them as a comment.
2237 You would not want to use this in a file you edit by hand, but it is
2238 useful for commenting out parts of machine-generated files.
2240 *** Two new functions, `plist-get' and `plist-put',
2241 allow you to modify and retrieve values from lists formatted as property-lists.
2242 They work like `get' and `put', but operate on any list.
2243 `plist-put' returns the modified property-list; you must store it
2244 back where you got it.
2246 *** The new function add-to-list is called with two elements,
2247 a variable that holds a list and a new element.
2248 It adds the element to the list unless it is already present.
2249 It compares elements using `equal'. Here is an example:
2251 (setq foo '(a b)) => (a b)
2253 (add-to-list 'foo 'c) => (c a b)
2255 (add-to-list 'foo 'b) => (c a b)
2259 ** Changes in compilation.
2261 Functions and variables loaded from a byte-compiled file
2262 now refer to the file for their doc strings.
2264 This has a few consequences:
2266 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2267 -- Reference to doc strings is a little slower (the same speed
2268 as reference to the doc strings of primitive and preloaded functions).
2269 -- The compiled files will not work in old versions of Emacs.
2270 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2271 find these doc strings.
2272 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2273 version), then further access to documentation strings will get
2276 The byte compiler now optionally supports lazy loading of compiled
2277 functions' definitions. If you enable this feature when you compile,
2278 loading the compiled file does not actually bring the function
2279 definitions into core. Instead it creates references to the compiled
2280 file, and brings each function's definition into core the first time
2281 you call that function, or when you force it with the new function
2284 Using the lazy loading feature has a few consequences:
2286 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2287 -- Calling any function in the file for the first time is slower.
2288 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2289 find the function definitions.
2290 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2291 version), then further access to functions not already loaded
2292 will get nonsense results.
2294 To enable the lazy loading feature, set up a non-nil file local
2295 variable binding for the variable `byte-compile-dynamic' in the Lisp
2296 source file. For example, put this on the first line:
2298 -*-byte-compile-dynamic: t;-*-
2300 It's a good idea to use the lazy loading feature for a file that
2301 contains many functions, most of which are not actually used by a
2302 given user in a given session.
2304 To turn off the basic feature of referring to the file for doc
2305 strings, set byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings to nil. You can do this
2306 globally, or for one source file by adding this to the first line:
2308 -*-byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings: nil;-*-
2312 *** Do not pass integer arguments to `concat' (or `vconcat' or
2313 `append'). We are phasing out the old unrecommended support for
2314 integers as arguments to these functions, in preparation for treating
2315 numbers as single characters in a future release. To concatenate
2316 numbers in string form, use `number-to-string' first, or rewrite the
2317 call to use `format' instead of `concat'.
2319 *** The new function match-string returns the string of text matched at
2320 the given parenthesized expression by the last regexp search, or nil
2321 if there was no match. If the last match was by `string-match' on a
2322 string, the string must be given. Therefore, this function can be
2323 used in place of `buffer-substring' and `substring', when using
2324 `match-beginning' and `match-end' to find match positions.
2326 (match-string N) or (match-string N STRING)
2328 *** The function replace-match now accepts an optional fourth argument,
2329 STRING. Use this after performing string-match on STRING, to replace
2330 the portion of STRING that was matched. When used in this way,
2331 replace-match returns a newly created string which is the same as
2332 STRING except for the matched portion.
2334 *** The new function buffer-substring-no-properties
2335 is like buffer-substring except that the string it returns
2336 has no text properties.
2338 *** The function `equal' now considers two strings to be different
2339 if they don't have the same text properties.
2343 *** all-completions now takes an optional fourth argument.
2344 If that argument is non-nil, completions that start with a space
2345 are ignored unless the initial string also starts with a space.
2346 (This used to happen unconditionally.)
2350 *** Local hook variables.
2352 There is now a clean way to give a hook variable a buffer-local value.
2353 Call the function `make-local-hook' to do this.
2355 Once a hook variable is buffer-local, you can add hooks to it either
2356 globally or locally. run-hooks runs the local hook functions
2357 of the current buffer, then all the global hook functions.
2359 The functions add-hook and remove-hook take an additional optional
2360 argument LOCAL which says whether to add (or remove) a local hook
2361 function or a global one.
2363 Local hooks use t as an element of the (local) value of the hook
2364 variable as a flag meaning to use the global value also.
2366 *** The new function local-variable-p tells you whether a particular
2367 variable is buffer-local in the current buffer or a specified buffer.
2369 ** Editing Facilities
2371 *** The function copy-region-as-kill no longer sets this-command;
2372 as a result, a following kill command will not normally append
2373 to the text saved by copy-region-as-kill.
2375 *** Regular expression searching and matching no longer performs full
2376 Posix backtracking by default. They now stop with the first match found
2377 instead of looking for the longest match--just as they did in Emacs 18.
2378 The reason for this change is to get higher speed.
2380 There are new functions you can use if you really want to search or
2381 match with Posix behavior: posix-search-forward,
2382 posix-search-backward, posix-looking-at, and posix-string-match. Call
2383 these just like re-search-forward, re-search-backward, looking-at, and
2388 *** The new variable `format-alist' defines file formats,
2389 which are ways of translating between the data in a file and things
2390 (text, text-properties, and possibly other information) in a buffer.
2392 `format-alist' has one element for each format. Each element is a
2394 (NAME DOC-STRING REGEXP FROM-FN TO-FN MODIFY MODE-FN)
2395 containing the name of the format, a documentation string, a regular
2396 expression which is used to recognize files in that format, a decoding
2397 function, an encoding function, a flag that indicates whether the
2398 encoding function modifies the buffer, and a mode function.
2400 FROM-FN is called to decode files in that format; it gets two args, BEGIN
2401 and END, and can make any modifications it likes, returning the new
2402 end position. It must make sure that the beginning of the file no
2403 longer matches REGEXP, or else it will get called again.
2404 TO-FN is called to encode a region into that format; it is also passed BEGIN
2405 and END, and either returns a list of annotations as in
2406 `write-region-annotate-functions', or modifies the region and returns
2407 the new end position.
2408 MODIFY, if non-nil, means the TO-FN modifies the region. If nil, TO-FN may
2409 not make any changes and should return a list of annotations.
2411 `insert-file-contents' checks the beginning of the file that it is
2412 inserting to see if it matches one of the regexps. If so, then it
2413 calls the decoding function, and then looks for another match. When
2414 visiting a file, it also calls the mode function, and sets the
2415 variable `buffer-file-format' to the list of formats that the file
2418 `write-region' calls the encoding functions for each format in
2419 `buffer-file-format' before it writes the file. To save a file in a
2420 different format, either set `buffer-file-format' to a different
2421 value, or call the new function `format-write-file'.
2423 Since some encoding functions may be slow, you can request that
2424 auto-save use a format different from the buffer's default by setting
2425 the variable `auto-save-file-format' to the desired format. This will
2426 determine the format of all auto-save files.
2428 *** The new function file-ownership-preserved-p tells you whether
2429 deleting a file and recreating it would keep the file's owner
2432 *** The new function file-regular-p returns t if a file
2433 is a "regular" file (not a directory, symlink, named pipe,
2434 terminal, or other I/O device).
2436 *** The new function file-name-sans-extension discards the extension
2437 of a file name. You call it with a file name, and returns a string
2438 lacking the extension.
2440 *** The variable path-separator is a string which says which
2441 character separates directories in a search path. It is ":"
2442 for Unix and GNU systems, ";" for MSDOG and Windows NT.
2444 ** Commands and Key Sequences
2446 *** Key sequences consisting of C-c followed by {, }, <, >, : or ; are
2447 now reserved for major modes. Sequences consisting of C-c followed by
2448 any other punctuation character are now meant for minor modes. We don't
2449 plan to convert all existing major modes to stop using those sequences,
2450 but we hope to keep them to a minimum.
2452 *** When the post-command-hook or the pre-command-hook gets an error, the error
2453 is silently ignored. Emacs no longer sets the hook variable to nil when this
2454 happens. Meanwhile, the hook functions can now alter the hook variable in
2455 a normal fashion; there is no need to do anything special.
2457 *** define-key, lookup-key, and various other functions for changing or
2458 looking up key bindings now let you write an event type with a list
2459 like (ctrl meta newline) or (meta ?d), as in XEmacs. (ctrl meta newline)
2460 is equivalent to the event type symbol C-M-newline, and (meta ?d)
2461 is equivalent to the character ?\M-d.
2463 *** The function event-convert-list converts a list such as
2464 (meta ?d) into the corresponding event type (a symbol or integer).
2466 *** In an interactive spec, `k' means to read a key sequence. In this
2467 key sequence, upper case characters and shifted function keys which
2468 have no bindings are converted to lower case if that makes them
2471 The new interactive code `K' reads a key sequence similarly, but does
2472 not convert the last event. `K' is useful for reading a key sequence
2473 to be given a binding.
2475 *** The variable overriding-local-map now has no effect on the menu bar
2476 display unless overriding-local-map-menu-flag is non-nil. This is why
2477 incremental search no longer temporarily changes the menu bars.
2479 Note that overriding-local-map does still affect the execution of key
2480 sequences entered using the menu bar. So if you use
2481 overriding-local-map, and a menu bar key sequence comes in, you should
2482 make sure to clear overriding-local-map before that key sequence gets
2483 looked up and executed. But this is what you'd normally do anyway:
2484 programs that use overriding-local-map normally exit and "put back"
2485 any event such as menu-bar that they do not handle specially.
2487 *** The new variable `overriding-terminal-local-map' is like
2488 overriding-local-map, but is specific to a single terminal.
2490 *** delete-frame events.
2492 When you use the X window manager's "delete window" command, this now
2493 generates a delete-frame event. The standard definition of this event
2494 is a command that deletes the frame that received the event, and kills
2495 Emacs when the last visible or iconified frame is deleted. You can
2496 rebind the event to some other command if you wish.
2498 *** Two new types of events, iconify-frame and make-frame-visible,
2499 indicate that the user iconified or deiconified a frame with the
2500 window manager. Since the window manager has already done the work,
2501 the default definition for both event types in Emacs is to do nothing.
2505 *** Certain Lisp variables are now local to an X terminal (in other
2506 words, all the screens of a single X server). The value in effect, at
2507 any given time, is the one that belongs to the terminal of the
2508 selected frame. The terminal-local variables are
2509 default-minibuffer-frame, system-key-alist, defining-kbd-macro, and
2510 last-kbd-macro. There is no way for Lisp programs to create others.
2512 The terminal-local variables cannot be buffer-local.
2514 *** When you create an X frame, for the `top' and `left' frame
2515 parameters, you can now use values of the form (+ N) or (- N), where N
2516 is an integer. (+ N) means N pixels to the right of the left edge of
2517 the screen and (- N) means N pixels to the left of the right edge. In
2518 both cases, N may be zero (exactly at the edge) or negative (putting
2519 the window partly off the screen).
2521 The function x-parse-geometry can return values of these forms
2524 *** The variable menu-bar-file-menu has been renamed to
2525 menu-bar-files-menu to match the actual item that appears in the menu.
2526 (All the other such variable names do match.)
2528 *** The new function active-minibuffer-window returns the minibuffer window
2529 currently active, or nil if none is now active.
2531 *** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
2532 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
2533 and delete-windows-on, if you specify 0 for the last argument,
2534 it means to consider all visible and iconified frames.
2536 *** When you set a frame's cursor type with modify-frame-parameters,
2537 you can now specify (bar . INTEGER) as the cursor type. This stands
2538 for a bar cursor of width INTEGER.
2540 *** The new function facep returns t if its argument is a face name
2541 (or if it is a vector such as is used internally by the Lisp code
2542 to represent a face).
2544 *** Each frame can now have a buffer-predicate function,
2545 which is the `buffer-predicate' frame parameter.
2546 When `other-buffer' looks for an alternative buffer, it considers
2547 only the buffers that fit the selected frame's buffer predicate (if it
2548 has one). This is useful for applications that make their own frames.
2550 *** When you create an X frame, you can now specify the frame parameter
2551 `display'. This says which display to put the frame on. The value
2552 should be a display name--a string of the form
2553 "HOST:DPYNUMBER.SCREENNUMBER".
2555 The functions x-server-... and x-display-... now take an optional
2556 argument which specifies the display to ask about. You can use either
2557 a display name string or a frame. A value of nil stands for the
2560 To close the connection to an X display, use the function
2561 x-close-connection. Specify which display with a display name. You
2562 cannot close the connection if Emacs still has frames open on that
2565 x-display-list returns a list indicating which displays Emacs has
2566 connections to. Its elements are display names (strings).
2568 *** The icon-type frame parameter may now be a file name.
2569 Then the contents of that file specify the icon bitmap to use
2572 *** The title of an Emacs frame, displayed by most window managers, is
2573 set from frame-title-format or icon-title-format. These have the same
2574 structure as mode-line-format.
2576 *** x-display-grayscale-p is a new function that returns non-nil if
2577 your X server can display shades of gray. Currently it returns
2578 non-nil for color displays (because they can display shades of gray);
2579 we may change it in the next version to return nil for color displays.
2581 *** The frame parameter scroll-bar-width specifies the width of the
2582 scrollbar in pixels.
2586 *** Creating a buffer with get-buffer-create does not obey
2587 default-major-mode. That variable is now handled in a separate
2588 function, set-buffer-major-mode. get-buffer-create and generate-new-buffer
2589 always leave the newly created buffer in Fundamental mode.
2591 Creating a new buffer by visiting a file or with switch-to-buffer,
2592 pop-to-buffer, and similar functions does call set-buffer-major-mode
2593 to select the default major mode specified with default-major-mode.
2595 *** You can now create an "indirect buffer". An indirect buffer shares
2596 its text, including text properties, with another buffer (the "base
2597 buffer"), but has its own major mode, local variables, overlays, and
2598 narrowing. An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from
2599 those of the base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer
2600 cannot itself be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).
2601 The base buffer cannot itself be indirect.
2603 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
2604 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is an indirect
2605 buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new buffer.
2607 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
2608 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
2610 The function buffer-base-buffer, given an indirect buffer, returns its
2611 base buffer. It returns nil when given an ordinary buffer (not
2614 The library `noutline' has versions of Outline mode and Outline minor
2615 mode which let you display different parts of the outline in different
2620 *** The functions call-process and call-process-region now allow
2621 you to direct error message output from the subprocess into a
2622 separate destination, instead of mixing it with ordinary output.
2623 To do this, specify for the third argument, BUFFER, a list of the form
2624 (BUFFER-OR-NAME ERROR-DESTINATION)
2625 BUFFER-OR-NAME specifies where to put ordinary output; it should
2626 be a buffer or buffer name, or t, nil or 0. This is what would
2627 have been the BUFFER argument, ordinarily.
2629 ERROR-DESTINATION specifies where to put the error output.
2630 nil means discard it, t means mix it with the ordinary output,
2631 and a string specifies a file name to write this output into.
2633 You can't specify a buffer to put the error output in; that is not
2634 easy to implement directly. You can put the error output into a
2635 buffer by sending it to a temporary file and then inserting the file
2638 *** Comint mode changes:
2640 **** The variable comint-completion-addsuffix can also be a cons pair
2641 of the form (DIRSUFFIX . FILESUFFIX), where DIRSUFFIX and FILESUFFIX are
2642 strings added on unambiguous or exact completion of directories and file
2643 names, respectively.
2647 *** You can now specify which values of the `invisible' property
2648 make text invisible in a given buffer. The variable
2649 `buffer-invisibility-spec', which is always local in all buffers,
2652 If its value is t, then any non-nil `invisible' property makes
2653 a character invisible.
2655 If its value is a list, then a character is invisible if its
2656 `invisible' property value appears as a member of the list, or if it
2657 appears as the car of a member of the list.
2659 When the `invisible' property value appears as the car of a member of
2660 the `buffer-invisibility-spec' list, then the cdr of that member has
2661 an effect. If it is non-nil, then an ellipsis appears in place of the
2662 character. (This happens only for the *last* invisible character in a
2663 series of consecutive invisible characters, and only at the end of a
2666 If a character's `invisible' property is a list, then Emacs checks each
2667 element of the list against `buffer-invisibility-spec'. If any element
2668 matches, the character is invisible.
2670 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' shows what text properties
2671 are in effect at point.
2673 *** Frame objects now exist in Emacs even on systems that don't support
2674 X Windows. You can create multiple frames, and switch between them
2675 using select-frame. The selected frame is actually displayed on your
2676 terminal; other frames are not displayed at all. The selected frame
2677 number appears in the mode line after `Emacs', except for frame 1.
2679 Switching frames on ASCII terminals is therefore more or less
2680 equivalent to switching between different window configurations.
2682 *** The new variable window-size-change-functions holds a list of
2683 functions to be called if window sizes change (or if windows are
2684 created or deleted). The functions are called once for each frame on
2685 which changes have occurred, with the frame as the sole argument.
2686 This takes place shortly before redisplay.
2688 *** The modification hook functions of overlays now work differently.
2689 They are called both before and after each change. This makes it
2690 possible for the functions to determine exactly what the change was.
2692 This change affects three overlay properties: the modification-hooks
2693 property, a list of functions called for deletions overlapping the
2694 overlay's range and for insertions inside it; the
2695 insert-in-front-hooks, a list of functions called for insertions at
2696 the beginning of the overlay; and the insert-behind-hooks, a list of
2697 functions called for insertions at the end of the overlay.
2699 Each function is called both before and after each change that it
2700 applies to. Before the change, it is called with four arguments:
2701 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY nil START END)
2702 START and END are the same arguments that the before-change-functions
2705 After the change, each function is called with five arguments:
2706 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY t START END OLDSIZE)
2707 The last arguments, START and END and OLDSIZE,
2708 are the same arguments that the after-change-functions receive.
2710 This means the function must accept either four or five arguments.
2712 *** You can set defaults for text-properties with the new variable
2713 `default-text-properties'. Its value is a property list; the values
2714 specified there are used whenever a character (or its category) does
2715 not specify a value.
2717 *** The `face' property of a character or an overlay can now be a list
2718 of face names. Formerly it had to be just one face name.
2720 *** Changes in handling the `intangible' text property.
2722 **** If inhibit-point-motion-hooks is non-nil, then `intangible' properties
2725 **** Moving to just before a stretch of intangible text
2726 is no longer special in any way. Point stays at that place.
2728 **** When you move point backwards into the midst of intangible text,
2729 point moves back to the beginning of that text. (It used to move
2730 forward to the end of that text, which was not very useful.)
2732 **** When moving across intangible text, Emacs stops wherever the
2733 property value changes. So if you have two stretches of intangible
2734 text, with different non-nil intangible properties, it is possible to
2735 place point between them.
2739 *** Overlay changes.
2741 **** The new function previous-overlay-change returns the position of
2742 the previous overlay start or end, before a specified position. This
2743 is the backwards-moving counterpart of next-overlay-change.
2745 **** overlay-get now supports category properties on an overlay
2746 the same way get-text-property supports them as text properties.
2748 Specifically, if an overlay does not have the property PROP that you
2749 ask for, but it does have a `category' property which is a symbol,
2750 then that symbol's PROP property is used.
2752 **** If an overlay has a non-nil `evaporate' property, it will be
2753 deleted if it ever becomes empty (i.e., when it spans no characters).
2755 **** If an overlay has a `before-string' and/or `after-string' property,
2756 these strings are displayed at the overlay's endpoints.
2760 *** The new variable fill-paragraph-function provides a way for major
2761 modes to override the filling of paragraphs. If this is non-nil,
2762 fill-paragraph calls it as a function, passing along its sole
2763 argument. If the function returns non-nil, fill-paragraph assumes it
2764 has done the job and simply passes on whatever value it returned.
2766 The usual use of this feature is to fill comments in programming
2769 *** Text filling and justification changes:
2771 **** The new variable use-hard-newlines can be used to make a
2772 distinction between "hard" and "soft" newlines; the fill functions
2773 will then never remove a newline that was manually inserted. Hard
2774 newlines are marked with a non-nil `hard' text-property.
