1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
14 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
16 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
17 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
21 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if they these are available.
23 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
24 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
26 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
27 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
32 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
33 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
35 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
36 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
37 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
38 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
39 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
40 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
42 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
43 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
44 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
45 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
47 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
48 a version-dependent component.
50 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
51 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
52 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
53 character is still bound as before.
55 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
58 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
59 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to executable-chmod.
61 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
62 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
63 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
64 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
65 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
66 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
67 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
69 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
70 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
71 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
72 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
73 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
74 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
75 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
76 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
77 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
79 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
80 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
82 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
83 point in a pop-up window.
85 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
86 displays all characters in that character set.
88 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
89 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
91 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
94 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
96 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
97 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
99 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
100 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
101 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
102 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
104 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
105 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
106 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
107 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
109 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
110 on the display using several methods
112 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
113 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
114 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
116 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
117 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
119 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
121 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
122 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
124 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
125 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
126 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
127 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
129 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
130 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
131 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
133 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
134 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
136 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
137 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
140 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
141 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
144 ** New X resources recognized
146 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
147 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
148 is useful for debugging X problems.
152 emacs.synchronous: true
154 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
155 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
156 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
157 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
158 visual class names are
167 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
168 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
171 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
172 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
173 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
178 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
180 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
181 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
182 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
183 resource values are `true' or `on'.
187 emacs.privateColormap: true
189 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
190 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
191 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
193 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
194 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
195 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
198 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
200 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
201 all frames except the selected one.
203 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
204 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
206 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
207 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
208 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
209 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
211 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
212 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
214 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
215 read mail from the menu etc.
217 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
218 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
220 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
222 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
226 -------------------------
233 ** Changes in Outline mode.
235 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
236 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
237 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
239 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
240 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
242 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
243 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
244 several other special buffers.
246 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
247 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
250 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
251 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
253 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
254 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
255 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
257 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
258 is running in batch mode. For example,
260 (message "%s" (read t))
262 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
265 ** Faces and frame parameters.
267 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
268 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
269 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
270 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
271 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
272 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
273 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
275 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
276 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
277 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
278 `default' face and vice versa.
282 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
283 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
284 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
286 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
288 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
289 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
290 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
291 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
293 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
294 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
295 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
297 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
300 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
302 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
303 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
304 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
305 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
308 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
310 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
311 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
312 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
313 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
316 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
317 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
318 under Lisp changes, below.
320 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
322 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
323 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
326 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
327 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
328 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
329 customizing face `fringe'.
331 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
332 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
336 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
337 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
339 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
341 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
342 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
343 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
344 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
345 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
348 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
349 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
350 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
351 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
352 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
353 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
355 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
356 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
357 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
358 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
359 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
360 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
362 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
363 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
364 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
365 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
366 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
368 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
370 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
371 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
372 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
374 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
376 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
377 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
378 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
379 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
380 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
385 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
386 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
390 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
391 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
392 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
395 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
397 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
398 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
399 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
402 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
403 have to do anything to activate it.
405 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
407 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
408 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
409 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
410 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
412 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
414 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
416 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
418 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
421 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
424 ** Hscrolling in C code.
426 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
427 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
432 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
433 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
435 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
437 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
438 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
439 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
440 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
441 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
443 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
445 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
448 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
449 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
451 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
453 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
454 toggles the read-only status.
456 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
458 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
460 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
461 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
464 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
466 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
467 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
468 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
469 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
470 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
471 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
476 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
477 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
478 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
480 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
481 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
482 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
483 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
484 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
485 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
487 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
489 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
491 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
492 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
493 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
495 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
496 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
498 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
499 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
500 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
502 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
504 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
505 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
506 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
507 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
509 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
510 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
511 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
512 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
514 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
515 notably at the end of lines.
517 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
518 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
520 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
522 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
523 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
524 after each match to get the replacement text.
526 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
527 you edit the replacement string.
529 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', let's
530 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
531 lisp-complete-symbol.
533 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
535 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
536 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
537 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
538 window size by setting the following variable:
540 - User option: max-mini-window-height
542 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
543 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
544 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
548 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
550 ** Changes to hideshow.el
552 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
553 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
555 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
557 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
558 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
559 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
560 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
561 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
562 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
564 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
565 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
566 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
567 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
569 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
571 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
572 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
573 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
574 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
575 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
577 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
578 something like this in your .emacs.