2776 **** The fill-column and left-margin can now be modified by text-properties.
2777 Most lisp programs should use the new functions (current-fill-column) and
2778 (current-left-margin), which return the proper values to use for the
2781 **** There are new functions for dealing with margins:
2783 ***** Set-left-margin and set-right-margin (set the value for a region
2784 and re-fill). These functions take three arguments: two to specify
2785 a region, and the desired margin value.
2787 ***** Increase-left-margin, decrease-left-margin, increase-right-margin, and
2788 decrease-right-margin (change settings relative to current values, and
2791 ***** move-to-left-margin moves point there, optionally adding
2792 indentation or changing tabs to spaces in order to make that possible.
2793 beginning-of-line-text also moves past the fill-prefix and any
2794 indentation added to center or right-justify a line, to the beginning
2795 of the text that the user actually typed.
2797 ***** delete-to-left-margin removes any left-margin indentation, but
2798 does not change the property.
2800 **** The paragraph-movement functions look for the paragraph-start and
2801 paragraph-separate regexps at the current left margin, not at the
2802 beginning of the line. This means that those regexps should NOT use ^
2803 to anchor the search. However, for backwards compatibility, a ^ at
2804 the beginning of the regexp will be ignored, so most packages won't break.
2806 **** justify-current-line is now capable of doing left, center, or
2807 right justification as well as full justification.
2809 **** The fill functions can do any kind of justification based on the new
2810 `justification' text-property and `default-justification' variable,
2811 or arguments to the functions. They also have a new option which
2812 defeats the normal removal of extra whitespace.
2814 **** The new function `current-justification' returns the kind of
2815 justification used for the current line. The new function
2816 `set-justification' can be used to change it, including re-justifying
2817 the text of the region according to the new value.
2819 **** Filling and auto-fill are disabled if justification is `none'.
2821 **** The auto-fill-function is now called regardless of whether
2822 the fill-column has been exceeded; the function can determine on its
2823 own whether filling (or justification) is necessary.
2827 *** process-tty-name is a new function that returns the name of the
2828 terminal that the process itself reads and writes on (not the name of
2829 the pty that Emacs uses to talk with that terminal).
2831 *** Errors in process filters and sentinels are now normally caught
2832 automatically, so that they don't abort other Lisp programs.
2834 Setting debug-on-error non-nil turns off this feature; then errors in
2835 filters and sentinels are not caught. As a result, they can invoke
2836 the debugger, under the control of debug-on-error.
2838 *** Emacs now preserves the match data around the execution of process
2839 filters and sentinels. You can use search and match functions freely
2840 in filters and sentinels without explicitly bothering to save the
2845 *** The variable message-log-max controls how messages are logged in the
2846 "*Messages*" buffer. An integer value means to keep that many lines;
2847 t means to log with no limit; nil means disable message logging. Lisp
2848 code that calls `message' excessively (e.g. isearch.el) should probably
2849 bind this variable to nil.
2851 *** Display tables now have a new element, at index 261, specifying the
2852 glyph to use for the separator between two side-by-side windows. By
2853 default, this is the vertical bar character `|'. Probably the only
2854 other useful character to store for this element is a space, to make
2855 less visual separation between two side-by-side windows displaying
2856 related information.
2858 *** The new mode-line-format spec %c displays the current column number.
2860 *** The new variable blink-matching-delay specifies how long to keep
2861 the cursor at the matching open-paren, after you insert a close-paren.
2862 This is useful mainly on systems which can wait for a fraction of a
2863 second--you can then specify fractional values such as 0.5.
2865 *** Faster processing of buffers with long lines
2867 The new variable cache-long-line-scans determines whether Emacs
2868 should use caches to handle long lines more quickly. This variable is
2869 buffer-local, in all buffers.
2871 Normally, the line-motion functions work by scanning the buffer for
2872 newlines. Columnar operations (like `move-to-column' and
2873 `compute-motion') also work by scanning the buffer, summing character
2874 widths as they go. This works well for ordinary text, but if the
2875 buffer's lines are very long (say, more than 500 characters), these
2876 motion functions will take longer to execute. Emacs may also take
2877 longer to update the display.
2879 If cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, these motion functions cache
2880 the results of their scans, and consult the cache to avoid rescanning
2881 regions of the buffer until the text is modified. The caches are most
2882 beneficial when they prevent the most searching---that is, when the
2883 buffer contains long lines and large regions of characters with the
2884 same, fixed screen width.
2886 When cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, processing short lines will
2887 become slightly slower (because of the overhead of consulting the
2888 cache), and the caches will use memory roughly proportional to the
2889 number of newlines and characters whose screen width varies.
2891 The caches require no explicit maintenance; their accuracy is
2892 maintained internally by the Emacs primitives. Enabling or disabling
2893 the cache should not affect the behavior of any of the motion functions;
2894 it should only affect their performance.
2898 *** The function user-login-name now accepts an optional
2899 argument uid. If the argument is non-nil, user-login-name
2900 returns the login name for that user id.
2902 *** system-name, user-name, user-full-name and user-real-name are now
2903 variables as well as functions. The variables hold the same values
2904 that the functions would return. The new variable multiple-frames
2905 is non-nil if at least two non-minibuffer frames are visible. These
2906 variables may be useful in constructing the value of frame-title-format
2907 or icon-title-format.
2909 *** Changes in time-conversion functions.
2911 **** The new function format-time-string takes a format string and a
2912 time value. It converts the time to a string, according to the format
2913 specified. You can specify what kind of conversion to use with
2916 **** The new function decode-time converts a time value into a list of
2917 specific items of information: the year, month, day of week, day of
2918 month, hour, minute and second. (A time value is a list of two or
2921 **** The new function encode-time converts specific items of time
2922 information--the second, minute, hour, day, month, year, and time
2923 zone--into a time value.
2927 * Changes in Emacs 19.27
2929 There are no changes; however, here is one bug fix made in 19.26 that users
2930 think should be documented here.
2932 ** SPC and DEL in Info now handle menus consistently.
2934 SPC and DEL scroll through an entire subtree an Info manual. Once you
2935 scroll through a node far enough to reach a menu, SPC begins moving
2936 into the subnodes of the menu, starting with the first one. When you
2937 reach the end of a subnode, SPC moves into the next subnode, and so
2940 DEL more or less scrolls through the same text in reverse order.
2944 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.26
2946 ** In the X toolkit version, if you click on a menu bar item and
2947 release the button quickly outside the menu, the menu remains visible
2948 until you click or type something else. If you click on the menu, you
2949 select from the menu. Any other mouse click makes the menu disappear.
2950 Keyboard input gets rid of the menu and then is processed normally.
2952 "Quickly" means within double-click-time milliseconds.
2954 ** The C-x 5 commands to select a buffer in "another frame" now use an
2955 existing iconified frame, if any, deiconifying it. They also raise
2958 ** Region highlighting on a black-and-white-only display now uses
2959 underlining. Inverse-video had the problem that you couldn't see
2962 ** You can now change the height of a window by pressing mouse-1 on
2963 the mode line and dragging it up and down.
2965 ** If you set the environment variable LC_CTYPE to iso_8859_1 or
2966 iso-8859-1, Emacs automatically sets up for display and syntactic
2967 handling of the ISO Latin-1 character set.
2969 This does not automatically load any of the packages for input of
2970 these characters, because it's not yet clear what is right to do.
2971 You must still explicitly load either iso-transl or iso-acc.
2973 ** For a read-only buffer that is also modified, the mode line now displays
2976 ** M-prior (scroll-other-window-down) is a new command that works like
2977 M-next (and C-M-v) but scrolls in the opposite direction.
2979 M-home moves to the beginning of the buffer, in the other window.
2980 M-end moves to the end of the buffer, in the other window. These two
2981 commands, along with M-next and M-prior, form a series of commands for
2982 moving around in the other window.
2984 ** In change logs, the mail address is now delimited with <...> instead
2987 This makes it a little more convenient to extract the mail address for
2988 use in mailing a message.
2990 ** In Shell mode and other comint modes, C-a has now returned to
2991 its ordinary meaning: move to the beginning of the line.
2992 Use C-c C-a to move to the end of the prompt.
2994 ** If you set mail-signature to t to cause automatic insertion of
2995 your .signature file, you now get a -- before the signature.
2997 ** Setting rmail-highlighted-headers to nil entirely turns off
2998 highlighting in Rmail. However, if your motivation for doing this is
2999 that the highlighted text doesn't look good on your display, it might
3000 be better to change the appearance of the `highlight' face. Once
3001 you've done that, you may find Rmail highlighting is useful.
3003 ** In the calendar, mouse-2 is now used only for commands that apply to a date.
3004 If you click it when not on a date, it gives an immediate error.
3006 Mouse-3 in the calendar now gives a menu of commands that do not apply
3007 to a particular date.
3009 The D command displays diary entries from a specified diary file (not
3010 your standard diary file).
3012 ** In the gnus-uu package, the binding for gnus-uu-threaded-decode-and-view
3013 is now C-c C-v C-d, not C-c C-v C-h. Thus, C-c C-v C-h is now available
3014 for asking for a list of the subcommands of C-c C-v.
3016 ** You can now specify "who you are" for various Emacs packages by
3017 setting just one variable, user-mail-address. This currently applies
3018 to posting news with GNUS and to making change log entries. It may
3019 apply to additional Emacs features in the future.
3022 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.26:
3024 ** The function insert-char now takes an optional third argument
3025 which, if non-nil, says the inserted characters should inherit sticky
3026 text properties from the surrounding text.
3028 ** The `diary' library has been renamed to `diary-lib'. If you refer
3029 to this library in your Lisp code, you must update the references.
3031 ** Sending text to a subprocess can read input from subprocesses if it
3032 has to wait because the destination subprocess's terminal input buffer
3035 It was already possible in unusual occasions for this operation to
3036 read subprocess input, but it did not happen very often. It is now
3037 more likely to happen.
3039 ** last-nonmenu-event is now bound to t around filter functions and sentinels.
3040 This is to ensure that y-or-n-p and yes-or-no-p use the keyboard by default.
3042 ** In mode lines, %+ now displays as % for unmodified read-only
3043 buffers. It is now the same as %* except in the case of a modified
3044 read-only buffer; in that case, %+ displays as *.
3046 The old meaning of %+ is now available on %&.
3047 It displays * for a modified buffer and - for an unmodified buffer,
3048 regardless of read-only status.
3050 ** You can now use `underline' in the color list of a face.
3051 It serves as a last resort, and says to underline the face
3052 (if previous color list elements can't be used).
3054 ** The new function x-color-values returns the list of color values
3055 for a given color name (a string). The list contains three integers
3056 which give the amounts of red, green and blue in the color: (R G B).
3058 ** In run-at-time, 0 as the repeat interval means "don't repeat".
3060 ** The variable trim-versions-without-asking has been renamed to
3061 delete-old-versions.
3063 ** The new function other-window-for-scrolling returns the choice of
3064 other window for C-M-v to scroll.
3066 ** Note that the function fceiling was mistakenly documented as fceil before.
3069 * Changes in cc-mode.el in Emacs 19.26:
3071 ** A new syntactic symbol has been added: substatement-open. It
3072 defines the open brace of a substatement block. These used to get:
3073 ((block-open ...) (substatement . ...)).
3075 Non-block substatement lines still get just ((substatement . ...))
3077 Note that the custom indent function c-adaptive-block-open has been
3078 removed as obsolete.
3080 ** You can now specify the `hanginess' of closing braces. See
3081 c-hanging-braces-alist.
3083 ** Recognizes try and catch blocks in C++. They are given the
3084 substatement syntactic symbol.
3086 ** should be generally more forgiving about non-GNU standard top-level
3087 construct definition styles (i.e. where the function/class/struct
3088 opening brace does not start in column zero).
3090 If you hang the braces that open a top-level construct on the right
3091 edge, and you find you still need to define defun-open-prompt (Emacs
3092 19) please let me know. Note that there may still be performance
3093 issues related to non-column zero opening braces.
3095 ** c-macro-expand is put on C-c C-e
3097 ** New style: "Default". Resets indentation to those shipped with
3100 ** internal defun c-indent-via-language-element has been renamed
3101 c-indent-line for compatibility with c-mode.el and awk-mode.
3103 ** new buffer-local variable c-comment-start-regexp for (potential)
3104 flexibility in adding new modes based on cc-mode.el
3108 * Changes in Emacs 19.25
3110 The variable x-cross-pointer-shape (which didn't really exist) has
3111 been renamed to x-sensitive-text-pointer-shape, and now does exist.
3115 * Changes in Emacs 19.24
3117 Here is a list of new Lisp packages introduced since 19.22.
3119 derived.el Define new major modes based on old ones.
3120 dired-x.el Extra Dired features.
3121 double.el New mode for conveniently inputting non-beyond chars.
3122 easymenu.el Create menus easily.
3123 ediff.el Snazzy diff interface.
3124 foldout.el A kind of outline mode designed for editing programs.
3125 gnus-uu.el UUdecode in GNUS buffers.
3126 ielm.el Interactively evaluate Lisp.
3127 This is a replacement for Lisp Interaction Mode.
3128 iso-cvt.el Conversion of beyond-ASCII characters between
3129 various different representations.
3130 jka-compr.el Automatic compression/decompression.
3131 mldrag.el Drag modeline to change heights of windows.
3132 mail-hist.el Provides history for headers of outgoing mail.
3133 rsz-mini.el Automatically resizing minibuffers.
3134 s-region.el Set region by holding shift.
3135 skeleton.el Templates for statement insertion.
3136 soundex.el Classifying words by how they sound.
3137 tempo.el Template insertion with hotspots.
3141 * User Editing Changes in 19.23.
3143 ** Emacs 19.23 uses Ispell version 3.
3145 Previous Emacs 19 versions used Ispell version 4. That version had
3146 improvements in storing the dictionary compactly, but these are not
3147 very important nowadays. Meanwhile, in parallel to the work on Ispell
3148 4, many useful features were added to Ispell 3. Until a few months
3149 ago, the terms on Ispell 3 did not let us use it; but they have now
3150 been changed, so now we are using it. We are dropping Ispell 4.
3152 ** Emacs 19.23 can run on MS-DOG. See the file MSDOS in the same
3153 directory as this file.
3155 ** Emacs 19.23 can work with an X toolkit. You must specify toolkit
3156 operation when you configure Emacs: use the option
3157 --with-x-toolkit=yes. (This option uses code developed by Lucid;
3158 thanks to Frederic Pierresteguy for helping to adapt it.)
3160 ** Emacs now has dialog boxes; yes/no and y/n questions automatically
3161 use them in commands invoked with the mouse. For more information,
3162 see below under "Lisp programming changes".
3164 ** Menus now display the keyboard equivalents (if any) of the menu
3165 commands in parentheses after the menu item.
3167 ** Kill commands, used in a read-only buffer, now move point across
3168 the text they would otherwise have killed. This way, you can use
3169 repeated kill commands to transfer text into the kill ring.
3171 ** There is now a global mark ring in addition to the mark ring that is local
3172 to each buffer. The global mark ring stores positions in any buffer. Any
3173 time the mark is set and the current buffer is different from the last time
3174 the mark was set, the new mark is pushed on the global mark ring as well.
3175 The new command C-x C-SPC (pop-global-mark) pops the global mark ring and
3176 jumps to the last mark pushed, first switching to that buffer.
3178 ** Query Replace is now available in the Edit menu.
3180 ** ESC no longer simply exits a Query Replace. It now exits the Query
3181 Replace and remains pending. Thus, ESC A and M-A are now equivalent
3184 To simply exit a Query Replace, type RET or Period.
3186 ** M-mouse-2 now puts point at the end of the yanked secondary selection.
3188 ** Mouse-1 in the mode line now simply selects the window above that
3189 mode line. Mouse-2 in the mode line selects that window and expands
3190 it to fill the frame it is in.
3192 ** You can now use mouse-2 in a Dired buffer or Tar mode buffer to find
3193 a file you click on, in a compilation buffer to go to a particular
3194 error message, and in a *Occur* buffer to go to a particular
3197 (It was already possible to do likewise in Info and in completion list
3200 What's more, the sensitive areas of the buffer now highlight when you
3201 move the mouse over them.
3203 ** In a completion list buffer, the command RET now chooses the completion
3204 that is around or next to point.
3206 ** If you specify the foreground color for the `mode-line' face, and
3207 mode-line-inverse-video is non-nil, then the default background color
3208 is the usual foreground color.
3210 ** revert-buffer now preserves markers pointing within the unchanged
3211 text (if any) at the beginning and end of the file.
3213 ** Version control checkin and checkout preserve all markers if the
3214 file does not contain any of the magic version header sequences that
3215 are updated automatically by RCS and SCCS. If such version headers
3216 are present, checkin and checkout preserve a marker unless it comes
3217 between two such sequences. (So it's a good idea to put all the
3218 header sequences close together.)
3220 ** When a large deletion shuts off auto save temporarily in a buffer,
3221 you can now turn it on again by saving the buffer with C-x C-s (as was
3222 possible in Emacs 18). You can also turn it on again with M-1 M-x
3223 auto-save (as has been possible in Emacs 19).
3225 ** C-x r d now runs the command delete-rectangle.
3227 ** The new command imenu shows you a menu of interesting places in the
3228 current buffer and lets you select one; then it moves point there.
3229 The definition of interesting places depends on the major mode, but
3230 typically this includes function definitions and such. Normally,
3231 imenu displays the menu in a buffer; but if you bind it to a mouse
3232 event, it shows a mouse popup menu.
3234 ** You can make certain chosen buffers, that normally appear in a
3235 separate window, appear in special frames of their own. To do this,
3236 set special-display-buffer-names to a list of buffer names; any buffer
3237 whose name is in that list automatically gets a special frame when it
3238 is to be displayed in another window.
3240 A good value to try is ("*compilation*" "*grep*" "*TeX Shell*").
3242 More generally, you can set special-display-regexps to a list of regular
3243 expressions; then each buffer whose name matches any of those regular
3244 expressions gets its own frame.
3246 The variable special-display-frame-alist specifies the frame
3247 parameters for these frames. It has a default value, so you don't
3250 ** If you set sentence-end-double-space to nil, the fill commands
3251 expect just one space at the end of a sentence. (If you want the
3252 sentence commands to accept single spaces, you must modify the regexp
3255 ** You can suppress the startup echo area message by adding text like
3256 this to your .emacs file:
3258 (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "YOUR-LOGIN-NAME")
3260 Simply setting inhibit-startup-echo-area-message to your login name is
3261 not sufficient to inhibit the message; Emacs explicitly checks whether
3262 .emacs contains an expression as shown above. Your login name must
3263 appear in the expression as a Lisp string constant.
3265 This way, you can easily inhibit the message for yourself if you wish,
3266 but thoughtless copying of your .emacs file will not inhibit the
3267 message for someone else.
3269 ** Outline minor mode now uses C-c C-o as a prefix instead of just C-c.
3271 ** In Outline mode, hide-subtree is now C-c C-d. (It was C-c C-h; but
3272 that is now a conventional way to ask for help about C-c commands.)
3274 ** There are two additional commands in Outline mode.
3276 hides all headers except the topmost N levels.
3278 hides everything about the body that point is in
3279 plus the headers leading up from there to the top of the tree.
3281 ** In iso-transl and iso-insert, the sequences for entering A-ring and
3282 the AE ligature are now just A and E (plus the initial C-x 8 or Alt).
3283 You used to have to enter AA or AE, after the C-x 8 prefix of course.
3284 Likewise for lower case a-ring and ae.
3286 ** iso-transl now defines convenient Alt keys as well as the C-x 8 prefix.
3287 Instead of prefixing a sequence with C-x 8, you can add Alt to the
3288 first character of the sequence. For example, Alt-" a is now a way
3289 to enter an a-umlaut.
3291 ** CC mode is a greatly improved mode for C and C++.
3292 See the following page.
3294 ** tcl mode is a new major mode. It provides features for
3295 editing, indenting and running tcl programs.