580 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
582 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
584 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
586 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
587 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
588 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
590 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
591 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
593 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
594 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
596 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
597 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
598 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
601 ** Changes in Font Lock
603 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
604 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
607 ** Comint (subshell) changes
609 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
610 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
611 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
612 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
613 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
614 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
615 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
616 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
618 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
619 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
621 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
622 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
623 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
625 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
626 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
627 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
629 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
630 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
631 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
632 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
634 ** Changes to Rmail mode
636 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
637 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
638 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
639 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
640 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
643 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
644 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
645 regexp matching your mail addresses.
647 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
648 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
649 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
650 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
651 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
653 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
656 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
657 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
660 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
661 in which folder to put messages automatically.
663 ** Changes to TeX mode
665 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
668 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
670 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
671 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
672 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
673 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
674 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
675 can be edited from that buffer.
677 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
678 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
679 `A' to use all marked entries).
681 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
682 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
684 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
685 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
686 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
689 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
690 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
691 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
692 in column 1 are always made leaves.
694 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
695 has the following new features:
697 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
698 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
699 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
700 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
702 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
703 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
704 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
705 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
706 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
709 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
714 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
715 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
716 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
718 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
719 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
720 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
721 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
725 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
726 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
727 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
729 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
730 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
733 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
734 between custom options. Example:
736 (defcustom default-input-method nil
737 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
738 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
739 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
741 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
742 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
744 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
745 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
746 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
748 ** New features in evaluation commands
750 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
751 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
752 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
753 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
754 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
756 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
757 code when called with a prefix argument.
761 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
762 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
763 spell-checks the current buffer.
767 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
768 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
769 is, delete only empty directories.
771 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
772 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
773 copy directories recursively.
775 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
776 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
777 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
779 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
780 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
783 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
784 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
785 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
786 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
787 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
789 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
792 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
793 use the -f option when sending mail.
797 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
798 current user setups (although it's believed that these
799 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
800 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
801 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
802 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
805 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
806 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
807 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
808 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
809 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
812 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
813 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
814 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
815 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
816 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
817 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
819 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
820 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
821 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
822 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
823 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
824 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
825 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
826 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
828 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
829 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
830 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
831 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
834 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
835 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
836 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
837 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
838 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
839 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
840 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
841 function documentation for more info.
843 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
844 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
845 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
846 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
847 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
848 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
849 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
850 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
852 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
854 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
855 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
857 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
858 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
859 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
860 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
861 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
864 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
865 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
866 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
869 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
870 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
871 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
872 chapter about this in the manual.
874 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
875 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
876 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
877 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
878 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
880 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
881 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
882 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
884 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
885 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
887 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
888 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
889 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
892 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
893 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
894 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
895 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
898 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
899 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
900 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
903 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
904 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
905 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
906 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
909 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
910 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
911 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
912 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
915 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
916 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
917 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
919 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
921 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
922 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
923 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
924 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
926 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
927 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
928 the column specified by comment-column.
930 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
931 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
932 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
933 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
934 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
935 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
937 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
938 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
941 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
943 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
944 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
945 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
946 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
949 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
951 ** Makefile mode changes
953 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
955 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
956 Fontlock mode is active.
960 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
961 so that searches can be resumed.
963 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
964 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
965 that started the search.
967 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
968 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
970 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
972 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
973 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
974 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
975 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
976 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
977 `secondary-selection'.
979 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
980 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
981 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
982 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
983 usual snappy response.
985 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
986 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
987 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
988 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
990 ** Changes in sort.el
992 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
993 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
994 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
997 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
999 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1000 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1001 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1003 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1004 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1006 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1007 output ^M at the end of lines.
1009 ** Shell script mode changes.
1011 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1012 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1013 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1017 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1019 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1020 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1021 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1022 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1023 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1025 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1026 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1028 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1029 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1031 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1034 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1036 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1038 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1041 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1042 variables are tagged.
1044 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1046 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1049 ** Changes in etags.el
1051 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1052 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1053 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1055 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1056 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1058 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1059 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1060 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1061 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1063 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1065 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1066 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1068 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1070 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1071 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1072 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1074 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1075 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1077 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1078 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1080 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1081 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1082 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1084 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1085 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1086 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1087 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1089 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1090 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1091 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1093 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1095 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1097 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1098 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1099 expression from that list, are not checked.
1101 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1102 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1103 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1104 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1106 ** New modes and packages
1108 *** THe new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1109 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1111 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1113 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1114 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1115 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1116 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1117 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1118 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1119 corresponding file is read.
1121 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1124 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1125 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1127 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1128 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1129 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1131 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1132 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1133 separate Texinfo file.
1135 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine
1136 or by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1137 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS.
1138 It comes with log-view-mode to view RCS and SCCS logs and log-edit-mode
1139 used to enter checkin log messages.
1141 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1142 without invoking external programs.
1144 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1145 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1146 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1147 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1148 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1150 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1151 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1153 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1154 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1156 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1157 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1158 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1159 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1160 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1163 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1164 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1165 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1166 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1168 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1169 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1170 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1172 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1175 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1177 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1179 ; comment (until end of line)
1183 $A default non-terminal
1184 $"C" default terminal
1185 $?C? default special
1186 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1187 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1188 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1189 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1190 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1191 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1192 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1193 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1194 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1195 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1196 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1197 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1198 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1199 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1200 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1202 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1204 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1205 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1206 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1207 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1208 equal signs of assignments.
1210 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1211 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1213 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1214 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1215 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1216 customize the package.
1218 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1220 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1221 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1222 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1223 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1224 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1225 which answers different needs.
1227 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1228 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1229 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1230 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1231 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1234 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1235 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1237 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1239 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1241 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1243 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1246 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1249 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1251 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1253 *** whitespace.el ???
1255 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1256 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1257 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1258 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1259 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1260 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1261 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1263 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1265 Here is an example of columns:
1268 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1269 porcupine strawberry airplane
1271 Doing the following settings:
1273 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1274 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1275 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1276 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1279 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1281 M-x delimit-columns-region
1285 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1286 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1287 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1289 delim-col has the following options:
1291 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1294 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1295 between each column.
1297 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1300 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1303 delim-col has the following commands:
1305 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1306 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1308 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1309 were operated on recently.
1311 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1313 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1314 recentf at Emacs startup.
1316 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1317 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1318 file list can be displayed:
1320 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1321 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1322 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1324 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1325 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1327 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1330 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1331 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1332 specific to Message mode.
1334 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1335 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1336 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1338 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1339 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1340 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1342 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1343 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1345 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1347 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1348 minibuffer with completion.
1350 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1351 with the diary features.
1353 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1354 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1356 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1359 ** Withdrawn packages
1361 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1362 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1364 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1366 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1369 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1370 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1372 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1373 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1376 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1379 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1381 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1382 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1384 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1386 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1387 comparison is done with `eq'.
1389 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1391 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1394 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1395 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1396 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1398 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1399 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1401 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1402 function was declared obsolete.
1404 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1405 retained as an alias).
1407 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1408 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1409 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1411 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1413 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1415 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1416 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1418 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1420 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1422 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1424 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1425 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1426 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1427 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1430 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1431 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1432 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1433 minibuffer even if it is active.
1435 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1436 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1437 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1438 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1439 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1440 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1442 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1443 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1444 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1445 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1446 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1447 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1448 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1450 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1451 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1452 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1454 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1455 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1456 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1457 Default value is nil.
1459 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1462 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1463 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1464 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1466 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1469 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1470 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1471 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1472 than replacing the local map.
1474 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1475 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1477 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1479 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1482 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1484 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1486 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1487 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1488 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1489 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1491 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1492 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1493 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1494 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1496 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1497 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1498 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1500 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1501 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1502 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1503 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1504 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1505 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1506 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1509 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1511 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1512 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1513 character set as previously.
1515 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1516 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1517 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1519 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1520 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1521 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1522 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1524 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1525 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1527 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1528 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1531 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1532 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1534 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1535 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1536 buffers and strings.