3297 ** Compilation minor mode lets you parse error messages in any buffer,
3298 not just a normal compilation output buffer. Type M-x
3299 compilation-minor-mode to enable the minor mode; then C-c C-c jumps to
3300 the source location for the error at point, as in the `*compilation*'
3301 buffer. If you use compilation-minor-mode in an Rlogin buffer, it
3302 automatically accesses remote source files by ftp.
3304 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
3306 *** Comint modes (including Shell mode, GUD modes, etc.) now bind
3307 C-M-l to the command comint-show-output. This command scrolls the
3308 buffer to show the last batch of output from the subprogram.
3310 *** Completion in Comint modes now truly operates on the string before
3311 point, rather than the word that point is within.
3313 *** Comint mode file name completion ignores those files that end with a
3314 string in the new variable comint-completion-fignore. This variable's
3315 default value is nil.
3317 *** Shell mode uses the variable shell-completion-fignore to set
3318 comint-completion-fignore. The default value is nil, but some
3319 people prefer ("~" "#" "%").
3321 *** The function `comint-watch-for-password-prompt' can be used to
3322 suppress echoing when a subprocess asks for a password. To use it,
3325 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
3326 'comint-watch-for-password-prompt)
3328 *** You can use M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m to strip ^M characters from
3331 *** In Shell mode, TAB now completes environment variables, if possible,
3332 and expands directory references.
3334 *** You can use M-x comint-run to execute any program of your choice in
3335 a comint mode. Some programs such as shells, rlogin, and debuggers
3336 have their own specialized modes; this command is one way to use
3337 comint to run programs for which no such specialized mode exits. (You
3338 can also run a shell with M-x shell and run the program of your choice
3339 under the shell--but that gives you the specializations of Shell
3342 ** When you run GUD (M-x gdb, M-x dbx, and so on), you can use TAB
3343 to do file name completion in the minibuffer.
3345 The "Complete" menu includes an item for directory expansion.
3347 ** GUD working with future versions of GDB will permit TAB for
3348 GDB-style symbol completion. This will work with GDB 4.13.
3350 ** Rmail no longer gets new mail automatically when you visit an Rmail
3351 file specified by name--not even if it is your primary Rmail file. To
3352 get new mail, type `g'. This feature is an advantage because you now
3353 have a choice of whether to get new mail. (This change actually
3354 occurred in an earlier version, but wasn't listed here then, since it
3355 made the code do what the documentation already said.)
3357 ** Rmail now highlights certain fields automatically, when you use X
3358 windows. The variable rmail-highlighted-headers controls which
3361 ** If you set rmail-summary-window-size to an integer, Rmail uses
3362 a window that many lines high for the summary buffer.
3364 ** rmail-input-menu is a new command that visits an Rmail file letting
3365 you choose which file with a mouse menu. rmail-output-menu is
3366 similar; it outputs the current message, using a mouse menu to choose
3367 which Rmail file. These commands use the variables
3368 rmail-secondary-file-directory and rmail-secondary-file-regexp.
3370 ** The mh-e package has been changed substantially.
3371 See the file ./MH-E-NEWS for details.
3373 ** The calendar and diary have new features.
3375 The menu bar for the calendar contains most of the calendar commands,
3376 arranged into logical categories.
3378 Mouse-2 now performs specific-date-related commands when clicked on a
3379 date in the calendar window and common three-month-related commands
3380 when clicked elsewhere in the calendar window.
3382 You can set up colored/shaded highlighting of holidays, diary entry
3383 dates, and today's date, by setting calendar-holiday-marker,
3384 diary-entry-marker, and calendar-today-marker to a face instead of a
3385 character. Using a special face is now the default if you are using a
3388 ** The appt package for displaying appointment reminders has new
3391 *** The appt alarm window stays for the full duration of
3392 appt-display-duration. It no longer disappears when you start typing
3395 *** You can change the way the appointment window is created/deleted by
3396 setting the variables appt-disp-window-function and
3397 appt-delete-window-function.
3399 For instance, these variables can be set to functions that display
3400 appointments in pop-up frames, which are lowered or iconified after
3401 appt-display-duration seconds.
3403 ** desktop.el can now save a list of buffer-local variables,
3404 and saves more global ones.
3406 ** Pascal mode has been completely rewritten. It now features
3407 completing of function names, variables and type definitions around
3408 current point (like M-TAB does with lisp-symbols). There's also an
3409 outline mode (M-x pascal-outline) that hides the bodies of all
3410 functions you're not working with.
3412 ** Edebug has a number of changes:
3414 *** Edebug syntax error reporting is improved.
3416 *** Top-level forms and defining forms other than defun and defmacro may
3417 now be debugged with Edebug.
3419 *** Edebug specifications may now contain body, &define, name, arg or
3420 arglist, def-body, and def-form, to support definitions.
3422 *** edebug-all-defuns is renamed to edebug-all-defs.
3423 def-edebug-form-spec is replaced by def-edebug-form whose arguments
3424 are unevaluated. The old names are still available for now.
3426 *** Frequency counts and coverage data may be displayed for functions being
3429 *** A global break condition is now checked at every stop point.
3431 *** The previous condition at a breakpoint may now be edited.
3433 *** A new "next" mode stops only after expression evaluation.
3435 *** A new command, top-level-nonstop, does not even stop for unwind-protect,
3439 * Changes in CC mode in Emacs 19.23.
3441 `cc-mode' provides ANSI C, K&R C, and ARM C++ language editing. It
3442 represents the merge of c++-mode.el and c-mode.el. cc-mode provides a
3443 new, more flexible indentation engine so that indentation
3444 customization is more intuitive. There are two steps to calculating
3445 indentation: first, CC mode analyzes the line for syntactic content,
3446 then based on this content it applies user defined offsets and adds
3447 this offset to the indentation of some previous line.
3449 The syntactic analysis determines if the line describes a `statement',
3450 `substatement', `class-open', `member-init-intro', etc. These are
3451 described in detail with C-h v c-offsets-alist. You can change the
3452 offsets interactively with C-c C-o (c-set-offsets), or
3453 programmatically in your c-mode-common-hook, which is run both by
3454 c-mode and c++-mode. You can also set up "styles" in the same way
3455 that you could with c-mode.el. The variable c-basic-offset controls
3456 the basic offset given to a level of indentation.
3458 If, for example, you wanted to change this style:
3464 printf ("its a foo\n");
3467 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3478 printf ("its a foo\n");
3481 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3486 you could add the following to your .emacs file:
3488 (defun my-c-mode-common-hook ()
3489 (c-set-offset 'case-label 2)
3490 (c-set-offset 'statement-case-intro 2))
3491 (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'my-c-mode-common-hook)
3495 c-offsets-alist contains an association list of syntactic symbols and
3496 their relative offsets. Do a "C-h v c-offsets-alist" to get a list of
3497 all syntactic symbols currently defined, and their meanings. You
3498 should not change this variable directly; use the supplied interface
3499 commands c-set-offset and c-set-style.
3501 c-mode-common-hook is run by both c-mode and c++-mode during their
3502 common initializations. You should put any customizations that are
3503 the same for both C and C++ into this hook.
3505 The variable c-strict-semantics-p is used mainly for debugging. When
3506 non-nil, CC mode signals an error if it returns a syntactic symbol
3507 that can't be found in c-offsets-alist.
3509 If you want CC mode to echo the syntactic analysis for a particular
3510 line when you hit the TAB key, set c-echo-semantic-information-p to
3513 c-basic-offset controls the standard amount of offset for a level of
3514 indentation. You can set a syntactic symbol's offset to + or - as a
3515 short-hand for positive or negative c-basic-offset.
3517 c-comment-only-line-offset lets you control indentation given to lines
3518 which contain only a comment, in the case of C++ line style comments,
3519 or the introduction to a C block comment. Comment-only lines at
3520 column zero can be anchored there independent of the indentation given
3521 to other comment-only lines.
3523 c-block-comments-indent-p controls the style of C block comment
3524 re-indentation. If you put leading stars in front of comment
3525 continuation lines, you should set this variable to nil.
3527 c-cleanup-list is a list describing certain C and C++ constructs to be
3528 "cleaned up" as they are typed, but only when the auto-newline feature
3529 is turned on. In C++, make sure this variable contains at least
3530 'scope-operator so that double colons will not be separated by a
3533 Colons (`:') and braces (`{` and `}') are special in C and C++. For
3534 certain constructs, you may like them to hang on the right edge of the
3535 code, or you may like them to start a new line of code. You can use
3536 the two variables c-hanging-braces-alist and c-hanging-colons-alist
3537 to control whether newlines are placed before and/or after colons and
3538 braces when certain C and C++ constructs are entered. For example,
3539 you can control whether the colon that introduces a C++ member
3540 initialization list hangs on the right edge, starts a new line, or has
3541 no newlines either before or after it.
3543 c-special-indent-hook is run after a line is indented by CC mode. You
3544 can perform any custom indentations here.
3546 c-delete-function is the function that is called when a single
3547 character is deleted with the c-electric-delete command (DEL).
3549 c-electric-pound-behavior describes what happens when you enter the
3550 `#' that introduces a cpp macro.
3552 If c-tab-always-indent is neither t nor nil, then TAB inserts a tab
3553 when within strings, comments, and cpp directives, but it reindents
3554 the line unconditionally.
3556 c-inhibit-startup-warnings-p inhibits warnings about any old
3557 version of Emacs you might be running, which could be incompatible
3560 ** There are two new minor-mode features in CC mode: auto-newline and
3561 hungry-delete. Auto-newline inserts newlines automatically as you
3562 type certain constructs. Hungry-delete consumes all preceding
3563 whitespace (spaces, tabs, and newlines) when the delete key is hit.
3564 You can toggle auto-newline on and off on a per-buffer basis by
3565 hitting C-c C-a. You can toggle hungry-delete on and off by hitting
3566 C-c C-d. You can toggle them both on and off together with C-c C-t.
3568 ** Slash (`/') and star (`*') are now both electric characters.
3572 The new C-c C-o (c-set-offset) command can be used to interactively change
3573 the offset for a particular syntactic symbol.
3575 The new command C-c : (c-scope-operator) inserts the C++ scope operator in
3578 The new command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) indents the entire enclosing
3579 top-level function or class.
3581 The new command C-c C-s (c-show-semantic-information) echos the current
3582 syntactic analysis without re-indenting the current line.
3584 The new commands M-x c-forward-into-nomenclature and M-x
3585 c-backward-into-nomenclature (currently otherwise unbound to a key
3586 sequence), make movement easier when using the C++ variable naming
3587 convention of VariableNamesWithoutUnderscoresButEachWordCapitalized.
3589 ** Command from c-mode.el that have been renamed in cc-mode.el:
3591 electric-c-brace => c-electric-brace
3592 electric-c-semi => c-electric-semi&comma
3593 electric-c-sharp-sign => c-electric-pound
3594 mark-c-function => c-mark-function
3595 electric-c-terminator => c-electric-colon
3596 indent-c-exp => c-indent-exp
3597 set-c-style => c-set-style
3599 ** Variables from c-mode.el that are obsolete with cc-mode.el:
3602 c-brace-imaginary-offset
3606 c-continued-statement-offset
3607 c-continued-brace-offset
3610 * Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.23.
3612 ** To pop up a dialog box, call x-popup-dialog.
3613 It takes two arguments, POSITION and CONTENTS.
3615 POSITION specifies which frame to place the dialog box over;
3616 the dialog box always goes on the center of the frame.
3617 POSITION may be a mouse event, a window, a frame,
3618 or t meaning use the frame that the mouse is in.
3620 CONTENTS specifies the contents of the dialog box.
3621 It looks like a single pane of a popup menu:
3622 (TITLE ITEM1 ITEM2 ...), where each ITEM has the form (STRING . VALUE).
3623 The return value is VALUE from the chosen item.
3625 An ITEM may also be just a string--that makes a nonselectable item.
3626 An ITEM may also be nil--that means to put all preceding items
3627 on the left of the dialog box and all following items on the right.
3628 (By default, approximately half appear on each side.)
3630 If your Emacs is not using an X toolkit, then it cannot display a
3631 real dialog box; so instead it displays a pop-up menu in the center
3634 ** y-or-n-p, yes-or-no-p and map-y-or-n-p now use menus or dialog boxes
3635 to ask their question(s) if the command that is running was reached by
3638 If you want to control which way these functions work, bind the
3639 variable last-nonmenu-event around the call. These functions use the
3640 keyboard if that variable holds a keyboard event (actually, any
3641 non-list); they use the mouse if that variable holds a mouse event
3642 (actually, any list).
3644 ** The mouse-face property is now implemented, both in overlays and as
3645 a text property. It specifies a face to use when the mouse is in the
3646 range of text for which the property is specified.
3648 ** When text has a non-nil `intangible' property, you cannot move point
3649 within it or right before it. If you try, point actually moves to the
3650 end of the intangible text. Note that this means that backward-char
3651 is a no-op when there is an intangible character to the left of point.
3653 ** minibuffer-exit-hook is a new normal hook that is run when you
3654 exit the minibuffer.
3656 ** The variable x-cross-pointer-shape specifies the cursor shape to use
3657 when the mouse is over text that has a mouse-face property.
3659 ** The new variable interpreter-mode-alist specifies major modes to use
3660 for shell scripts that specify a command interpreter. Its elements
3661 look like (INTERPRETER . MODE); for example, ("perl" . perl-mode) is
3662 one element present by default. This feature applies only when the
3663 file name doesn't indicate which mode to use.
3665 ** If you use a minibuffer-only frame, set the variable
3666 minibuffer-auto-raise to t, and entering the minibuffer will then
3667 raise the minibuffer frame.
3669 ** If pop-up-frames is t, display-buffer now looks for an existing
3670 window in any visible frame, showing the specified buffer, and uses
3671 such a window in preference to making a new frame.
3673 ** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
3674 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
3675 and delete-windows-on, if you specify `visible' for the last argument,
3676 it means to consider all visible frames.
3678 ** Mouse events now give the X and Y coordinates in pixels, rather than
3679 in characters. You can convert these values to characters by dividing by
3680 the values of (frame-char-width) and (frame-char-height).
3682 ** The new functions mouse-pixel-position and set-mouse-pixel-position
3683 read and set the mouse position in units of pixels. The existing
3684 functions mouse-position and set-mouse-position continue to work with
3685 units of characters.
3687 ** The new function compute-motion is useful for computing the width
3688 of certain text when it is displayed.
3690 ** The function vertical-motion now takes an option second argument WINDOW
3691 which says which window to use for the display calculations.
3693 vertical-motion always operates on the current buffer.
3694 It is ok to specify a window displaying some other buffer.
3695 Then vertical-motion uses the width, hscroll and display-table of
3696 the specified window, but still scans the current buffer.
3698 ** An error no longer sets last-command to t; the value of last-command
3699 does reflect the previous command (the one that got an error).
3701 If you do not want a particular command to be recognized as the
3702 previous command in the case where it got an error, you must code that
3703 command to prevent this. Set this-command to t at the beginning of
3704 the command, and set this-command back to its proper value at the end,
3707 (defun foo (args...)
3709 (setq this-command t)
3711 (setq this-command 'foo))
3715 (defun foo (args...)
3717 (let ((old-this-command this-command))
3718 (setq this-command t)
3720 (setq this-command old-this-command)))
3722 The undo and yank commands do this.
3724 ** If you specify an explicit title for a new frame when you create it,
3725 the title is used as the resource name when looking up X resources to
3726 control the shape of that frame. If you don't specify the frame title,
3727 the value of x-resource-name is used, as before.
3729 ** The frame parameter user-position, if non-nil, says that the user
3730 has specified the frame position. Emacs reports this to the window
3731 manager, to tell it not to override the position that the user
3734 ** Major modes can now set change-major-mode-hook to arrange for state
3735 to be cleaned up when the user switches to a new major mode. The function
3736 kill-all-local-variables runs this hook. For best results, make the hook a
3737 buffer-local variable so that it will disappear after doing its job and will
3738 not interfere with the subsequent major mode.
3740 ** The new variable overriding-local-map, if non-nil, specifies a keymap
3741 that overrides the current local map, all minor mode keymaps, and all
3742 text property keymaps. Incremental search uses this feature to override
3743 all other keymaps temporarily.
3745 ** A key definition in a menu keymap can now have additional structure:
3746 in addition to (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] . COMMAND) which was allowed
3747 before, the form (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] (...) . COMMAND) is
3748 allowed. (HELPSTRING is optional, and is not currently used.)
3750 Here (...) represents a sublist containing information about keyboard
3751 key sequences that run the same command COMMAND. Displaying the menu
3752 automatically creates and updates the sublist when appropriate; you
3753 need never set these up yourself.
3755 lookup-key, key-binding, and similar functions return just COMMAND,
3756 not the whole binding.
3758 To precompute this information for a given keymap, you can do
3759 (x-popup-menu nil KEYMAP).
3761 ** When you specify coordinates for x-popup-menu as a list ((XOFFSET
3762 YOFFSET) WINDOW), the coordinates are now measured in pixels.
3764 ** where-is-internal now takes just four arguments:
3765 DEFINITION KEYMAP FIRSTONLY NOINDIRECT.
3766 The single argument KEYMAP replaces two arguments KEYMAP and KEYMAP1.
3768 If KEYMAP is non-nil, where-is-internal searches only KEYMAP and the
3771 If KEYMAP is nil, where-is-internal searches all the currently active
3772 keymaps, but finds the active keymaps as if overriding-local-map were
3775 If you pass a list of the form (keymap) as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3776 searches only the global map. (This is not a special case--it follows
3777 from the specifications above.)
3779 If you pass the value of overriding-local-map as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3780 searches in exactly the same was as command execution does.
3782 ** Use the macro define-derived-mode to define a new major mode that
3783 inherits the definition of another major mode. Here's how to define a
3784 command named hypertext-mode that inherits from the command text-mode:
3786 (define-derived-mode hypertext-mode text-mode "Hypertext"
3787 "Major mode for hypertext.\n\n\\{hypertext-mode-map}"
3788 (setq case-fold-search nil))
3790 (define-key hypertext-mode-map [down-mouse-3] 'do-hyper-link)
3792 The new mode has its own keymap, which inherits from that of the
3793 original mode. It also has its own syntax and abbrev tables, which
3794 are initialized by copying those of the original mode. It also has
3795 its own mode hook. All are given names made by appending a suffix
3796 to the name of the new mode.
3798 ** A syntax table can now inherit the data for some characters from
3799 standard-syntax-table, while specifying other characters itself.
3800 Syntax code 13 means "inherit this character from the standard syntax
3801 table." In modify-syntax-entry, the character `@' represents this code.
3803 The function `make-syntax-table' now creates a syntax table which
3804 inherits all letters and control characters (0 to 31 and 128 to 255)
3805 from the standard syntax table, while copying the other characters
3806 from the standard syntax table. Most syntax tables in Emacs are set
3809 This sort of inheritance is useful for people who set up character
3810 sets with additional alphabetic characters in the range 128 to 255.
3811 Just changing the standard syntax for these characters affects all
3814 ** The new function transpose-regions swaps two regions of the buffer.
3815 It preserves the markers in those two regions, so that they stay with
3816 the surrounding text as it is swapped.
3818 ** revert-buffer now runs before-revert-hook at the beginning and
3819 after-revert-hook at the end. These can be used by minor modes
3820 that need to clean up state variables.
3822 ** The new function get-char-property is like get-text-property, but
3823 checks for overlays with properties as well as for text properties.
3824 It checks for overlays first, in order of descending priority, and
3825 text properties last.
3827 get-char-property allows windows as the OBJECT argument, as well
3828 as buffers and strings. If you specify a window, then only overlays
3829 active on that window are considered.
3831 ** Overlays can have the `invisible' property.
3833 ** The function insert-file-contents now takes an optional fifth
3834 argument called REPLACE. If this is t, it means to replace the
3835 contents of the buffer (actually, just the accessible portion)
3836 with the contents of the file.
3838 This is better than simply deleting and inserting the whole thing
3839 because (1) it preserves some marker positions and (2) it puts less
3840 data in the undo list.
3842 ** The variable inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps specifies classes of
3843 file names for which -*- on the first line should not be looked for.