1538 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1539 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1540 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1541 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1542 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1543 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1544 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1547 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1548 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1549 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1551 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1552 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1553 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1554 may differ between buffer and string text.
1556 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1557 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1559 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1560 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1561 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1562 `composition' from STRING.
1564 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1565 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1567 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1570 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1571 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1572 character set is not used.
1574 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1575 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1576 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1579 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1580 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1581 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1584 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1585 that offset in the file before writing.
1587 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1588 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1590 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1591 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1592 from which the command was issued.
1594 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1595 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1596 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1597 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1600 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1601 to `window-buffer-height'.
1603 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1605 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1606 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1607 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1609 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1612 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1613 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1615 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1616 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1617 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1619 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1620 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1621 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1622 is currently displayed in some window.
1624 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1625 argument function's results.
1627 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1628 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1630 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1631 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1633 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1634 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1636 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1637 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1640 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1641 nil don't display a cursor
1642 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1643 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1644 others display a box cursor.
1646 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1647 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1648 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1649 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1651 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1652 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1653 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1654 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1658 (string-to-syntax "()")
1661 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1664 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1665 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1672 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1677 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1682 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1689 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1690 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1693 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1694 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1695 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1696 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1699 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1701 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1702 for a regexp in a string.
1704 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1705 `mouse-position-function'.
1707 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1708 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1710 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1711 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1714 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1717 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1718 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1721 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1722 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1723 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1724 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1728 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1729 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1732 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1733 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1734 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1735 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1738 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1739 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1740 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1741 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1744 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1745 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1746 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1749 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1750 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1753 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1755 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1756 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1757 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1761 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1762 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1765 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1766 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1769 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1770 instead of being optional.
1773 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1774 modify read-only text.
1777 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1779 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1780 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1781 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1782 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1783 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1785 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1786 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1787 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1788 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1789 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1790 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1791 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1794 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1795 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1796 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1800 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1801 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1804 ** New function `propertize'
1806 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1807 strings with text properties.
1809 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1811 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1812 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1813 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1814 specified value of that property. Example:
1816 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1819 ** push and pop macros.
1821 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1822 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1823 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1825 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1826 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1827 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1829 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1831 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1832 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1834 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1835 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1836 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1837 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1839 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1840 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1841 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1842 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1845 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1846 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1848 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1849 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1850 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1851 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1852 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1854 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1856 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1857 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1858 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1859 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1860 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1861 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1862 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1863 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1864 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1865 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1866 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1867 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1868 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1869 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1870 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1873 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1875 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1877 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1879 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1880 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1884 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1885 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1886 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1890 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1891 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1893 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1895 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1896 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1897 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1898 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1899 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1901 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1903 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1904 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1905 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1909 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
1910 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
1911 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
1912 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
1913 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1915 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1917 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1919 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1921 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1923 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1925 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1928 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1930 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1932 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1934 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1936 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1938 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1940 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1942 Returns the size of TABLE.
1944 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1946 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1948 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1950 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1952 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1956 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1958 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1961 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1963 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1964 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1966 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1968 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1970 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1972 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1973 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1975 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1977 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1979 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1981 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1982 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1983 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1984 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1985 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1987 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1989 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1990 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1991 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1993 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1994 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1996 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1997 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1999 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2000 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2002 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2003 'case-fold-string-hash))
2005 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2008 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2010 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2011 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2012 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2015 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2017 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2018 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2021 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2022 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2023 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2024 is too short to reach that column.
2027 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2028 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2029 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2030 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2032 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2033 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2034 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2037 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2038 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2041 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2042 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2045 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2046 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2047 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2048 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2049 temporary-file-directory instead.
2052 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2053 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2054 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2055 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2058 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2059 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2062 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2064 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2065 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2066 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2069 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2071 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2072 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2073 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2074 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2075 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2076 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2078 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2079 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2080 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2081 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2084 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2086 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2087 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2088 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2091 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2092 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2096 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2098 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2099 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2102 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2105 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2107 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2108 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2111 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2113 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2114 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2120 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2121 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2123 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2124 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2125 to enable sound support.
2127 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2128 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2129 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2130 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2131 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2133 The following sound properties are supported:
2137 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2138 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2142 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2143 may be present, but not both.