3845 ** The variables before-change-functions and after-change-functions
3846 hold lists of functions to call before and after a change in the
3847 buffer's text. They work much like before-change-function and
3848 after-change-function, except that they hold a list of functions
3849 instead of just one.
3851 These variables will eventually make before-change-function and
3852 after-change-function obsolete.
3854 ** The variable kill-buffer-query-functions holds a list of functions
3855 to be called with no arguments when a buffer is about to be killed.
3856 (That buffer is the current buffer when the function is called.)
3857 If any of the functions returns nil, the buffer is not killed
3858 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3860 ** The variable kill-emacs-query-functions holds a list of functions
3861 to be called with no arguments when you ask to exit Emacs.
3862 If any of the functions returns nil, the exit is canceled
3863 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3865 ** The argument for buffer-disable-undo is now optional,
3866 like the argument for buffer-enable-undo.
3868 ** The new variable system-configuration holds the canonical three-part
3869 GNU configuration name for which Emacs was built.
3871 ** The function system-name now tries harder to return a fully qualified
3874 ** The variable emacs-major-version holds the major version number
3875 of Emacs. (Currently 19.)
3877 ** The variable emacs-minor-version holds the minor version number
3878 of Emacs. (Currently 23.)
3880 ** The default value of comint-input-autoexpand is now nil.
3881 However, Shell mode sets it from the value of shell-input-autoexpand,
3882 whose default value is `history'.
3884 ** The new function set-process-window-size specifies the terminal window
3885 size for a subprocess. On some systems it sends the subprocess a signal
3886 to let it know that the size has changed.
3888 ** %P is a new way to display a percentage in the mode line. It
3889 displays the percentage of the buffer text that is above the *bottom*
3890 of the window (which includes the text visible, in the window as well
3891 as the text above the top). It displays `Top' as well as the
3892 percentage if the top of the buffer is visible on screen.
3894 ** %+ in the mode line specs displays `*' if the buffer is modified,
3895 and otherwise `-'. It never displays `%', as `%*' would do; whether the
3896 buffer is read-only has no effect on %+.
3898 ** The new functions ffloor, fceiling, fround and ftruncate take a
3899 floating point argument and return a floating point result whose value
3900 is a nearby integer. ffloor returns the nearest integer below; fceiling,
3901 the nearest integer above; ftruncate, the nearest integer in the
3902 direction towards zero; fround, the nearest integer.
3904 ** Setting `print-escape-newlines' to a non-nil value now also makes
3905 formfeeds print as ``\f''.
3907 ** auto-mode-alist now has a new feature. If an element has the form
3908 (REGEXP FUNCTION t), and REGEXP matches the file name, then after calling
3909 FUNCTION, Emacs deletes the part of the file name that matched REGEXP
3910 and then searches auto-mode-alist again for a new match.
3912 This is useful for uncompression packages. An entry of this sort for
3913 .gz can uncompress the file and then put the uncompressed file in the
3914 proper mode according to the name sans .gz.
3916 ** The new function emacs-pid returns the process ID number of Emacs.
3918 ** user-login-name now consistently checks the LOGNAME environment
3919 variable before USER. user-original-login-name is obsolete, since it
3920 provides the same functionality. To ignore the environment variables,
3921 use user-real-login-name.
3923 ** There is a more general way of handling the system-specific X
3924 keysyms. Set the variable system-key-alist to an alist containing
3925 elements of the form (CODE . SYMBOL), where CODE is the numeric keysym
3926 code minus the "vendor specific" bit, and symbol is the name for the
3929 ** You can use the variable command-line-functions to set up functions
3930 to process unrecognized command line arguments. The variable's value
3931 should be a list of functions of no arguments. The functions are
3932 called successively until one of them returns non-nil.
3934 Each function should access the free variables argi (the current
3935 argument) and command-line-args-left (the remaining arguments). The
3936 function should return non-nil only if it recognizes and processes the
3937 argument in argi. If it does so, it may consume following arguments
3938 as well by removing them from command-line-args-left.
3940 ** There's a new way for a magic file name handler to run a primitive
3941 and inhibit handling of the file name. Here is how to do it:
3943 (let ((inhibit-file-name-handlers
3944 (cons 'ange-ftp-file-handler
3945 (and (eq inhibit-file-name-operation operation)
3946 inhibit-file-name-handlers)))
3947 (inhibit-file-name-operation operation))
3948 (apply this-operation args))
3950 The function find-file-name-handler now takes two arguments. The
3951 second argument is OPERATION, the operation for which the handler is
3954 People have suggested that the second argument should be optional, for
3955 backward compatibility. It would be nice if that were possible, but
3956 it is not. There is simply no way for find-file-name-handler to do
3957 the right thing without receiving the proper value for its second
3960 ** The variable completion-regexp-list affects the completion
3961 primitives try-completion and all-completions. They consider
3962 only the possible completions that match each regexp in the list.
3964 ** Case conversion in the function replace-match has been changed.
3966 The old behavior was this: if any word in the old text was
3967 capitalized, replace-match capitalized each word of the replacement
3970 The new behavior is this: if the first word in the old text is capitalized,
3971 replace-match capitalizes the first word of the replacement text.
3973 ** You can now specify a case table with CANON non-nil and EQV nil.
3974 Then the EQV part of the case table is deduced from CANON.
3976 ** The new function minibuffer-prompt takes no arguments and returns
3977 the current minibuffer prompt string.
3979 The new function minibuffer-prompt-width takes no arguments and
3980 returns the display width of the minibuffer prompt string.
3982 ** The new function frame-first-window returns the window at the
3983 upper left corner of a given frame.
3985 ** wholenump is a new alias for natnump.
3987 ** The variable installation-directory, if non-@code{nil}, names a
3988 directory within which to look for the `lib-src' and `etc'
3989 subdirectories. This is non-nil when Emacs can't find those
3990 directories in their standard installed locations, but can find them
3991 near where the Emacs executable was found.
3993 ** invocation-name and invocation-directory are now variables as well
3994 as functions. The variable values are the same values that the
3995 functions return: the Emacs program name sans directories, and the
3996 directory it was found in. (invocation-directory may be nil, if Emacs
3997 can't determine which directory it should be.)
3999 ** Installation change regarding version number counting.
4001 The version number of an Emacs executable contains three numbers.
4002 The first two describe the Emacs release and the third increments
4003 each time you build Emacs.
4005 Now the file version.el contains only the first two version numbers.
4006 The third component is now determined on the basis of the names of the
4007 existing executable files. This means that version.el is not altered
4014 ** The mouse click M-mouse-2 now inserts the current secondary
4015 selection (from Emacs or any other X client) where you click.
4016 It does not move point.
4017 This command is called mouse-yank-secondary.
4019 mouse-kill-secondary no longer has a key binding by default.
4020 Clicking M-mouse-3 (mouse-secondary-save-then-kill) twice
4021 may be a convenient enough way of killing the secondary selection.
4022 Or perhaps there should be a keyboard binding for killing the
4023 secondary selection. Any suggestions?
4027 *** `icomplete' provides character-by-character information
4028 about what you could complete if you type TAB.
4030 *** `avoid' moves the mouse away from point so that it doesn't hide
4033 *** `shadowfile' helps you update files that are supposed to be stored
4034 identically in different places (perhaps on different machines).
4036 ** C-h p now knows about four additional keywords: data, faces, mouse,
4039 ** The key for starting an inferior Lisp process, in Lisp mode,
4040 is now C-c C-z instead of C-c C-l.
4042 ** When the VC commands ask whether to save the buffer, if you say no,
4043 they signal an error. This is so that you won't operate on the wrong
4046 ** ISO Accents mode now supports `"s' as a way of typing German sharp s.
4048 ** By default, comint buffers (including Shell mode and debuggers)
4049 no longer try to scroll to keep the cursor on the bottom line.
4050 This feature was added in 19.21 but did not work smoothly enough.
4052 ** Emacs now handles the window manager "delete window" operation.
4054 ** Display of buffers with text properties is much faster now.
4056 ** The feature previously announced whereby `insert' does not inherit
4057 text properties from surrounding text was not fully implemented
4058 before; but now it is. use `insert-and-inherit' if you wish to
4059 inherit sticky properties from the surrounding text.
4061 ** The functions next-property-change, previous-property-change,
4062 next-single-property-change, and previous-single-property-change
4063 now take one additional optional argument LIMIT that is a position at
4064 which to stop scanning. If scan ends without finding the property
4065 change sought, these functions return the specified limit.
4067 The value returned by previous-single-property-change and
4068 previous-property-change, when they do find a change, is now one
4069 greater than what it used to be. It is the position between the two
4070 characters whose properties differ, which is one greater than the
4071 position of the first character found (while scanning back) with
4072 different properties.
4076 * User editing changes in version 19.21.
4078 ** ISO Accents mode supports four additional characters:
4079 A-with-ring (entered as /A), AE ligature (entered as /E),
4080 and their lower-case equivalents.
4084 * User editing changes in version 19.20.
4085 (See following page for Lisp programming changes.)
4087 Note that some of these changes were made subsequent to the Emacs 19.20
4088 editions of the Emacs manual and Emacs Lisp manual; therefore, if you
4089 have those editions, do read this page.
4091 ** Dragging with mouse button 1 now puts the selected region
4092 in the kill ring so you can paste it into other X applications.
4094 ** Double and triple clicks with button 1 now behave as in xterm,
4095 selecting the word or line surrounding where you click. If you drag
4096 after the last click, you can select a range of words or lines.
4098 ** You can use button 3 to extend a mouse-selected region, as in xterm.
4099 This works for regions selected either by dragging Mouse-1 or by
4100 multiple-clicking Mouse-1. Clicking Mouse-3 moves the end of the
4101 region that is (initially) nearer to where you click.
4103 If the selection was first made by multiple-clicking Mouse-1, and thus
4104 consists of entire words or lines, Mouse-3 preserves that state.
4106 As before, clicking Mouse-3 again in the same place kills the region
4109 ** The secondary selection commands, M-Mouse-1 and M-Mouse-3, have been
4112 ** You can now search for strings and regexps using the Edit menu bar menu.
4114 ** You can now access bookmarks using the Bookmark submenu in the File
4115 menu in the menu bar.
4117 ** ISO Accents mode, a buffer-local minor mode, provides a convenient
4118 way to type certain non-ASCII characters. It makes the characters `,
4119 ', ", ^, ~ and / serve as modifiers for the following letter. ` and '
4120 add accents, " adds an umlaut or dieresis, ^ adds a circumflex, ~
4121 adds a tilde, and / adds a slash to the following letter.
4123 If the following character is not a letter, or cannot be modified as
4124 requested, then both characters stand for themselves. If you
4125 duplicate the modifier accent character, that enters the corresponding
4126 ISO non-spacing accent character (thus, '' enters the ISO acute-accent
4127 character). To enter a modifier character itself, type it followed by
4130 This feature can be used whenever a key sequence is expected: for
4131 ordinary insertion, for searching, and for certain command arguments.
4133 A few special combinations:
4135 ~c => c with cedilla
4137 ~< => left guillemot
4138 ~> => right guillemot
4140 ** iso-transl.el is a new library that replaces iso-insert.el.
4141 It defines C-x 8 as an insertion prefix for the ISO characters
4142 between 128 and 255, much like iso-insert, except that iso-transl
4143 works even in searches and help commands--wherever a key sequence
4146 To define case-conversion for these characters for ISO 8859/1,
4147 load the library iso-syntax. (This is not new.)
4149 ** M-TAB in Text mode now runs the command ispell-complete-word
4150 which performs completion using the spelling dictionary.
4152 The spelling correction submenu now includes this command
4153 and another command which completes a word fragment (that is,
4154 it doesn't assume that the text to be completed starts at the
4155 beginning of a word.
4157 ** In incremental search, you can use M-y to yank the most recent kill
4158 into the search string.
4160 ** The new function ispell-message checks the spelling of a message
4161 you are about to send or post. It ignores text cited from other
4164 To automatically check all your outgoing messages, include the
4165 following line in your .emacs file:
4166 (setq news-inews-hook (setq mail-send-hook 'ispell-message))
4168 ** There is now a separate minibuffer history list for the names of
4169 extended commands. This history list is used by M-x when reading
4170 the command name. The motivation for this is to prevent command
4171 names from appearing in the history used for other minibuffer
4174 Note that the history list for entire commands that use the minibuffer
4175 is a separate feature. That history list records a command with all
4176 its arguments, and you must use C-x ESC ESC to access it.
4178 ** You can use the new command C-x v ~ VERSION RET to examine a
4179 specified version of a file that is maintained with version control.
4181 ** In Indented Text mode, only blank lines now separate paragraphs.
4182 Indented lines continue the paragraph that is in progress. This makes
4183 the user option variable adaptive-fill-mode have its intended effect.
4185 ** Local variable specifications in files for variables whose names end
4186 in `-hook' and `-function' are now controlled by the variable
4187 `enable-local-eval', just like the `eval' variable.
4189 ** C-x r j (jump-to-register) when restoring a frame configuration now
4190 makes all unwanted frames (existing frames not mentioned in the
4191 configuration) invisible.
4193 If you want to delete these unwanted frames, use a prefix argument for
4196 ** You can customize the calendar to display weeks beginning on
4197 Monday: set the variable `calendar-week-start-day' to 1.
4201 If you save messages to a file in Unix format while viewing a message
4202 with its whole header, this now copies to the file the entire header
4203 of each message copied.
4205 ** Comint mode changes.
4207 C-c C-e shows as much output as possible in the window.
4208 C-c RET copies an old input (the one at point)
4209 and places the copy after the latest prompt.
4210 C-c C-p and C-c C-n move through the buffer, stopping at places
4211 where the subshell prompted for input.
4212 C-c C-h lists the input history in a `*Help*' buffer.
4214 There are new menu bar items for completion/input/output/signal commands.
4216 Input behavior is configurable. Variables control whether some windows
4217 showing the buffer scroll to the bottom before insertion. These are
4218 `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-input' and `before-change-function'. By default,
4219 insertion causes the selected window to scroll to the bottom before insertion
4222 Subprocess output now keeps point at the end of the buffer in each
4223 window individually if point was already at the end of the buffer in
4226 If `comint-scroll-show-maximum-output' is non-nil (which is the
4227 default), then scrolling due to arrival of output tries to place the
4228 last line of text at the bottom line of the window, so as to show as
4229 much useful text as possible. (This mimics the scrolling behavior of
4232 By setting `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-output', you can opt for having
4233 point jump to the end of the buffer whenever output arrives--no matter
4234 where in the buffer point was before. If the value is `this', point
4235 jumps in the selected window. If the value is `all', point jumps in
4236 each window that shows the comint buffer. If the value is `other',
4237 point jumps in all nonselected windows that show the current buffer.
4238 The default value is nil, which means point does not jump to the end.
4240 Input history insertion is configurable. A variable controls whether only the
4241 first instance of successive identical inputs is stored in the input history.
4242 This is `comint-input-ignoredups'.
4244 Completion (bound to TAB) is now more general. Depending on context,
4245 completion now operates on the input history, on command names, or (as
4246 before) on filenames.
4248 Filename completion is configurable. Variables control whether
4249 file/directory suffix characters are added (`comint-completion-addsuffix'),
4250 whether shortest completion is acceptable when no further unambiguous
4251 completion is possible (`comint-completion-recexact'), and the timing of
4252 completion candidate listing (`comint-completion-autolist').
4254 Comint mode now provides history expansion. Insert input using `!'
4255 and `^', in the same syntax that typical shells use; then type TAB.
4256 This searches the comint input history for a matching element,
4257 performs substitution if necessary, and places the result in the
4258 comint buffer in place of the original input.
4260 History references in the input may be expanded before insertion into
4261 the input ring, or on input to the interpreter (and therefore
4262 visibly). The variable `comint-input-autoexpand' specifies which.
4264 You can make the SPC key perform history expansion by binding
4265 SPC to the command `comint-magic-space'.
4267 The command `comint-dynamic-complete-variable' does variable name
4268 completion using the environment variables as set within Emacs. The
4269 variables controlling filename completion apply to variable name
4270 completion too. This command is normally available through the menu
4275 Paragraph motion and marking commands (default bindings M-{, M-}, M-h) operate
4276 on output groups (i.e., shell prompt plus associated shell output).
4278 TAB now completes commands, as well as file names and expand history.
4279 Commands are searched for along the path that Emacs has on startup.
4281 C-c C-f now moves forward a command (`shell-forward-command') and
4282 C-c C-b now moves backward a command (`shell-backward-command').
4284 Command completion is configurable. The variables controlling
4285 filename completion in comint mode apply, together with a variable
4286 controlling whether to restrict possible completions to only files
4287 that are executable (`shell-command-execonly').
4289 The input history is initialised from the file name given in the
4290 variable `shell-input-ring-file-name'--normally `.history' in your
4293 Directory tracking is more robust. It can cope with command sequences
4294 and forked commands, and can detect the failure of directory changing
4295 commands in most circumstances. It's still not infallible, of course.
4297 You can now configure the behavior of `pushd'. Variables control
4298 whether `pushd' behaves like `cd' if no argument is given
4299 (`shell-pushd-tohome'), pop rather than rotate with a numeric argument
4300 (`shell-pushd-dextract'), and only add directories to the directory
4301 stack if they are not already on it (`shell-pushd-dunique'). The
4302 configuration you choose should match the underlying shell, of course.
4305 * Emacs Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.20.
4307 ** A new function `remove-hook' is now used to remove a hook that you might
4308 have added with `add-hook'.
4310 ** There is now a Lisp pretty-printer in the library `pp'.
4312 ** The partial Common Lisp support has been entirely reimplemented.
4314 ** When you insert text using `insert', `insert-before-markers' or
4315 `insert-buffer-substring', text properties are no longer inherited
4316 from the surrounding text.
4318 When you want to inherit text properties, use the new functions
4319 `insert-and-inherit' or `insert-before-markers-and-inherit'.
4321 The self-inserting character command does do inheritance.
4323 ** Frame creation hooks.
4325 The function make-frame now runs the normal hooks
4326 before-make-frame-hook and after-make-frame-hook.
4328 ** You can now use function-key-map to make a key an alias for other
4329 key sequences that can vary depending on circumstances. To do this,
4330 give the key a definition in function-key-map which is a function
4331 rather than a specific expansion key sequence.
4333 If the function reads input itself, it can have the effect of altering
4334 the event that follows. For example, here's how to define C-c h to
4335 turn the character that follows into a hyper character:
4337 (define-key function-key-map "\C-ch" 'hyperify)
4339 (defun hyperify (prompt)
4340 (let ((e (read-event)))
4341 (vector (if (numberp e)
4342 (logior (lsh 1 20) e)
4343 (if (memq 'hyper (event-modifiers e))
4345 (add-event-modifier "H-" e))))))
4347 (defun add-event-modifier (string e)
4348 (let ((symbol (if (symbolp e) e (car e))))
4349 (setq symbol (intern (concat string (symbol-name symbol))))
4352 (cons symbol (cdr e)))))
4354 The character translation function gets one argument, which is the
4355 prompt that was specified in read-key-sequence--or nil if the key
4356 sequence is being read by the editor command loop. In most cases
4357 you can just ignore the prompt value.
4359 ** Changes for reading and writing text properties.
4361 New low-level Lisp features make it possible to write Lisp programs to
4362 save text properties in files, and read text properties from files.
4363 You can program any file format you like.
4365 The variable `write-region-annotation-functions' should contain a list
4366 of functions to be run by `write-region' to encode text properties in
4367 some fashion as annotations to the text that is written.
4369 Each function in the list is called with two arguments: the start and
4370 end of the region to be written. These functions should not alter the
4371 contents of the buffer. Instead, they should return lists indicating
4372 annotations to write in the file in addition to the text in the
4375 Each function should return a list of elements of the form (POSITION
4376 . STRING), where POSITION is an integer specifying the relative
4377 position in the text to be written, and STRING is the annotation to
4380 Each list returned by one of these functions must be already sorted in
4381 increasing order by POSITION. If there is more than one function,
4382 `write-region' merges the lists destructively into one sorted list.