2147 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2148 0..1. This property is optional.
2150 Other properties are ignored.
2152 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2154 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2157 ** Changes to garbage collection
2159 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2160 of live and free strings.
2162 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2163 strings that have been consed so far.
2166 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2170 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2172 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2175 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2177 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2179 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2180 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2181 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2182 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2183 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2185 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2186 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2189 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2192 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2194 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2195 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2196 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2197 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2200 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2202 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2203 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2204 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2205 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2207 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2208 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2210 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2211 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2212 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2213 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2214 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2215 just display it black instead.
2217 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2220 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2224 ** New face implementation.
2226 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2227 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2232 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2234 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2236 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2237 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2239 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2241 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2243 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2245 6. Foreground color.
2247 7. Background color.
2249 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2251 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2253 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2255 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2257 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2260 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2261 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2263 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2264 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2265 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2266 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2267 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2268 attributes mentioned above.
2270 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2271 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2274 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2275 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2281 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2282 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2283 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2284 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2285 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2286 results in a fully-specified face.
2289 *** Face realization.
2291 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2292 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2293 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2294 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2295 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2296 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2298 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2299 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2300 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2301 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2303 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2304 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2305 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2306 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2307 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2309 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2310 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2311 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2312 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2313 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2316 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2317 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2318 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2319 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2322 **** Clearing face caches.
2324 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2325 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2331 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2332 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2333 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2335 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2336 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2337 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2338 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2339 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2341 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2342 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2343 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2345 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2347 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2348 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2349 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2350 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2351 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2352 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2353 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2355 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2356 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2362 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2363 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2366 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2367 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2368 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2369 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2370 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2373 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2375 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2378 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2380 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2382 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2383 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2384 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2386 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2387 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2388 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2389 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2390 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2391 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2392 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2393 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2394 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2395 of the face font sort order.
2397 - Function: x-font-family-list
2399 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2400 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2401 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2402 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2404 - Variable: font-list-limit
2406 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2407 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2408 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2411 *** Setting face attributes.
2413 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2414 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2415 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2418 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2419 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2421 The following attributes are recognized:
2425 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2426 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2427 and `?' are allowed.
2431 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2432 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2433 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2434 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2438 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2443 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2444 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2445 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2449 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2450 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2453 `:foreground', `:background'
2455 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2459 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2460 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2461 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2466 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2467 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2468 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2473 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2474 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2475 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2476 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2480 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2481 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2482 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2483 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2484 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2485 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2486 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2487 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2488 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2489 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2490 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2491 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2492 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2493 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2494 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2495 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2500 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2501 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2505 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2506 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2507 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2508 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2509 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2510 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2512 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2513 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2517 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2518 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2519 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2522 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2523 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2524 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2526 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2529 *** Face attributes and X resources
2531 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2534 Face attribute X resource class
2535 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2536 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2537 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2538 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2539 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2540 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2541 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2542 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2543 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2544 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2545 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2546 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2547 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2548 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2549 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2550 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2551 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2552 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2553 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2554 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2557 *** Text property `face'.
2559 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2560 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2561 specification can be
2563 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2565 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2566 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2567 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2568 for face attribute names.
2570 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2571 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2572 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2575 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2577 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2578 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2579 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2580 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2581 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2582 used to clear the mapping table.
2584 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2586 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2587 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2588 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2589 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2590 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2591 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2592 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2593 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2594 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2595 modify their color-related behavior.
2597 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2600 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2602 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2603 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2604 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2605 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2606 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2607 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2608 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2609 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2610 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2613 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2615 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2617 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2618 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2619 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2621 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2623 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2624 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2627 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2628 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2629 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2630 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2631 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2632 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2633 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2636 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2637 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2638 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2640 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2642 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2644 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2645 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2646 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2647 constrained position if that is is different.
2649 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2650 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2651 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2652 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2653 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2654 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2657 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2658 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2659 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2660 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2661 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2663 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2665 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2666 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2667 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2669 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2671 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2672 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2673 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2674 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2675 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2677 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2679 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2680 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2681 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2682 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2683 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2685 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2687 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2688 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2689 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2691 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2693 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2694 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2695 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2700 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2701 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2702 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2703 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2705 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2706 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2707 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2708 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2711 IMAGE is an image specification.
2713 *** Image specifications
2715 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2716 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2717 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2718 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2719 described below are ignored.
2721 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2725 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2726 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2727 to use for its ascent.
2729 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2730 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2732 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2733 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2734 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2735 overlays that apply to the image.
2739 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2740 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2744 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2749 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2750 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2751 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2752 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2754 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2756 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2757 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2758 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2759 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2760 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2761 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2762 background of the image.
2766 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2767 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2768 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2769 may be present in the image specification.
2773 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2774 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2775 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2776 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2778 *** Supported image types
2780 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2782 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2783 properties supported are
2787 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2788 is the frame's foreground.
2792 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2793 the frame's background color.
2795 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2796 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2797 instead of a `:file' property.
2801 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2805 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2811 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2812 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2814 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2816 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2819 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2820 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2823 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2825 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2826 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2827 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2828 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2830 Additional image properties supported are:
2832 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2834 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2835 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2838 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2839 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2841 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2842 to display compressed images.
2844 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2846 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2847 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2850 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2852 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2853 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2856 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2858 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2859 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2862 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2864 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2865 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2867 Additional image properties supported are:
2871 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2872 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2874 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2875 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2876 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2879 (defun show-anim (file max)
2880 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2881 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2883 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2886 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2889 (goto-char (point-min))
2890 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2891 (insert-image img "x"))
2892 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2894 **** PNG, image type `png'
2896 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2897 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2900 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2902 Additional image properties supported are:
2906 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2907 integer. This is a required property.
2911 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2912 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2916 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2917 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2918 files. This is an required property.
2920 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2925 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2926 which are supported in the current configuration.
2928 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2929 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2930 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2931 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
2932 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
2934 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2936 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2937 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2938 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2939 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2940 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2946 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2949 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2950 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2951 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2952 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2953 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2954 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2955 of the display margins.
2957 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2958 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2959 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2960 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2966 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2967 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2968 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2969 that have a `help-echo' property.
2971 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
2972 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
2973 the window in which the help was found.
2975 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
2976 `help-echo' text property was found.
2978 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
2979 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
2981 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
2982 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
2985 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
2986 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
2988 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
2989 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
2990 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
2991 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
2992 used as help string.
2994 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2995 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
2996 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2999 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3001 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3002 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3004 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3005 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3006 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3007 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3010 (global-set-key [A-down]
3013 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3014 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3015 (global-set-key [A-up]
3018 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3019 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3022 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3024 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3025 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3026 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3027 is called with one argument, POS.
3029 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3030 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3031 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3032 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3033 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3036 ** Tool bar support.
3038 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3039 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3040 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3041 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3042 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3043 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3045 *** Tool bar item definitions
3047 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3048 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3049 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3051 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3052 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3053 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3054 property (see below).
3056 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3057 binding are currently ignored.
3059 The following properties are recognized:
3063 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3068 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3072 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3073 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3074 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3076 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3078 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3079 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3083 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3084 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3085 meaning of each of the four elements:
3087 Index Use when item is
3088 ----------------------------------------
3089 0 enabled and selected
3090 1 enabled and deselected
3091 2 disabled and selected
3092 3 disabled and deselected
3094 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3095 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3097 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3099 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3100 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3102 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3104 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3105 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3106 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3108 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3109 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3111 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3112 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3113 pixels. Default is 1.
3115 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3116 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3118 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3120 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3123 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3124 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3125 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3127 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3129 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3131 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3134 ** Mode line changes.
3137 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3139 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3140 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3141 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3143 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3144 a `local-map' text property.
3146 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3147 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3149 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3150 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3151 `local-map' property.
3153 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3154 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3157 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3158 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3161 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3162 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3165 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3167 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3168 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3169 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3170 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3173 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3176 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3177 position in the header-line.
3180 ** Text property `display'
3182 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3183 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3184 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3185 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3187 *** Variable width and height spaces
3189 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3190 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3191 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3192 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3193 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3194 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3195 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3197 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3198 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3199 properties described below.
3201 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3202 characters having the `display' property.