4384 When `write-region' actually writes the text from the buffer to the
4385 file, it intermixes the specified annotations at the corresponding
4386 positions. All this takes place without modifying the buffer.
4388 The variable `after-insert-file-functions' should contain a list of
4389 functions to be run each time a file's contents have been inserted into
4390 a buffer. Each function receives one argument, the length of the
4391 inserted text; point indicates the start of that text. The function
4392 should make whatever changes it wants to make, then return the updated
4393 length of the inserted text, as it stands after those changes. The
4394 value returned by one function is used as the argument to the next.
4395 These functions should always return with point at the beginning of
4398 The intended use of `after-insert-file-functions' is for converting
4399 some sort of textual annotations into actual text properties. But many
4400 other uses may be possible.
4402 We now invite users to begin implementing Lisp programs to store and
4403 retrieve text properties in files, using these new primitive features,
4404 and thus to experiment with various data formats and find good ones.
4406 We suggest not trying to handle arbitrary Lisp objects as property
4407 names or property values--because a program that general is probably
4408 difficult to write, and slow. Instead, choose a set of possible data
4409 types that are reasonably flexible, and not too hard to encode.
4411 ** Comint completion.
4413 Currently comint-dynamic-complete-command (and associated variable
4414 comint-after-partial-pathname-command) are set by default to complete a
4415 filename. Other comint-mode users should have their own functions to achieve
4416 this. For example, gud-mode could complete debugger commands. A completion
4417 function is provided solely for this reason (comint-dynamic-simple-complete).
4419 Other comint-mode users should bind comint-dynamic-complete (shell-mode does
4422 ** Comint history reference expansion
4424 Currently comint-input-autoexpand is 'history, which means only expand
4425 history on insertion to comint-input-ring. For non-shell modes, this is
4426 a strange default, since non-shells will not understand history references.
4427 Perhaps it would be better for the variable to be 'input, which means expand
4430 The value 'history might possibly be wrong even for shells, since the
4431 expansion will be done both by comint and the underlying shell (except sh, of
4432 course). It would be better for expansion to be done by one or the other,
4433 not both since they may (ahem) disagree. Since it is silly to put a literal
4434 history reference into comint-input-ring, perhaps it would be better for the
4435 variable to be 'input too.
4437 The reason the variable is not 'input by default is that I was attempting to
4438 adhere to The Principle of Least Astonishment. I didn't want to shock users
4439 by having their input change in front of their eyes.
4441 ** Argument delimiters and Comint mode.
4443 Currently comint-delimiter-argument-list is '(), which means no strings are
4444 to be treated as delimiters and arguments. In shell-mode, this variable is
4445 set to shell-delimiter-argument-list, '("|" "&" "<" ">" "(" ")" ";"). Other
4446 comint-mode users should set this variable too. For example, a lisp-type
4447 mode might want to set this to '("." "(" ")") or some such.
4449 ** Comint output hook.
4451 There is now a hook, comint-output-filter-hook, that is run-hooks'ed by the
4452 output filter, comint-output-filter. This is useful for scrolling (see
4453 below), but also things like processing output for specific text, output
4456 So that such output processing may be done efficiently, there is a new
4457 variable, comint-last-output-start, that records the position of the start of
4458 the lastest output inserted into the buffer (effectively the previous value
4459 of process-mark). Output processing functions should process the text
4460 between comint-last-output-start (or perhaps the beginning of the line that
4461 the position lies on) and process-mark.
4463 ** Comint scrolling.
4465 There is now automatic scrolling of process windows.
4467 Currently comint-scroll-show-maximum-output is t, which means when scrolling
4468 output put process-mark at the bottom of the window. There is a good case
4469 for it to be t, since the user is likely to want to see as much output as
4470 possible. But, then again, there is a comint-show-maximum-output command.
4472 ** Comint history retrieval.
4474 The input following point is not deleted when moving around the input history
4475 (with M-p etc.). Emacs maintainers may not like this. However, I feel this
4476 is a useful feature. The simple remedy is to put end-of-line in before
4477 delete-region in comint-previous-matching-input.
4479 The input history retrieval commands still wrap-around the input ring, unlike
4480 Emacs command history.
4484 * Changes in version 19.19.
4486 ** The new package bookmark.el records named bookmarks: positions that
4487 you can jump to. Bookmarks are saved automatically between Emacs
4490 ** Another simpler package saveplace.el records your position in each
4491 file when you kill its buffer (or kill Emacs), and jumps to the same
4492 position when you visit the file again (even in another Emacs
4493 session). Use `toggle-save-place' to turn on place-saving in a given file;
4494 use (setq-default save-place t) to turn it on for all files.
4496 ** In Outline mode, you can now customize how to compute the level of a
4497 heading line. Set `outline-level' to a function of no arguments which
4498 returns the level, assuming point is at the beginning of a heading
4501 ** You can now specify the prefix key to use for Outline minor mode.
4502 (The default is C-c.) Set the variable outline-minor-mode-prefix to
4503 the key sequence you want to use (as a string or vector).
4505 ** In Bibtex mode, C-c e has been changed to C-c C-b. This is because
4506 C-c followed by a letter is reserved for users.
4508 ** The `mod' function is no longer an alias for `%', but is a separate function
4509 that yields a result with the same sign as the divisor. `floor' now takes an
4510 optional second argument, which divides the first argument before the floor is
4513 ** `%' no longer allows floating point arguments, since the results were often
4514 inconsistent with integer `%'.
4518 * Changes in version 19.18.
4520 ** Typing C-z in an iconified Emacs frame now deiconifies it.
4522 ** hilit19 is a new library for automatic highlighting of parts of the
4523 text in the buffer, based on its meaning and context.
4525 ** Killing no longer sends the killed text to the X clipboard.
4526 And large strings are not put in the cut buffer either.
4527 The variable x-cut-buffer-max specifies the maximum number of characters
4528 to put in the cut buffer.
4530 ** The new command C-x 5 o (other-frame) selects different frames,
4531 successively, in cyclic order. It does for frames what C-x o
4534 ** The command M-ESC (eval-expression) has its own command history.
4536 ** The commands M-! and M-| for running shell commands have their own
4539 ** If the directory containing the Emacs executable has a sibling named
4540 `lisp', that `lisp' directory is added to the end of `load-path'
4541 (provided you don't override the normal value with the EMACSLOADPATH
4542 environment variable). This feature may make it easier to move
4543 an installed Emacs from place to place.
4545 ** M-x validate-tex-buffer now records the locations of mismatches
4546 found in the `*Occur*' buffer. You can go to that buffer and type C-c
4547 C-c to visit a particular mismatch.
4549 ** There are new commands in Shell mode.
4551 C-c C-n and C-c C-p move point to the next or previous shell input line.
4553 C-c C-d is now another way to send an end-of-file to the subshell.
4555 ** Changes to calendar/diary.
4557 Time zone data is now determined automatically, including the
4558 start/stop days and times of daylight savings time. The code now
4559 works correctly almost anywhere in the world.
4561 The format of the holiday specifications has changed and IS NO LONGER
4562 COMPATIBLE with the old (version 18) format. See the documentation of
4563 the variable calendar-holidays for details of the new, improved
4566 The hook `diary-display-hook' has been split into two:
4567 diary-display-hook which should be used ONLY for the display and
4568 `diary-hook' which should be used for appointment notification. If
4569 diary-display-hook is nil (the default), simple-diary-display is
4570 used. This allows the diary hooks to be correctly set with add-hook.
4572 The forms used for dates in diary entries and general display are no
4573 longer autoloaded, but set at load time; this means they will be set
4574 correctly based on values you assign to various variables.
4576 ** The functions x-rebind-key and x-rebind-keys have been deleted,
4577 because you can accomplish the same job by binding keys to keyboard
4580 ** Emacs now distinguishes double and triple drag events and double and
4581 triple button-down events. These work analogously to double and
4582 triple click events.
4584 Double drag events, if not defined, convert to ordinary click events.
4585 Double down events, if not defined, convert first to ordinary down
4586 events, which are then discarded if not defined. Triple events that
4587 are not defined convert to the corresponding double event; if that is
4588 also not defined, it may convert further.
4590 ** The new function event-click-count returns the number of clicks,
4591 from an event which is a list. It is 1 for an ordinary click, drag,
4592 or button-down event, 2 for a double event, and 3 or more for a triple
4595 ** The new function previous-frame is like next-frame, but moves
4596 around through the set of existing frames in the opposite order.
4598 ** The post-command-hook now runs even after commands that get an error
4599 and return to top level. As a consequence of the same change, this
4600 hook also runs before Emacs reads the first command. That might sound
4601 paradoxical, as if this hook were the same as the pre-command-hook.
4602 Actually, they are not similar; the latter runs before *execution* of
4603 a command, but after it has been read.
4605 ** You can turn off the text property hooks that run when point moves
4606 to certain places in the buffer, by binding inhibit-point-motion-hooks
4609 ** Inserting a string with no text properties into the buffer normally
4610 inherits the properties of the preceding character. You can now
4611 control this inheritance by setting the front-sticky and
4612 rear-nonsticky properties of a character.
4614 If you make a character's front-sticky property t, then insertion
4615 before the character inherits its properties. If you make the
4616 rear-nonsticky property t, then insertion after the character does not
4617 inherit its properties. You can regard characters as normally being
4618 rear-sticky and not front-sticky, and this is why insertion normally
4619 inherits from the previous character.
4621 If neither side of an insertion is suitably sticky, then the inserted
4622 text gets no properties. If both sides are sticky, then the inserted
4623 text gets the properties of both sides, with the previous character's
4624 properties taking precedence when both sides have a property in
4627 You can also specify stickiness for individual properties. To do so,
4628 use a list of property names as the value of the front-sticky property
4629 or the rear-nonsticky property. For example, if a character has a
4630 rear-nonsticky property whose value is (face read-only), then
4631 insertion after the character will not inherit its face property or
4632 read-only property (if any), but will inherit any other properties.
4634 The merging of properties when both sides of the insertion are sticky
4635 takes place one property at a time. If the preceding character is
4636 rear-sticky for the property, and the property is non-nil, it
4637 dominates. Otherwise, the following character's property value is
4638 used if it is front-sticky for that property.
4640 ** If you give a character a non-nil `invisible' text property, the
4641 character does not appear on the screen. This works much like
4644 The details of this feature are likely to change in future Emacs
4647 ** In Info, when you go to a node, it runs the normal hook
4648 Info-selection-hook.
4650 ** You can use the new function `invocation-directory' to get the name
4651 of the directory containing the Emacs executable that was run.
4653 ** Entry to the minibuffer runs the normal hook minibuffer-setup-hook.
4655 ** The new function minibuffer-window-active-p takes one argument, a
4656 minibuffer window, and returns t if the window is currently active.
4660 * Changes in version 19.17.
4662 ** When Emacs displays a list of completions in a buffer,
4663 you can select a completion by clicking mouse button 2
4666 ** Use the command `list-faces-display' to display a list of
4667 all the currently defined faces, showing what they look like.
4669 ** Menu bar items from local maps now come after the usual items.
4671 ** The Help menu bar item always comes last in the menu bar.
4673 ** If you enable Font-Lock mode on a buffer containing a program
4674 (certain languages such as C and Lisp are supported), everything you
4675 type is automatically given a face property appropriate to its
4676 syntactic role. For example, there are faces for comments, string
4677 constants, names of functions being defined, and so on.
4679 ** Dunnet, an adventure game, is now available.
4681 ** Several major modes now have their own menu bar items,
4682 including Dired, Rmail, and Sendmail. We would like to add
4683 suitable menu bar items to other major modes.
4685 ** The key binding C-x a C-h has been eliminated.
4686 This is because it got in the way of the general feature of typing
4687 C-h after a prefix character. If you want to run
4688 inverse-add-global-abbrev, you can use C-x a - or C-x a i g instead.
4690 ** If you set the variable `rmail-mail-new-frame' to a non-nil value,
4691 all the Rmail commands to send mail make a new frame to do it in.
4692 When you send the message, or use the menu bar command not to send it,
4693 that frame is deleted.
4695 ** In Rmail, the o and C-o commands are now almost interchangeable.
4696 Both commands check the format of the file you specify, and append
4697 the message to it in Rmail format if it is an Rmail file, and in
4698 inbox file format otherwise. C-o and o are different only when you
4701 ** The function `copy-face' now takes an optional fourth argument
4702 NEW-FRAME. If you specify this, it copies the definition of face
4703 OLD-FACE on frame FRAME to face NEW-NAME on frame NEW-FRAME.
4705 ** A local map can now cancel out one of the global map's menu items.
4706 Just define that subcommand of the menu item with `undefined'
4707 as the definition. For example, this cancels out the `Buffers' item
4708 for the current major mode:
4710 (local-set-key [menu-bar buffer] 'undefined)
4712 ** To put global items at the end of the menu bar, use the new variable
4713 `menu-bar-final-items'. It should be a list of symbols--event types
4714 bound in the menu bar. The menu bar items for these symbols are
4717 ** The list returned by `buffer-local-variables' now contains cons-cell
4718 elements of the form (SYMBOL . VALUE) only for buffer-local variables
4719 that have values. For unbound buffer-local variables, the variable
4720 name (symbol) appears directly as an element of the list.
4722 ** The `modification-hooks' property of a character no longer affects
4723 insertion; it runs only for deletion and modification of the character.
4725 To detect insertion, use `insert-in-front-hooks' and
4726 `insert-behind-hooks' properties. The former runs when text is
4727 inserted immediately preceding the character that has the property;
4728 the latter runs when text is inserted immediately following the
4731 ** Buffer modification now runs hooks belonging to overlays as well as
4732 hooks belonging to characters. If an overlay has a
4733 `modification-hooks' property, it applies to any change to text in the
4734 overlay, and any insertion within the overlay. If the overlay has a
4735 `insert-in-front-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the
4736 beginning boundary of the overlay. If the overlay has an
4737 `insert-behind-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the end
4738 boundary of the overlay.
4740 The values of these properties should be lists of functions. Each
4741 function is called, receiving as arguments the overlay in question,
4742 followed by the bounds of the range being modified.
4744 ** The new `-name NAME' option directs Emacs to search for its X
4745 resources using the name `NAME', and sets the title of the initial
4746 frame. This argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4748 ** The new `-xrm DATABASE' option tells Emacs to treat the string
4749 DATABASE as the text of an X resource database. Emacs searches
4750 DATABASE for resource values, in addition to the usual places. This
4751 argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4753 ** Emacs now searches for X resources in the files specified by the
4754 XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment
4755 variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written
4756 using Xt. Because of this change, Emacs will now notice system-wide
4757 application defaults files, as other X clients do.
4759 XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names
4760 separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names
4761 separated by colons.
4763 Emacs searches for X resources
4764 + specified on the command line, with the `-xrm RESOURCESTRING'
4766 + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable,
4767 - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it exists
4768 (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on),
4769 + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties
4770 provided by the server,
4771 - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults
4773 + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
4774 - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4775 (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if
4776 the LANG environment variable is set,
4777 - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4778 - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set),
4780 + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH.
4782 The paths in the variables XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and
4783 XAPPLRESDIR may contain %-escapes (like the control strings passed to
4784 the Emacs lisp `format' function or C printf function), which Emacs expands.
4786 %N is replaced by the string "Emacs" wherever it occurs.
4787 %T is replaced by "app-defaults" wherever it occurs.
4788 %S is replaced by the empty string wherever it occurs.
4789 %L and %l are replaced by the value of the LANG environment variable; if LANG
4790 is not set, Emacs does not use that directory or file name at all.
4791 %C is replaced by the value of the resource named "customization"
4792 (class "Customization"), as retrieved from the server's resource
4793 properties or the user's ~/.Xdefaults file, or the empty string if
4794 that resource doesn't exist.
4797 if XFILESEARCHPATH is set to the value
4798 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N",
4799 and the LANG environment variable is set to
4801 and the customization resource is the string
4803 then, in the last step of the process described above, Emacs checks
4804 for resources in the first of the following files that is present and
4806 /usr/lib/X11/english/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4807 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4808 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
4809 If the LANG environment variable is not set, then Emacs never uses the
4810 first element of the path, "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C", because it
4811 contains the %L escape.
4813 If XFILESEARCHPATH is unset, Emacs uses the default value
4814 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4815 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4816 /usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs:\
4817 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs"
4819 This feature was added for consistency with other X applications.
4821 ** The new function `text-property-any' scans the region of text from
4822 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is `eq' to
4823 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4824 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4826 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4829 ** The new function `text-property-not-all' scans the region of text from
4830 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is not `eq' to
4831 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4832 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4834 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4837 ** The function `delete-windows-on' now takes an optional second
4838 argument FRAME, which specifies which frames it should affect.
4839 + If FRAME is nil or omitted, then `delete-windows-on' deletes windows
4840 showing BUFFER (its first argument) on all frames.
4841 + If FRAME is t, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on the
4842 selected frame; other frames are unaffected.
4843 + If FRAME is a frame, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on
4844 the given frame; other frames are unaffected.
4848 * Changes in version 19.16.
4850 ** When dragging the mouse to select a region, Emacs now highlights the
4851 region as you drag (if Transient Mark mode is enabled). If you
4852 continue the drag beyond the boundaries of the window, Emacs scrolls
4853 the window at a steady rate until you either move the mouse back into
4854 the window or release the button.
4856 ** RET now exits `query-replace' and `query-replace-regexp'; this makes it
4857 more consistent with the incremental search facility, which uses RET
4860 ** In C mode, C-c C-u now runs c-up-conditional.
4861 C-c C-n and C-c C-p now run new commands that move forward
4862 and back over balanced sets of C conditionals (c-forward-conditional
4863 and c-backward-conditional).
4865 ** The Edit entry in the menu bar has a new alternative:
4866 "Choose Next Paste". It gives you a menu showing the various
4867 strings in the kill ring; click on one to select it as the text
4868 to be yanked ("pasted") the next time you yank.
4870 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode and set `mark-even-if-inactive' to
4871 non-nil, then the region is highlighted in a transient fashion just as
4872 normally in Transient Mark mode, but the mark really remains active
4873 all the time; commands that use the region can be used even if the
4874 region highlighting turns off.
4876 ** If you type C-h after a prefix key, it displays the bindings
4877 that start with that prefix.
4879 ** The VC package now searches for version control commands in the
4880 directories named by the variable `vc-path'; its value should be a
4883 ** If you are visiting a file that has locks registered under RCS,
4884 VC now displays each lock's owner and version number in the mode line
4885 after the string `RCS'. If there are no locks, VC displays the head
4888 ** When using X, if you load the `paren' library, Emacs automatically
4889 underlines or highlights the matching paren whenever point is
4890 next to the outside of a paren. When point is before an open-paren,
4891 this shows the matching close; when point is after a close-paren,
4892 this shows the matching open.
4894 ** The new function `define-key-after' is like `define-key',
4895 but takes an extra argument AFTER. It places the newly defined
4896 binding after the binding for the event AFTER.
4898 ** `accessible-keymaps' now takes an optional second argument, PREFIX.
4899 If PREFIX is non-nil, it means the value should include only maps for
4900 keys that start with PREFIX.
4902 `describe-bindings' also accepts an optional argument PREFIX which
4903 means to describe only the keys that start with PREFIX.
4905 ** The variable `prefix-help-command' hold a command to run to display help
4906 whenever the character `help-char' follows a prefix key and does not have
4907 a key binding in that context.
4909 ** Emacs now detects double- and triple-mouse clicks. A single mouse
4910 click produces a pair events of the form:
4911 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4913 Clicking the same mouse button again, soon thereafter and at the same
4914 location, produces another pair of events of the form:
4915 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4916 (double-mouse-N POSITION 2)
4917 Another click will produce an event pair of the form:
4918 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4919 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 3)
4920 All the POSITIONs in such a sequence would be identical, except for
4923 To count as double- and triple-clicks, mouse clicks must be at the
4924 same location as the first click, and the number of milliseconds
4925 between the first release and the second must be less than the value
4926 of the lisp variable `double-click-time'. Setting `double-click-time'
4927 to nil disables multi-click detection. Setting it to t removes the
4928 time limit; Emacs then detects multi-clicks by position only.