3206 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3207 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3209 - :relative-width FACTOR
3211 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3212 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3213 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3214 width of that character by FACTOR.
3218 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3219 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3221 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3225 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3228 - :relative-height FACTOR
3230 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3231 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3235 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3236 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3237 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3240 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3244 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3245 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3246 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3247 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3248 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3249 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3250 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3251 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3252 as display specification.
3254 *** Other display properties
3256 - :space-width FACTOR
3258 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3259 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3264 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3266 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3267 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3268 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3269 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3270 a font is available counts as a step.
3272 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3273 as tall as the frame's default font.
3275 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3276 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3278 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3279 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3283 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3284 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3285 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3286 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3287 `:height' subproperty.
3289 *** Conditional display properties
3291 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3292 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3293 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3294 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3295 the text having the `display' property.
3297 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3301 ** New menu separator types.
3303 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3304 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3305 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3306 to specify other menu separator types.
3308 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3310 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3313 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3315 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3317 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3319 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3321 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3323 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3325 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3327 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3329 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3331 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3332 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3334 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3336 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3338 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3340 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3342 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3344 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3346 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3348 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3350 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3352 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3354 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3356 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3358 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3360 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3362 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3363 the corresponding single-line separators.
3366 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3368 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3369 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3370 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3371 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3372 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3373 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3374 default foreground is black.
3376 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3377 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3378 `ScrollBarBackground').
3380 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3381 settings for scroll bar colors.
3384 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3385 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3388 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3389 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3390 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3391 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3392 the original window start.
3395 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3396 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3397 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3400 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3402 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3403 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3404 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3405 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3407 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3408 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3410 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3412 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3413 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3414 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3415 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3416 temporarily to nil, for example
3418 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3419 (enlarge-window 10))
3421 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3422 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3424 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3425 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3426 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3427 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3428 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3429 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3431 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3433 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3436 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3438 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3440 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3441 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3442 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3443 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3444 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3446 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3450 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3452 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3455 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3457 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3458 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3460 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3462 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3464 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3465 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3466 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3468 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3469 is the one that is used.
3471 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3472 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3473 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3474 separate from the command's regular output.
3475 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3476 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3477 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3480 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3481 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3482 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3483 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3485 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3486 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3487 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3488 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3490 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3491 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3492 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3493 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3495 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3496 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3497 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3498 they never ignore case.
3500 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3501 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3502 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3503 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3504 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3505 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3506 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3508 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3509 the same format that was used in the file before.
3511 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3512 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3514 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3515 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3516 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3518 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3519 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3520 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3521 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3522 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3523 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3524 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3526 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3527 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3528 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3529 format. You can now customize these variables.
3531 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3532 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3533 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3534 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3536 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3537 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3538 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3540 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3541 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3542 doesn't have any effect.
3544 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3547 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3548 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3549 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3551 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3552 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3553 `auto-show-mode' command.
3555 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3556 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3557 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3558 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3559 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3561 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3562 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3564 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3565 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3566 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3568 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3569 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3570 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3571 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3573 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3575 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3576 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3577 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3578 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3579 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3581 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3582 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3584 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3585 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3586 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3587 `?' on other systems.
3589 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3590 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3593 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3594 current codepage when it starts.
3598 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3599 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3600 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3601 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3602 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3603 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3607 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3608 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3610 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3611 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3612 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3613 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3614 buffer-file-coding-system.
3616 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3617 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3620 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3621 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3622 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3623 list of possible coding systems.
3627 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3628 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3629 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3630 docstring for details.
3632 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3633 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3634 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3635 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3636 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3638 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3639 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3641 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3642 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3644 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3645 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3646 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3647 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3650 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3651 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3653 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3654 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3655 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3656 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3658 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3659 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3660 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3661 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3662 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3664 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3666 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3668 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3669 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3671 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3673 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3674 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3675 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3676 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3677 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3681 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3682 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3683 Gnus manual for the full story.
3685 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3686 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3687 group, which is created automatically.
3689 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3692 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3694 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3695 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3697 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3700 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3702 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3703 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3705 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3707 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3708 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3710 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3711 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3713 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3714 control over simplification.
3716 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3718 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3721 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3723 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3725 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3726 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3727 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3729 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3730 `a' forces normal posting method.