4930 If `read-key-sequence' finds no binding for a double-click event, but
4931 the corresponding single-click event would be bound,
4932 `read-key-sequence' demotes it to a single-click. Similarly, it
4933 demotes unbound triple-clicks to double- or single-clicks. This means
4934 you don't have to distinguish between single- and multi-clicks if you
4937 Emacs reports all clicks after the third as `triple-mouse-N' clicks,
4938 but increments the click count after POSITION. For example, a fourth
4939 click, soon after the third and at the same location, produces a pair
4940 of events of the form:
4941 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4942 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 4)
4944 ** The way Emacs reports positions of mouse events has changed
4945 slightly. If a mouse event includes a position list of the form:
4946 (WINDOW (PLACE-SYMBOL) (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4947 this denotes exactly the same position as the list:
4948 (WINDOW PLACE-SYMBOL (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4949 That is, the event occurred over a non-textual area of the frame,
4950 specified by PLACE-SYMBOL, a symbol like `mode-line' or
4951 `vertical-scroll-bar'.
4953 Enclosing PLACE-SYMBOL in a singleton list does not change the
4954 position denoted, but the `read-key-sequence' function uses the
4955 presence or absence of the singleton list to tell whether or not it
4956 should prefix the event with its place symbol.
4958 Normally, `read-key-sequence' prefixes mouse events occurring over
4959 non-textual areas with their PLACE-SYMBOLs, to select the sub-keymap
4960 appropriate for the event; for example, clicking on the mode line
4961 produces a sequence like
4962 [mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4963 However, if lisp code elects to unread the resulting key sequence by
4964 placing it in the `unread-command-events' variable, it is important
4965 that `read-key-sequence' not insert the prefix symbol again; that
4966 would produce a malformed key sequence like
4967 [mode-line mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4968 For this reason, `read-key-sequence' encloses the event's PLACE-SYMBOL
4969 in a singleton list when it first inserts the prefix, but doesn't
4970 insert the prefix when processing events whose PLACE-SYMBOLs are
4971 already thus enclosed.
4975 * Changes in version 19.15.
4977 ** `make-frame-visible', which uniconified frames, is now a command,
4978 and thus may be bound to a key. This makes sense because frames
4979 respond to user input while iconified.
4981 ** You can now use Meta mouse clicks to set and use the "secondary
4982 selection". You can drag M-Mouse-1 across the region you want to
4983 select. Or you can press M-Mouse-1 at one end and M-Mouse-3 at the
4984 other (this also copies the text to the kill ring). Repeating M-Mouse-3
4985 again at the same place kills that text.
4987 M-Mouse-2 kills the secondary selection.
4989 Setting the secondary selection does not move point or the mark. It
4990 is possible to make a secondary selection that does not all fit on the
4991 screen, by using M-Mouse-1 at one end, scrolling, then using M-Mouse-3
4994 Emacs has only one secondary selection at any time. Starting to set
4995 a new one cancels any previous one. The secondary selection displays
4996 using a face named `secondary-selection'.
4998 ** There's a new way to request use of Supercite (sc.el). Do this:
5000 (add-hook 'mail-citation-hook 'sc-cite-original)
5002 Currently this works with Rmail. In the future, other Emacs based
5003 mail-readers should be modified to understand this hook also.
5004 In the mean time, you should keep doing what you have done in the past
5005 for those other mail readers.
5007 ** When a regular expression contains `\(...\)' inside a repetition
5008 operator such as `*' or `+', and you ask about the range that was matched
5009 using `match-beginning' and `match-end', the range you get corresponds
5010 to the *last* repetition *only*. In Emacs 18, you would get a range
5011 corresponding to all the repetitions.
5013 If you want to get a range corresponding to all the repetitions,
5014 put a `\(...\)' grouping *outside* the repetition operator. This
5015 is the syntax that corresponds logically to the desired result, and
5016 it works the same in Emacs 18 and Emacs 19.
5018 (This change actually took place earlier, but we didn't know about it
5019 and thus didn't document it.)
5023 * Changes in version 19.14.
5025 ** To modify read-only text, bind the variable `inhibit-read-only'
5026 to a non-nil value. If the value is t, then all reasons that might
5027 make text read-only are inhibited (including `read-only' text properties).
5028 If the value is a list, then a `read-only' property is inhibited
5029 if it is `memq' in the list.
5031 ** If you call `get-buffer-window' passing t as its second argument, it
5032 will only search for windows on visible frames. Previously, passing t
5033 as the secord argument caused `get-buffer-window' to search all
5034 frames, visible or not.
5036 ** If you call `other-buffer' with a nil or omitted second argument, it
5037 will ignore buffers displayed windows on any visible frame, not just
5040 ** You can specify a window or a frame for C-x # to use when
5041 selects a server buffer. Set the variable server-window
5042 to the window or frame that you want.
5044 ** The command M-( now inserts spaces outside the open-parentheses in
5045 some cases--depending on the syntax classes of the surrounding
5046 characters. If the variable `parens-dont-require-spaces' is non-nil,
5047 it inhibits insertion of these spaces.
5049 ** The GUD package now supports the debugger known as xdb on HP/UX
5050 systems. Use M-x xdb. The variable `gud-xdb-directories' lets you
5051 specify a list of directories to search for source code.
5053 ** If you are using the mailabbrev package, you should note that its
5054 function for defining an alias is now called `define-mail-abbrev'.
5055 This package no longer contains a definition for `define-mail-alias';
5056 that name is used only in mailaliases.
5058 ** Inserted characters now inherit the properties of the text before
5059 them, by default, rather than those of the following text.
5061 ** The function `insert-file-contents' now takes optional arguments BEG
5062 and END that specify which part of the file to insert. BEG defaults to
5063 0 (the beginning of the file), and END defaults to the end of the file.
5065 If you specify BEG or END, then the argument VISIT must be nil.
5069 * Changes in version 19.13.
5071 ** Magic file names can now handle the `load' operation.
5073 ** Bibtex mode now sets up special entries in the menu bar.
5075 ** The incremental search commands C-w and C-y, which copy text from
5076 the buffer into the search string, now convert it to lower case
5077 if you are in a case-insensitive search. This is to avoid making
5078 the search a case-sensitive one.
5080 ** GNUS now knows your time zone automatically if Emacs does.
5082 ** Hide-ifdef mode no longer defines keys of the form
5083 C-c LETTER, since those keys are reserved for users.
5084 Those commands have been moved to C-c M-LETTER.
5085 We may move them again for greater consistency with other modes.
5089 * Changes in version 19.12.
5091 ** You can now make many of the sort commands ignore case by setting
5092 `sort-fold-case' to a non-nil value.
5096 * Changes in version 19.11.
5098 ** Supercite is installed.
5100 ** `write-file-hooks' functions that return non-nil are responsible
5101 for making a backup file if you want that to be done.
5102 To do so, execute the following code:
5104 (or buffer-backed-up (backup-buffer))
5106 You might wish to save the file modes value returned by
5107 `backup-buffer' and use that to set the mode bits of the file
5108 that you write. This is what `basic-save-buffer' does when
5109 it writes a file in the usual way.
5111 (This is not actually new, but wasn't documented before.)
5115 * Changes in version 19.10.
5117 ** The command `repeat-complex-command' is now on C-x ESC ESC.
5118 It used to be bound to C-x ESC.
5120 The reason for this change is to make function keys work after C-x.
5122 ** The variable `highlight-nonselected-windows' now controls whether
5123 the region is highlighted in windows other than the selected window
5124 (in Transient Mark mode only, of course, and currently only when
5129 * Changes in version 19.8.
5131 ** It is now simpler to tell Emacs to display accented characters under
5132 X windows. M-x standard-display-european toggles the display of
5133 buffer text according to the ISO Latin-1 standard. With a prefix
5134 argument, this command enables European character display iff the
5135 argument is positive.
5137 ** The `-i' command-line argument tells Emacs to use a picture of the
5138 GNU gnu as its icon, instead of letting the window manager choose an
5139 icon for it. This option used to insert a file into the current
5140 buffer; use `-insert' to do that now.
5142 ** The `configure' script now supports `--prefix' and `--exec-prefix'
5145 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
5146 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
5147 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
5148 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
5149 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION
5150 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.7').
5151 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5152 PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
5153 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
5154 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
5156 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
5157 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
5158 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
5159 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
5160 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5161 EXECDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
5162 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
5164 ** When running under X, the new lisp function `x-list-fonts'
5165 allows code to find out which fonts are available from the X server.
5166 The first argument PATTERN is a string, perhaps with wildcard characters;
5167 the * character matches any substring, and
5168 the ? character matches any single character.
5169 PATTERN is case-insensitive.
5170 If the optional arguments FACE and FRAME are specified, then
5171 `x-list-fonts' returns only fonts the same size as FACE on FRAME.
5175 * Changes in version 19.
5177 ** When you kill buffers, Emacs now returns memory to the operating system,
5178 thus reducing the size of the Emacs process. All the space that you free
5179 up by killing buffers can now be reused for other buffers no matter what
5180 their sizes, or reused by other processes if Emacs doesn't need it.
5182 ** Emacs now does garbage collection and auto saving while it is waiting
5183 for input, which often avoids the need to do these things while you
5186 The variable `auto-save-timeout' says how many seconds Emacs should
5187 wait, after you stop typing, before it does an auto save and a garbage
5190 ** If auto saving detects that a buffer has shrunk greatly, it refrains
5191 from auto saving that buffer and displays a warning. Now it also turns
5192 off Auto Save mode in that buffer, so that you won't get the same
5195 If you reenable Auto Save mode in that buffer, Emacs will start saving
5196 it again with no further warnings.
5198 ** A new minor mode called Line Number mode displays the current line
5199 number in the mode line, updating it as necessary when you move
5202 However, if the buffer is very large (larger than the value of
5203 `line-number-display-limit'), then the line number doesn't appear.
5204 This is because computing the line number can be painfully slow if the
5205 buffer is very large.
5207 ** You can quit while Emacs is waiting to read or write files.
5209 ** The arrow keys now have default bindings to move in the appropriate
5212 ** You can suppress next-line's habit of inserting a newline when
5213 called at the end of a buffer by setting next-line-add-newlines to nil
5216 ** You can now get back recent minibuffer inputs conveniently. While
5217 in the minibuffer, type M-p to fetch the next earlier minibuffer
5218 input, and use M-n to fetch the next later input.
5220 There are also commands to search forward or backward through the
5221 history for history elements that match a regular expression. M-r
5222 searches older elements in the history, while M-s searches newer
5223 elements. By special dispensation, these commands can always use the
5224 minibuffer to read their arguments even though you are already in the
5225 minibuffer when you issue them.
5227 The history feature is available for all uses of the minibuffer, but
5228 there are separate history lists for different kinds of input. For
5229 example, there is a list for file names, used by all the commands that
5230 read file names. There is a list for arguments of commands like
5231 `query-replace'. There are also very specific history lists, such
5232 as the one that `compile' uses for compilation commands.
5234 ** You can now display text in a mixture of fonts and colors, using the
5235 "face" feature, together with the overlay and text property features.
5236 See the Emacs Lisp manual for details. The Emacs Users Manual describes
5237 how to change the colors and font of standard predefined faces.
5239 ** You can refer to files on other machines using special file name syntax:
5244 When you do this, Emacs uses the FTP program to read and write files on
5245 the specified host. It logs in through FTP using your user name or the
5246 name USER. It may ask you for a password from time to time; this
5247 is used for logging in on HOST.
5249 ** Some C-x key bindings have been moved onto new prefix keys.
5251 C-x r is a prefix for registers and rectangles.
5252 C-x n is a prefix for narrowing.
5253 C-x a is a prefix for abbrev commands.
5256 C-x r SPC point-to-register (Was C-x /)
5257 C-x r j jump-to-register (Was C-x j)
5258 C-x r s copy-to-register (Was C-x x)
5259 C-x r i insert-register (Was C-x g)
5260 C-x r r copy-rectangle-to-register (Was C-x r)
5261 C-x r k kill-rectangle
5262 C-x r y yank-rectangle
5263 C-x r o open-rectangle
5264 C-x r f frame-configuration-to-register
5265 (This saves the state of all windows in all frames.)
5266 C-x r w window-configuration-to-register
5267 (This saves the state of all windows in the selected frame.)
5269 (Use C-x r j to restore a configuration saved with C-x r f or C-x r w.)
5271 C-x n n narrow-to-region (Was C-x n)
5272 C-x n p narrow-to-page (Was C-x p)
5273 C-x n w widen (Was C-x w)
5275 C-x a l add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-a)
5276 C-x a g add-global-abbrev (Was C-x +)
5277 C-x a i l inverse-add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-h)
5278 C-x a i g inverse-add-global-abbrev (Was C-x -)
5279 C-x a e expand-abbrev (Was C-x ')
5281 (The old key bindings C-x /, C-x j, C-x x and C-x g
5282 have not yet been removed.)
5284 ** You can put a file name in a register to be able to visit the file
5287 (set-register ?CHAR '(file . NAME))
5289 where NAME is the file name as a string. Then C-x r j CHAR finds that
5292 This is useful for files that you need to visit frequently,
5293 but that you don't want to keep in buffers all the time.
5295 ** The keys M-g (fill-region) and C-x a (append-to-buffer)
5296 have been eliminated.
5298 ** The new command `string-rectangle' inserts a specified string on
5299 each line of the region-rectangle.
5301 ** C-x 4 r is now `find-file-read-only-other-window'.
5303 ** C-x 4 C-o is now `display-buffer', which displays a specified buffer
5304 in another window without selecting it.
5306 ** Picture mode has been substantially improved. The picture editing commands
5307 now arrange for automatic horizontal scrolling to keep point visible
5308 when editing a wide buffer with truncate-lines on. Picture-mode
5309 initialization now does a better job of rebinding standard commands;
5310 it finds not just their normal keybindings, but any function keys
5313 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode, then the mark becomes "inactive"
5314 after every command that modifies the buffer. While the mark is
5315 active, the region is highlighted (under X, at least). Most commands
5316 that use the mark give an error if the mark is inactive, but you can
5317 use C-x C-x to make it active again. This feature is also sometimes
5318 known as "Zmacs mode".
5320 ** Outline mode is now available as a minor mode. This minor mode can
5321 combine with any major mode; it substitutes the C-c commands of
5322 Outline mode for those of the major mode. Use M-x outline-minor-mode
5323 to enable and disable the new mode.
5325 M-x outline-mode is unchanged; it still switches to Outline mode as a
5328 ** The default setting of `version-control' comes from the environment
5329 variable VERSION_CONTROL.
5331 ** The user option for controlling whether files can set local
5332 variables is now called `enable-local-variables'. A value of t means
5333 local-variables lists are obeyed; nil means they are ignored; anything
5334 else means query the user.
5336 The user option for controlling use of the `eval' local variable is
5337 now called is `enable-local-eval'; its values are interpreted like
5338 those of `enable-local-variables'.
5340 ** X Window System changes:
5342 C-x 5 C-f and C-x 5 b switch to a specified file or buffer in a new
5343 frame. Likewise, C-x 5 m starts outgoing mail in another frame, and
5344 C-x 5 . finds a tag in another frame.
5346 When you are using X, C-z now iconifies the selected frame.
5348 Emacs can now exchange text with other X applications. Killing or
5349 copying text in Emacs now makes that text available for pasting into
5350 other X applications. The Emacs yanking commands now insert the
5351 latest selection set by other applications, and add the text to the
5352 kill ring. The Emacs commands for selecting and inserting text with
5353 the mouse now use the kill ring in the same way the keyboard killing
5354 and yanking commands do.
5356 The option to specify the title for the initial frame is now `-name NAME'.
5357 There is currently no way to specify an icon title; perhaps we will add
5360 ** Undoing a deletion now puts point back where it was before the
5363 ** The variables that control how much undo information to save have
5364 been renamed to `undo-limit' and `undo-strong-limit'. They used to be
5365 called `undo-threshold' and `undo-high-threshold'.
5367 ** You can now use kill commands in read-only buffers. They don't
5368 actually change the buffer, and Emacs will beep and warn you that the
5369 buffer is read-only, but they do copy the text you tried to kill into
5370 the kill ring, so you can yank it into other buffers.
5372 ** C-o inserts the fill-prefix on the newly created line. The command
5373 M-^ deletes the prefix (if it occurs) after the newline that it
5376 ** C-M-l now runs the command `reposition-window'. It scrolls the
5377 window heuristically in a way designed to get useful information onto
5380 ** C-M-r is now reverse incremental regexp search.
5382 ** M-z now kills through the target character. In version 18, it
5383 killed up to but not including the target character.
5385 ** M-! now runs the specified shell command asynchronously if it
5386 ends in `&' (just as the shell does).
5388 ** C-h C-f and C-h C-k are new help commands that display the Info
5389 node for a given Emacs function name or key sequence, respectively.
5391 ** The C-h p command system lets you find Emacs Lisp packages by
5392 topic keywords. Here is a partial list of package categories:
5394 abbrev abbreviation handling, typing shortcuts, macros
5395 bib code related to the bib bibliography processor
5396 c C and C++ language support
5397 calendar calendar and time management support
5398 comm communications, networking, remote access to files
5399 docs support for Emacs documentation
5400 emulations emulations of other editors
5401 extensions Emacs Lisp language extensions
5402 games games, jokes and amusements
5403 hardware support for interfacing with exotic hardware
5404 help support for on-line help systems
5405 i14n internationalization and alternate character-set support
5406 internal code for Emacs internals, build process, defaults
5407 languages specialized modes for editing programming languages
5408 lisp Lisp support, including Emacs Lisp
5409 local code local to your site
5410 maint maintenance aids for the Emacs development group
5411 mail modes for electronic-mail handling
5412 news support for netnews reading and posting
5413 processes process, subshell, compilation, and job control support
5414 terminals support for terminal types
5415 tex code related to the TeX formatter
5416 tools programming tools
5417 unix front-ends/assistants for, or emulators of, UNIX features
5418 vms support code for vms
5421 More will be added soon.
5423 ** The command to split a window into two side-by-side windows is now
5424 C-x 3. It was C-x 5.
5426 ** M-. (find-tag) no longer has any effect on what M-, will do
5427 subsequently. You can no longer use M-, to find the next similar tag;
5428 you must use M-. with a prefix argument, instead.
5430 The motive for this change is so that you can more reliably use
5431 M-, to resume a suspended `tags-search' or `tags-query-replace'.
5433 ** C-x s (`save-some-buffers') now gives you more options when it asks
5434 whether to save a particular buffer. In addition to `y' or `n', you
5435 can answer `!' to save all the remaining buffers, `.' to save this
5436 buffer but not save any others, ESC to stop saving and exit the
5437 command, and C-h to get help. These options are analogous to those
5440 ** M-x make-symbolic-link does not expand its first argument.
5441 This lets you make a link with a target that is a relative file name.
5443 ** M-x add-change-log-entry and C-x 4 a now automatically insert the
5444 name of the file and often the name of the function that you changed.
5445 They also handle grouping of entries.
5447 There is now a special major mode for editing ChangeLog files. It
5448 makes filling work conveniently. Each bunch of grouped entries is one
5449 paragraph, and each collection of entries from one person on one day
5450 is considered a page.
5452 ** The `comment-region' command adds comment delimiters to the lines that
5453 start in the region, thus commenting them out. With a negative argument,
5454 it deletes comment delimiters from the lines in the region--this cancels
5455 the effect of `comment-region' without an argument.
5457 With a positive argument, `comment-region' adds comment delimiters
5458 but duplicates the last character of the comment start sequence as many
5459 times as the argument specifies. This is a way of calling attention to
5460 the comment. In Lisp, you should use an argument at least two, because
5461 the indentation convention for single semicolon comments does not leave
5462 them at the beginning of a line.
5464 ** If `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil, C-x 2 tries to avoid
5465 shifting any text on the screen by putting point in whichever window
5466 happens to contain the screen line the cursor is already on.
5467 The default is that `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil on slow
5470 ** M-x super-apropos is like M-x apropos except that it searches both
5471 Lisp symbol names and documentation strings for matches. It describes
5472 every symbol that has a match in either the symbol's name or its
5475 Both M-x apropos and M-x super-apropos take an optional second
5476 argument DO-ALL which controls the more expensive part of the job.
5477 This includes looking up and printing the key bindings of all
5478 commands. It also includes checking documentation strings in
5479 super-apropos. DO-ALL is nil by default; use a prefix arg to make it
5482 ** M-x revert-buffer no longer offers to revert from a recent auto-save
5483 file unless you give it a prefix argument. Otherwise it always
5484 reverts from the real file regardless of whether there has been an
5485 auto-save since thenm. (Reverting from the auto-save file is no longer
5486 very useful now that the undo capacity is larger.)
5488 ** M-x recover-file no longer turns off Auto Save mode when it reads
5489 the last Auto Save file.
5491 ** M-x rename-buffer, if you give it a prefix argument,
5492 avoids errors by modifying the new name to make it unique.
5494 ** M-x rename-uniquely renames the current buffer to a similar name
5495 with a numeric suffix added to make it both different and unique.
5497 One use of this command is for creating multiple shell buffers.
5498 If you rename your shell buffer, and then do M-x shell again, it
5499 makes a new shell buffer. This method is also good for mail buffers,
5500 compilation buffers, and any Emacs feature which creates a special
5501 buffer with a particular name.
5503 ** M-x compare-windows with a prefix argument ignores changes in whitespace.
5504 If `compare-ignore-case' is non-nil, then differences in case are also
5507 ** `backward-paragraph' is now bound to M-{ by default, and `forward-paragraph'
5508 to M-}. Originally, these commands were bound to M-[ and M-], but they were
5509 running into conflicts with the use of function keys. On many terminals,
5510 function keys send a sequence beginning ESC-[, so many users have defined this
5513 ** C-x C-u (upcase-region) and C-x C-l (downcase-region) are now disabled by
5514 default; these commands seem to be often hit by accident, and can be
5515 quite destructive if their effects are not noticed immediately.
5517 ** The function `erase-buffer' is now interactive, but disabled by default.
5519 ** When visiting a new file, Emacs attempts to abbreviate the file's
5520 path using the symlinks listed in `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5522 ** When you visit the same file in under two names that translate into
5523 the same name once symbolic links are handled, Emacs warns you that
5524 you have two buffers for the same file.
5526 ** If you wish to avoid visiting the same file in two buffers under
5527 different names, set the variable `find-file-existing-other-name'
5528 non-nil. Then `find-file' uses the existing buffer visiting the file,
5529 no matter which of the file's names you specify.
5531 ** If you set `find-file-visit-truename' non-nil, then the file name
5532 recorded for a buffer is the file's truename (in which all symbolic
5533 links have been removed), rather than the name you specify. Setting
5534 `find-file-visit-truename' also implies the effect of
5535 `find-file-existing-other-name'.
5537 ** C-x C-v now inserts the entire current file name in the minibuffer.
5538 This is convenient if you made a small mistake in typing it. Point
5539 goes after the last slash, before the last file name component, so if
5540 you want to replace it entirely, you can use C-k right away to delete
5543 ** Commands such as C-M-f in Lisp mode now ignore parentheses within comments.
5545 ** C-x q now uses ESC to terminate all iterations of the keyboard
5546 macro, rather than C-d as before.
5548 ** Use the command `setenv' to set an individual environment variable
5549 for Emacs subprocesses. Specify a variable name and a value, both as
5550 strings. This command applies only to subprocesses yet to be
5553 ** Use `rot13-other-window' to examine a buffer with rot13.
5555 This command does not change the text in the buffer. Instead, it
5556 creates a window with a funny display table that applies the code when
5557 displaying the text.
5559 ** The command `M-x version' now prints the current Emacs version; The
5560 `version' command is an alias for the `emacs-version' command.
5562 ** More complex changes in existing packages.
5564 *** `fill-nonuniform-paragraphs' is a new command, much like
5565 `fill-individual-paragraphs' except that only separator lines separate
5566 paragraphs. Since this means that the lines of one paragraph may have
5567 different amounts of indentation, the fill prefix used is the smallest
5568 amount of indentation of any of the lines of the paragraph.
5570 *** Filling is now partially controlled by a new minor mode, Adaptive
5571 Fill mode. When this mode is enabled (and it is enabled by default),
5572 if you use M-x fill-region-as-paragraph on an indented paragraph and
5573 you don't have a fill prefix, it uses the indentation of the second
5574 line of the paragraph as the fill prefix.
5576 Adaptive Fill mode doesn't have much effect on M-q in most major
5577 modes, because an indented line will probably count as a paragraph
5578 starter and thus each line of an indented paragraph will be considered
5579 a paragraph of its own.
5581 *** M-q in C mode now runs `c-fill-paragraph', which is designed
5582 for filling C comments. (We assume you don't want to fill
5583 the code in a C program.)
5585 *** M-$ now runs the Ispell program instead of the Unix spell program.
5587 M-$ starts an Ispell process the first time you use it. But the process
5588 stays alive, so that subsequent uses of M-$ run very fast.
5589 If you want to get rid of the process, use M-x kill-ispell.
5591 To check the entire current buffer, use M-x ispell-buffer.
5592 Use M-x ispell-region to check just the current region.
5594 Ispell commands often involve interactive replacement of words.
5595 You can interrupt the interactive replacement with C-g.
5596 You can restart it again afterward with C-u M-$.
5598 During interactive replacement, you can type the following characters:
5600 a Accept this word this time.
5601 DIGIT Replace the word (this time) with one of the displayed near-misses.
5602 The digit you use says which near-miss to use.
5603 i Insert this word in your private dictionary
5604 so that Ispell will consider it correct it from now on.
5605 r Replace the word this time with a string typed by you.
5607 When the Ispell process starts, it reads your private dictionary which
5608 is the file `~/ispell.words'. If you "insert" words with the `i' command,
5609 these words are added to that file, but not right away--only at the end
5610 of the interactive replacement process.
5612 Use M-x reload-ispell to reload your private dictionary from
5613 `~/ispell.words' if you edit it outside of Ispell.
5615 ** Changes in existing modes.
5617 *** gdb-mode has been replaced by gud-mode.
5619 The package gud.el (Grand Unified Debugger) replaces gdb.el in Emacs
5620 19. It provides a gdb.el-like interface to any of three debuggers;
5621 gdb itself, the sdb debugger supported on some Unix systems, or the
5622 dbx debugger on Berkeley systems.
5624 You start it up with one of the commands M-x gdb, M-x sdb, or
5625 M-x dbx. Each entry point finishes by executing a hook; gdb-mode-hook,
5626 sdb-mode-hook or dbx-mode-hook respectively.
5628 These bindings have changed:
5629 C-x C-a > gud-down (was M-d)
5630 C-x C-a < gud-up (was M-u)
5631 C-x C-a C-r gud-cont (was M-c)
5632 C-x C-a C-n gud-next (was M-n)
5633 C-x C-a C-s gud-step (was M-s)
5634 C-x C-a C-i gud-stepi (was M-i)
5635 C-x C-a C-l gud-recenter (was C-l)
5636 C-d comint-delchar-or-maybe-eof (was C-c C-d)
5638 These bindings have been removed:
5639 C-c C-r (was comint-show-output; now gud-cont)
5641 Since GUD mode uses comint, it uses comint's input history commands,
5642 superseding C-c C-y (copy-last-shell-input):
5643 M-p comint-next-input
5644 M-n comint-previous-input
5645 M-r comint-previous-similar-input
5646 M-s comint-next-similar-input
5647 M-C-r comint-previous-input-matching
5649 The C-x C-a bindings are also active in source files.
5651 *** The old TeX mode bindings of M-{ and M-} have been moved to C-c {
5652 and C-c }. (These commands are `up-list' and `tex-insert-braces';
5653 they are the TeX equivalents of M-( and M-).) This is because M-{
5654 and M-} are now globally defined commands.
5656 *** Changes in Mail mode.
5658 `%' is now a word-separator character in Mail mode.
5660 `mail-signature', if non-nil, tells M-x mail to insert your
5661 `.signature' file automatically. If you don't want your signature in
5662 a particular message, just delete it before you send the message.
5664 You can specify the text to insert at the beginning of each line when
5665 you use C-c C-y to yank the message you are replying to. Set
5666 `mail-yank-prefix' to the desired string. A value of `nil' (the
5667 default) means to use indentation, as in Emacs 18. If you use just
5668 C-u as the prefix argument to C-c C-y, then it does not insert
5669 anything at the beginning of the lines, regardless of the value of
5672 If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
5673 type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following:
5675 (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)
5677 This can go in your .emacs file.
5679 Word abbrevs don't expand unless you insert a word-separator character
5680 afterward. Any mail aliases that you didn't expand at insertion time
5681 are expanded subsequently when you send the message.
5683 *** Changes in Rmail.
5685 Rmail by default gets new mail only from the system inbox file,
5688 In Rmail, you can retry sending a message that failed
5689 by typing `M-m' on the failure message.
5691 By contrast, another new command M-x rmail-resend is used for
5692 forwarding a message and marking it as "resent from" you
5693 with header fields "Resent-From:" and "Resent-To:".
5695 `e' is now the command to edit a message.
5696 To expunge, type `x'. We know this will surprise people
5697 some of the time, but the surprise will not be disastrous--if
5698 you type `e' meaning to expunge, just turn off editing with C-c C-c
5701 Another new Rmail command is `<', which moves to the first message.
5702 This is for symmetry with `>'.
5704 Use the `b' command to bury the Rmail buffer and its summary buffer,
5705 if any, removing both of them from display on the screen.
5707 The variable `rmail-output-file-alist' now controls the default
5708 for the file to output a message to.
5710 In the Rmail summary buffer, all cursor motion commands select
5711 the message you move to. It's really neat when you use
5714 You can now issue most Rmail commands from an Rmail summary buffer.
5715 The commands do the same thing in that buffer that they do in the
5716 Rmail buffer. They apply to the message that is selected in the Rmail
5717 buffer, which is always the one described by the current summary
5720 Conversely, motion and deletion commands in the Rmail buffer also
5721 update the summary buffer. If you set the variable
5722 `rmail-redisplay-summary' to a non-nil value, then they bring the
5723 summary buffer (if one exists) back onto the screen.
5725 C-M-t is a new command to make a summary by topic. It uses regexp
5726 matching against just the subjects of the messages to decide which
5727 messages to show in the summary.
5729 You can easily convert an Rmail file to system mailbox format with the
5730 command `unrmail'. This command reads two arguments, the name of
5731 the Rmail file to convert, and the name of the new mailbox file.
5732 (This command does not change the Rmail file itself.)
5734 Rmail now handles Content Length fields in messages.
5736 *** `mail-extract-address-components' unpacks mail addresses.
5737 It takes an address as a string (the contents of the From field, for
5738 example) and returns a list of the form (FULL-NAME
5741 *** Changes in C mode and C-related commands.
5743 **** M-x c-up-conditional
5745 In C mode, `c-up-conditional' moves back to the containing
5746 preprocessor conditional, setting the mark where point was
5749 A prefix argument acts as a repeat count. With a negative argument,
5750 this command moves forward to the end of the containing preprocessor
5751 conditional. When going backwards, `#elif' acts like `#else' followed
5752 by `#if'. When going forwards, `#elif' is ignored.
5754 **** In C mode, M-a and M-e are now defined as
5755 `c-beginning-of-statement' and `c-end-of-statement'.
5757 **** In C mode, M-x c-backslash-region is a new command to insert or
5758 align `\' characters at the ends of the lines of the region, except
5759 for the last such line. This is useful after writing or editing a C
5762 If a line already ends in `\', this command adjusts the amount of
5763 whitespace before it. Otherwise, it inserts a new `\'.
5765 *** New features in info.
5767 When Info looks for an Info file, it searches the directories
5768 in `Info-directory-list'. This makes it easy to install the Info files
5769 that come with various packages. You can specify the path with
5770 the environment variable INFOPATH.
5772 There are new commands in Info mode.
5774 `]' now moves forward a node, going up and down levels as needed.
5775 `[' is similar but moves backward. These two commands try to traverse
5776 the entire Info tree, node by node. They are the equivalent of reading
5777 a printed manual sequentially.
5779 `<' moves to the top node of the current Info file.
5780 `>' moves to the last node of the file.
5782 SPC scrolls through the current node; at the end, it advances to the
5783 next node in depth-first order (like `]').
5785 DEL scrolls backwards in the current node; at the end, it moves to the
5786 previous node in depth-first order (like `[').
5788 After a menu select, the info `up' command now restores point in the
5789 menu. The combination of this and the previous two changes means that
5790 repeated SPC keystrokes do the right (depth-first traverse forward) thing.
5792 `i STRING RET' moves to the node associated with STRING in the index
5793 or indices of this manual. If there is more than one match for
5794 STRING, the `i' command finds the first match.
5796 `,' finds the next match for the string in the previous `i' command
5798 If you click the middle mouse button near a cross-reference,
5799 menu item or node pointer while in Info, you will go to the node
5800 which is referenced.
5802 *** Changes in M-x compile.
5804 You can repeat any previous compilation command conveniently using the
5805 minibuffer history commands, while in the minibuffer entering the
5806 compilation command.
5808 While a compilation is going on, the string `Compiling' appears in
5809 the mode line. When this string disappears, that tells you the
5810 compilation is finished.
5812 The buffer of compiler messages is in Compilation mode. This mode
5813 provides the keys SPC and DEL to scroll by screenfuls, and M-n and M-p
5814 to move to the next or previous error message. You can also use C-c
5815 C-c on any error message to find the corresponding source code.
5817 Emacs 19 has a more general parser for compiler messages. For example, it
5818 can understand messages from lint, and from certain C compilers whose error
5819 message format is unusual. Also, it only parses until it sees the error
5820 message you want; you never have to wait a long time to see the first
5821 error, no matter how big the buffer is.
5823 *** M-x diff and M-x diff-backup.
5825 This new command compares two files, displaying the differences in an
5826 Emacs buffer. The options for the `diff' program come from the
5827 variable `diff-switches', whose value should be a string.
5829 The buffer of differences has Compilation mode as its major mode, so you
5830 can use C-x ` to visit successive changed locations in the two
5831 source files, or you can move to a particular hunk of changes and type
5832 C-c C-c to move to the corresponding source. You can also use the
5833 other special commands of Compilation mode: SPC and DEL for
5834 scrolling, and M-n and M-p for cursor motion.
5836 M-x diff-backup compares a file with its most recent backup.
5837 If you specify the name of a backup file, `diff-backup' compares it
5838 with the source file that it is a backup of.
5840 *** The View commands (such as M-x view-buffer and M-x view-file) no
5841 longer use recursive edits; instead, they switch temporarily to a
5842 different major mode (View mode) specifically designed for moving
5843 around through a buffer without editing it.
5845 *** Changes in incremental search.
5847 **** The character to terminate an incremental search is now RET.
5848 This is for compatibility with the way most other arguments are read.
5850 To search for a newline in an incremental search, type LFD (also known
5853 **** Incremental search now maintains a ring of previous search
5854 strings. Use M-p and M-n to move through the ring to pick a search
5855 string to reuse. These commands leave the selected search ring
5856 element in the minibuffer, where you can edit it. Type C-s or C-r to
5857 finish editing and search for the chosen string.
5859 **** If you type an upper case letter in incremental search, that turns
5860 off case-folding, so that you get a case-sensitive search.
5862 **** If you type a space during regexp incremental search, it matches
5863 any sequence of whitespace characters. If you want to match just a space,
5866 **** Incremental search is now implemented as a major mode. When you
5867 type C-s, it switches temporarily to a different keymap which defines
5868 each key to do what it ought to do for incremental search. This has
5869 next to no effect on the user-visible behavior of searching, but makes
5870 it easier to customize that behavior.
5872 Emacs 19 eliminates the old variables `search-...-char' that used to
5873 be the way to specify the characters to use for various special
5874 purposes in incremental search. Instead, you can define the meaning
5875 of a character in incremental search by modifying `isearch-mode-map'.
5877 *** New commands in Buffer Menu mode.
5879 The command C-o now displays the current line's buffer in another
5880 window but does not select it. This is like the existing command `o'
5881 which selects the current line's buffer in another window.
5883 The command % toggles the read-only flag of the current line's buffer.
5885 The way to switch to a set of several buffers, including those marked
5886 with m, is now v. The q command simply quits, replacing the buffer
5887 menu buffer with the buffer that was displayed previously.
5889 ** New major modes and packages.
5891 *** The news reader GNUS is now installed.
5893 *** There is a new interface for version control systems, called VC.
5894 It works with both RCS and SCCS; in fact, you don't really have to
5895 know which one of them is being used, because it automatically deals
5898 Most of the time, the only command you have to know about is C-x C-q.
5899 This command normally toggles the read-only flag of the current
5900 buffer. If the buffer is visiting a file that is maintained with a
5901 version control system, the command still toggles read-only, but does
5902 so by checking the file in or checking it out.
5904 When you check a file in, VC asks you for a log entry by popping up a
5905 buffer. Edit the entry there, then type C-c C-c when it is ready.
5906 That's when the actual checkin happens. If you change your mind about
5907 the checkin, simply switch buffers and don't ever go back to the log
5910 To start using version control for a file, use the command C-x v v.
5911 This works like C-x C-q (performing the next logical version-control
5912 operation needed to change the file's writability) but it will also
5913 perform initial checkin on an unregistered file.
5915 By default, VC uses RCS if RCS is installed on your machine;
5916 otherwise, SCCS. If you want to make the choice explicitly, you can do
5917 it by setting `vc-default-back-end' to the symbol `RCS' or the symbol
5920 You can tell when a file you visit is maintained with version control
5921 because either `RCS' or `SCCS' appears in the mode line.
5923 *** A new Calendar mode has been added, the work of Edward M. Reingold.
5924 The mode can display the Gregorian calendar and a variety of other
5925 calendars at any date, and interacts with a diary facility similar to
5926 the UNIX `calendar' utility.
5928 *** There is a new major mode for editing binary files: Hexl mode.
5929 To use it, use M-x hexl-find-file instead of C-x C-f to visit the file.
5930 This command converts the file's contents to hexadecimal and lets you
5931 edit the translation. When you save the file, it is converted
5932 automatically back to binary.
5934 You can also use M-x hexl-mode to translate an existing buffer into hex.
5935 Do this if you have already visited a binary file.
5937 Hexl mode has a few other commands:
5939 C-M-d insert a byte with a code typed in decimal.
5940 C-M-o insert a byte with a code typed in octal.
5941 C-M-x insert a byte with a code typed in hex.
5943 C-x [ move to the beginning of a 1k-byte "page".
5944 C-x ] move to the end of a 1k-byte "page".
5946 M-g go to an address specified in hex.
5947 M-j go to an address specified in decimal.
5949 C-c C-c leave hexl mode and go back to the previous major mode.
5951 *** Miscellaneous new major modes include Awk mode, Icon mode, Makefile
5952 mode, Perl mode and SGML mode.
5954 *** Edebug, a new source-level debugger for Emacs Lisp functions.
5956 To use Edebug, use the command M-x edebug-defun to "evaluate" a
5957 function definition in an Emacs Lisp file. We put "evaluate" in
5958 quotation marks because it doesn't just evaluate the function, it also
5959 inserts additional information to support source-level debugging.
5963 (setq debugger 'edebug-debug)
5965 to cause errors and single-stepping to use Edebug instead of the usual
5966 Emacs Lisp debugger.
5968 For more information, see the Edebug manual, which should be included
5969 in the Emacs distribution.
5971 *** C++ mode is like C mode, except that it understands C++ comment syntax
5972 and certain other differences between C and C++. It also has a command
5973 `fill-c++-comment' which fills a paragraph made of comment lines.
5975 The command `comment-region' is useful in C++ mode for commenting out
5976 several consecutive lines, or removing the commenting out of such lines.
5978 *** A new package for merging two variants of the same text.
5980 It's not unusual for programmers to get their signals crossed and
5981 modify the same program in two different directions. Then somebody
5982 has to merge the two versions. The command `emerge-files' makes this
5985 `emerge-files' reads two file names and compares them. Then it
5986 displays three buffers: one for each file, and one for the
5989 If the original version of the file is available, you can make things
5990 even easier using `emerge-files-with-ancestor'. It reads three file
5991 names--variant 1, variant 2, and the common ancestor--and uses diff3
5994 You control the merging interactively. The main loop of Emerge
5995 consists of showing you one set of differences, asking you what to do
5996 about them, and doing it. You have a choice of two modes for giving
5997 directions to Emerge: "fast" mode and "edit" mode.
5999 In Fast mode, Emerge commands are single characters, and ordinary
6000 Emacs commands are disabled. This makes Emerge operations fast, but
6001 prevents you from doing more than selecting the A or the B version of
6002 differences. In Edit mode, all emerge commands use the C-c prefix,
6003 and the usual Emacs commands are available. This allows editing the
6004 merge buffer, but slows down Emerge operations. Edit and fast modes
6005 are indicated by `F' and `E' in the minor modes in the mode line.
6007 The Emerge commands are:
6009 p go to the previous difference
6010 n go to the next difference
6011 a select the A version of this difference
6012 b select the B version of this difference
6013 j go to a particular difference (prefix argument
6014 specifies which difference) (0j suppresses display of
6016 q quit - finish the merge*
6019 l recenter (C-l) all three windows*
6021 prefix numeric arguments
6022 d a select the A version as the default from here down in
6024 d b select the B version as the default from here down in
6026 c a copy the A version of the difference into the kill
6028 c b copy the B version of the difference into the kill
6030 i a insert the A version of the difference at the point
6031 i b insert the B version of the difference at the point
6032 m put the point and mark around the difference region
6033 ^ scroll-down (like M-v) the three windows*
6034 v scroll-up (like C-v) the three windows*
6035 < scroll-left (like C-x <) the three windows*
6036 > scroll-right (like C-x >) the three windows*
6037 | reset horizontal scroll on the three windows*
6038 x 1 shrink the merge window to one line (use C-u l to restore it
6040 x a find the difference containing a location in the A buffer*
6041 x b find the difference containing a location in the B buffer*
6042 x c combine the two versions of this difference*
6043 x C combine the two versions of this difference, using a
6044 register's value as the template*
6045 x d find the difference containing a location in the merge buffer*
6046 x f show the files/buffers Emerge is operating on in Help window
6047 (use C-u l to restore windows)
6048 x j join this difference with the following one
6049 (C-u x j joins this difference with the previous one)
6050 x l show line numbers of points in A, B, and merge buffers
6051 x m change major mode of merge buffer*
6052 x s split this difference into two differences
6053 (first position the point in all three buffers to the places
6054 to split the difference)
6055 x t trim identical lines off top and bottom of difference
6056 (such lines occur when the A and B versions are
6057 identical but differ from the ancestor version)
6058 x x set the template for the x c command*
6060 Normally, the merged output goes back in the first file specified.
6061 If you use a prefix argument, Emerge reads another file name to use
6062 for the output file.
6064 Once Emerge has prepared the buffer of differences, it runs the hooks
6065 in `emerge-startup-hooks'.
6067 *** Asm mode is a new major mode for editing files of assembler code.
6068 It defines these commands:
6070 TAB tab-to-tab-stop.
6071 LFD Insert a newline and then indent using tab-to-tab-stop.
6072 : Insert a colon and then remove the indentation
6073 from before the label preceding colon. Then tab-to-tab-stop.
6074 ; Insert or align a comment.
6076 *** Two-column mode lets you conveniently edit two side-by-side columns
6077 of text. It works using two side-by-side windows, each showing its
6080 Here are three ways to enter two-column mode:
6082 C-x 6 2 makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer. In the
6083 right-hand window it puts a buffer whose name is based on the current
6086 C-x 6 b BUFFER RET makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer,
6087 and uses buffer BUFFER as the right-hand buffer.
6089 C-x 6 s splits the current buffer, which contains two-column text,
6090 into two side-by-side buffers. The old current buffer becomes the
6091 left-hand buffer, but the text in the right column is moved into the
6092 right-hand buffer. The current column specifies the split point.
6093 Splitting starts with the current line and continues to the end of the
6096 C-x 6 s takes a prefix argument which specifies how many characters
6097 before point constitute the column separator. (The default argument
6098 is 1, as usual, so by default the column separator is the character
6099 before point.) Lines that don't have the column separator at the
6100 proper place remain unsplit; they stay in the left-hand buffer, and
6101 the right-hand buffer gets an empty line to correspond.
6103 You can scroll both buffers together using C-x 6 SPC (scroll up), C-x
6104 6 DEL (scroll down), and C-x 6 RET (scroll up one line). C-x 6 C-l
6105 recenters both buffers together.
6107 If you want to make a line which will span both columns, put it in
6108 the left-hand buffer, with an empty line in the corresponding place in
6109 the right-hand buffer.
6111 When you have edited both buffers as you wish, merge them with C-x 6
6112 1. This copies the text from the right-hand buffer as a second column
6113 in the other buffer. To go back to two-column editing, use C-x 6 s.
6115 Use C-x 6 d to disassociate the two buffers, leaving each as it
6116 stands. (If the other buffer, the one that was not current when you
6117 type C-x 6 d, is empty, C-x 6 d kills it.)
6119 *** You can supply command arguments such as files to visit to an Emacs
6120 that is already running. To do this, you must do this in your .emacs
6122 (add-hook 'suspend-hook 'resume-suspend-hook)
6123 Also you must use the shellscript emacs.csh or emacs.sh, found in the
6126 *** Shell mode has been completely replaced.
6127 The basic idea is the same, but there are new commands available in
6130 TAB now completes the file name before point in the shell buffer.
6131 To get a list of all possible completions, type M-?.
6133 There is a new convenient history mechanism for repeating previous
6134 commands. Use the command M-p to recall the last command; it copies
6135 the text of that command to the place where you are editing. If you
6136 repeat M-p, it replaces the copied command with the previous command.
6137 M-n is similar but goes in the opposite direction towards the present.
6138 When you find the command you wanted, you can edit it, or just
6139 resubmit it by typing RET.
6141 You can also use M-r and M-s to search for (respectively) earlier or
6142 later inputs starting with a given string. First type the string,
6143 then type M-r to yank a previous input from the history which starts
6144 with that string. You can repeat M-r to find successively earlier
6145 inputs starting with the same string. You can start moving in the
6146 opposite direction (toward more recent inputs) by typing M-s instead
6147 of M-r. As long as you don't use any commands except M-r and M-s,
6148 they keep using the same string that you had entered initially.
6150 C-c C-o kills the last batch of output from a shell command. This is
6151 useful if a shell command spews out lots of output that just gets in
6154 C-c C-r scrolls to display the beginning of the last batch of output
6155 at the top of the window; it also moves the cursor there.
6157 C-a on a line that starts with a shell prompt moves to the end of the
6158 prompt, not to the very beginning of the line.
6160 C-d typed at the end of the shell buffer sends EOF to the subshell.
6161 At any other position in the buffer, it deletes a character as usual.
6163 If Emacs gets confused while trying to track changes in the shell's
6164 current directory, type M-x dirs to re-synchronize.
6166 M-x send-invisible reads a line of text without echoing it, and
6167 sends it to the shell.
6169 If you accidentally suspend your process, use M-x comint-continue-subjob
6172 *** There is now a convenient way to enable flow control on terminals
6173 where you can't win without it. Suppose you want to do this on
6174 VT-100 and H19 terminals; put the following in your `.emacs' file:
6176 (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")
6178 When flow control is enabled, you must type C-\ to get the effect of a
6179 C-s, and type C-^ to get the effect of a C-q.
6181 The function `enable-flow-control' enables flow control unconditionally.
6185 Dired has many new features which allow you to do these things:
6187 - Rename, copy, or make links to many files at once.
6189 - Make distinguishable types of marks for different operations.
6191 - Display contents of subdirectories in the same Dired buffer as the
6194 *** Setting and Clearing Marks
6196 There are now two kinds of marker that you can put on a file in Dired:
6197 `D' for deletion, and `*' for any other kind of operation.
6198 The `x' command deletes only files marked with `D', and most
6199 other Dired commands operate only on the files marked with `*'.
6201 To mark files with `D' (also called "flagging" the files), you
6202 can use `d' as usual. Here are some commands for marking with
6203 `*' (and also for unmarking):
6205 **** `m' marks the current file with `*', for an operation other than
6208 **** `*' marks all executable files. With a prefix argument, it
6209 unmarks all those files.
6211 **** `@' marks all symbolic links. With a prefix argument, it unmarks
6214 **** `/' marks all directory files except `.' and `..'. With a prefix
6215 argument, it unmarks all those files.
6217 **** M-DEL removes a specific or all marks from every file. With an
6218 argument, queries for each marked file. Type your help character,
6219 usually C-h, at that time for help.
6221 **** `c' replaces all marks that use the character OLD with marks that
6222 use the character NEW. You can use almost any character as a mark
6223 character by means of this command, to distinguish various classes of
6224 files. If OLD is ` ', then the command operates on all unmarked
6225 files; if NEW is ` ', then the command unmarks the files it acts on.
6227 *** Operating on Multiple Files
6229 The Dired commands to operate directly on files (rename them, copy
6230 them, and so on) have been generalized to work on multiple files.
6231 There are also some additional commands in this series.
6233 All of these commands use the same convention to decide which files to
6236 - If you give the command a numeric prefix argument @var{n}, it operates
6237 on the next @var{n} files, starting with the current file.
6239 - Otherwise, if there are marked files, the commands operate on all the
6242 - Otherwise, the command operates on the current file only.
6244 These are the commands:
6246 **** `C' copies the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6247 copy into, or (if copying a single file) a new name.
6249 If `dired-copy-preserve-time' is non-`nil', then copying sets
6250 the modification time of the new file to be the same as that of the old
6253 **** `R' renames the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6254 rename into, or (if renaming a single file) a new name.
6256 Dired automatically changes the visited file name of buffers associated
6257 with renamed files so that they refer to the new names.
6259 **** `H' makes hard links to the specified files. You must specify a
6260 directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name
6263 **** `S' makes symbolic links to the specified files. You must specify
6264 a directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the
6265 name to give the link.
6267 **** `M' changes the mode of the specified files. This calls the
6268 `chmod' program, so you can describe the desired mode change with any
6269 argument that `chmod' would handle.
6271 **** `G' changes the group of the specified files.
6273 **** `O' changes the owner of the specified files. (On normal systems,
6274 only the superuser can do this.)
6276 The variable `dired-chown-program' specifies the name of the
6277 program to use to do the work (different systems put `chown' in
6280 **** `Z' compresses or uncompresses the specified files.
6282 **** `L' loads the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6284 **** `B' byte compiles the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6286 **** `P' prints the specified files. It uses the variables
6287 `lpr-command' and `lpr-switches' just as `lpr-file' does.
6289 *** Shell Commands in Dired
6291 `!' reads a shell command string in the minibuffer and runs the shell
6292 command on all the specified files. There are two ways of applying a
6293 shell command to multiple files:
6295 - If you use `*' in the command, then the shell command runs just
6296 once, with the list of file names substituted for the `*'.
6298 Thus, `! tar cf foo.tar * RET' runs `tar' on the entire list of file
6299 names, putting them into one tar file `foo.tar'. The file names are
6300 inserted in the order that they appear in the Dired buffer.
6302 - If the command string doesn't contain `*', then it runs once for
6303 each file, with the file name attached at the end. For example, `!
6304 uudecode RET' runs `uudecode' on each file.
6306 To run the shell command once for each file but without being limited
6307 to putting the file name inserted in the middle, use a shell loop.
6308 For example, this shell command would run `uuencode' on each of the
6309 specified files, writing the output into a corresponding `.uu' file:
6311 for file in *; uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
6313 The working directory for the shell command is the top level directory
6314 of the Dired buffer.
6316 *** Regular Expression File Name Substitution
6318 **** `% m REGEXP RET' marks all files whose names match the regular
6321 Only the non-directory part of the file name is used in matching. Use
6322 `^' and `$' to anchor matches. Exclude subdirs by hiding them.
6324 **** `% d REGEXP RET' flags for deletion all files whose names match
6325 the regular expression REGEXP.
6327 **** `% R', `% C', `% H', `% S'
6329 These four commands rename, copy, make hard links and make soft links,
6330 in each case computing the new name by regular expression substitution
6331 from the name of the old file. They effectively perform
6332 `query-replace-regexp' on the selected file names in the Dired buffer.
6334 The commands read two arguments: a regular expression, and a
6335 substitution pattern. Each selected file name is matched against the
6336 regular expression, and then the part which matched is replaced with
6337 the substitution pattern. You can use `\&' and `\DIGIT' in the
6338 substitution pattern to refer to all or part of the old file name.
6340 If the regular expression matches more than once in a file name,
6341 only the first match is replaced.
6343 Normally, the replacement process does not consider the directory names;
6344 it operates on the file name within the directory. If you specify a
6345 prefix argument of zero, then replacement affects entire file name.
6347 To apply the command to all files matching the same regexp that you
6348 use in the command, mark those files with `% m REGEXP RET', then use
6349 the same regular expression in `% R'. To make this easier, `% R' uses
6350 as a default the last regular expression specified in a `%' command.
6352 *** Dired Case Conversion
6354 **** `% u' renames each of the selected files to an upper case name.
6356 **** `% l' renames each of the selected files to a lower case name.
6358 *** File Comparison with Dired
6360 **** `=' compares the current file with another file (the file at the
6361 mark), by running the `diff' program. The file at the mark is given
6364 **** `M-=' compares the current file with its backup file. If there
6365 are several numerical backups, it uses the most recent one. If this
6366 file is a backup, it is compared with its original.
6368 The backup file is the first file given to `diff'.
6370 *** Subdirectories in Dired
6372 You can display more than one directory in one Dired buffer.
6373 The simplest way to do this is to specify the options `-lR' for
6374 running `ls'. That produces a recursive directory listing showing
6375 all subdirectories, all within the same Dired buffer.
6377 You can also insert the contents of a particular subdirectory with the
6378 `i' command. Use this command on the line that describes a file which
6379 is a directory. Inserted subdirectory contents follow the top-level
6380 directory of the Dired buffer, just as they do in `ls -lR' output.
6382 If the subdirectory's contents are already present in the buffer, the
6383 `i' command just moves to it (type `l' to refresh it). It sets the
6384 Emacs mark before moving, so C-x C-x takes you back to the old
6385 position in the buffer.
6387 When you have subdirectories in the Dired buffer, you can use the page
6388 motion commands C-x [ and C-x ] to move by entire directories.
6390 The following commands move up and down in the tree of directories
6391 in one Dired buffer:
6393 **** C-M-u Go up to the parent directory's headerline.
6395 **** C-M-d Go down in the tree, to the first subdirectory's
6398 **** C-M-n Go to next subdirectory headerline, regardless of level.
6400 **** C-M-p Go to previous subdirectory headerline, regardless of
6403 *** Hiding Subdirectories
6405 "Hiding" a subdirectory means to make it invisible, except for its
6406 headerline. Files inside a hidden subdirectory are never considered
6407 by Dired. For example, the commands to operate on marked files ignore
6408 files in hidden directories even if they are marked.
6410 **** `$' hides or unhides the current subdirectory and move to next
6411 subdirectory. A prefix argument serves as a repeat count.
6413 **** `M-$' hides all subdirectories, leaving only their header lines.
6414 Or, if at least one subdirectory is currently hidden, it makes
6415 everything visible again. You can use this command to get an overview
6416 in very deep directory trees or to move quickly to subdirectories far
6419 *** Editing the Dired Buffer
6421 **** `l' updates the specified files in a Dired buffer. This means
6422 reading their current status from the file system and changing the
6423 buffer to reflect it properly.
6425 If you use this command on a subdirectory header line, it updates the
6426 contents of the subdirectory.
6428 **** `g' updates the entire contents of the Dired buffer. It preserves
6429 all marks except for those on files that have vanished. Hidden
6430 subdirectories are updated but remain hidden.
6432 **** `k' kills all marked lines (not the files). With a prefix
6433 argument, it kills that many lines starting with the current line.
6435 This command does not delete files; it just deletes text from the Dired
6438 If you kill the line for a file that is a directory, then its contents
6439 are also deleted from the buffer. Typing `C-u k' on the header line
6440 for a subdirectory is another way to delete a subdirectory from the
6443 *** `find' and Dired.
6445 To search for files with names matching a wildcard pattern use
6446 `find-name-dired'. Its arguments are DIRECTORY and
6447 PATTERN. It selects all the files in DIRECTORY or its
6448 subdirectories whose own names match PATTERN.
6450 The files thus selected are displayed in a Dired buffer in which the
6451 ordinary Dired commands are available.
6453 If you want to test the contents of files, rather than their names, use
6454 `find-grep-dired'. This command takes two minibuffer arguments,
6455 DIRECTORY and REGEXP; it selects all the files in
6456 DIRECTORY or its subdirectories that contain a match for
6457 REGEXP. It works by running `find' and `grep'.
6459 The most general command in this series is `find-dired', which lets
6460 you specify any condition that `find' can test. It takes two
6461 minibuffer arguments, DIRECTORY and FIND-ARGS; it runs `find' in
6462 DIRECTORY with using FIND-ARGS as the arguments to `find' specifying
6463 which files to accept. To use this command, you need to know how to
6466 ** New amusements and novelties.
6468 *** `M-x mpuz' displays a multiplication puzzle, in which each letter
6469 stands for a digit, and you must determine which digit. The puzzles
6470 are determined randomly, so they are always different.
6472 *** `M-x gomoku' plays the game Gomoku with you. It needs more work.
6474 *** `M-x spook' adds a line of randomly chosen keywords to an outgoing
6475 mail message. The keywords are chosen from a list of words that
6476 suggest you are discussing something subversive.
6478 The idea is that the NSA reads all messages that contain keywords
6479 suggesting they might be interested, and that adding these lines could
6480 help to overload them. I would guess that they have modified their
6481 program by now to ignore these lines of keywords; perhaps the program
6482 can be updated if some clever hacker can determine what criterion they
6485 ** Installation changes
6487 *** The configure script has been provided to help with the
6488 installation process. It takes the place of editing the Makefiles and
6489 src/config.h, and can often guess the appropriate operating system to
6490 use for a particular machine type. See INSTALL for a more detailed
6491 description of the steps required for installation.
6493 *** If you create a Lisp file named `site-start.el', Emacs loads the file
6494 whenever it starts up.
6496 *** A new Lisp variable, `data-directory', indicates the directory
6497 containing the DOC file, tutorial, copying agreement, and other
6498 familiar `etc' files. The value of `data-directory' is a simple string.
6499 The default should be set at build time, and the person installing
6500 Emacs should place all the data files in this directory. The `help.el'
6501 functions that look for docstrings and information files check this
6502 variable. All Emacs Lisp packages should also be coded so that they
6503 refer to `data-directory' to find data files.
6505 *** The PURESIZE definition has been moved from config.h to its own
6506 file, puresize.h. Since almost every file of C source in the
6507 distribution depends on config.h, but only alloc.c and data.c depend
6508 on puresize.h, this means that changing the value of PURESIZE causes
6509 only those two files to be recompiled.
6511 *** The makefile at the top of the Emacs source tree now supports a
6512 `dist' target, which creates a compressed tar file suitable for
6513 distribution, using the contents of the source tree. Object files,
6514 old file versions, executables, DOC files, and other
6515 architecture-specific or easy-to-recreate files are not included in
6520 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6521 Copyright information:
6523 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6525 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6526 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6527 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6528 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6530 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6531 of this document, or of portions of it,
6532 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6533 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6537 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
6540 arch-tag: 944be39b-afe8-4217-9977-c745b68a7ca2