3732 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3735 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3738 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3739 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3741 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3744 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3746 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3748 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3749 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3751 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3752 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3754 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3756 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3759 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3760 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3762 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3763 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3765 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3767 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3769 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3771 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3773 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3774 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3775 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3777 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3778 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3779 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3780 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3781 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3783 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3784 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3785 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3786 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3788 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3789 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3790 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3793 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3795 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3796 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3798 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3799 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3800 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3801 removed from the label.
3803 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3804 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3806 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3807 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3809 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3810 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3813 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3815 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3817 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3818 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3820 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3821 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3822 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3824 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3825 changes with a special face.
3827 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3828 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3829 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3831 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3833 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3834 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3835 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3836 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3837 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3839 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3840 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3841 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3843 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3844 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3845 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3846 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3847 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3848 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3849 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3850 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3851 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3853 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3854 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3855 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3856 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3857 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3860 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3861 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3862 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3863 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3864 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3865 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3867 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3868 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3869 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3870 was not documented clearly before.
3872 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3873 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3875 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3877 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3878 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3879 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3880 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3882 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3883 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3884 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3886 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3888 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3889 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3891 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3892 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3895 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3896 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3897 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3898 file names and attributes are returned.
3900 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3901 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3902 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3903 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3906 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3907 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3909 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3911 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3912 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3913 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3916 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3917 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3920 The new function process-running-child-p
3921 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3922 terminal to its own child process.
3924 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3925 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3926 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3927 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3929 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3930 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3932 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3933 :included is an alias for :visible.
3935 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3936 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3937 to move or copy menu entries.
3939 ** Multibyte editing changes
3941 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3942 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3943 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3944 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3945 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3946 (setq char (sref str idx)
3947 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3948 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3950 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3951 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3952 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3954 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3955 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3956 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3958 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3960 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3961 across the boundary.
3963 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3964 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3965 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3966 contains 8-bit characters.
3967 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3968 contains invalid characters.
3970 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3971 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3972 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3973 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3976 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3977 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3978 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3979 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3981 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3982 compose Thai characters in a string.
3984 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3985 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3986 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3987 menus should always use the third argument.
3989 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3990 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3991 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3992 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3994 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3995 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3996 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3997 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3999 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4000 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4001 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4004 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4006 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4007 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4008 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4010 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4011 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4012 means to clear out that attribute.
4014 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4015 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4017 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4018 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4019 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4020 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4022 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4023 the gap of the current buffer.
4025 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4026 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4029 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4030 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4031 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4032 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4034 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4036 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4037 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4038 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4039 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4040 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4042 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4043 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4044 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4045 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4046 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4048 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4049 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4050 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4052 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4053 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4054 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4055 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4056 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4059 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4060 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4061 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4062 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4064 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4066 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4067 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4068 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4069 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4071 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4072 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4073 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4074 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4075 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4076 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4077 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4080 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4083 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4084 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4085 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4086 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4087 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4089 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4090 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4091 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4092 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4094 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4095 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4096 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4097 something that most users not do.
4099 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4100 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4101 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4104 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4107 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4108 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4109 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4110 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4113 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4114 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4115 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4116 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4117 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4120 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4121 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4122 to be confused by TeX commands.
4124 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4125 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4126 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4127 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4129 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4130 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4131 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4132 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4133 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4135 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4136 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4138 ** Changes in input method usage.
4140 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4141 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4144 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4146 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4147 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4149 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4150 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4152 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4154 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4156 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4157 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4159 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4160 given in the following case:
4161 o When you are using a complex input method.
4162 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4164 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4165 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4166 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4167 setting it to t is helpful.
4169 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4171 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4173 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4174 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4175 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4176 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4179 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4180 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4181 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4184 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4186 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4188 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4189 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4191 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4192 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4193 its owner and group.
4195 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4196 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4198 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4199 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4201 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4202 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4203 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4204 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4206 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4207 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4208 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4209 for writing keyboard macros.
4211 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4212 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4213 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4214 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4215 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4218 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4220 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4221 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4224 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4225 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4226 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4227 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4229 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4230 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4231 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4233 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4234 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4235 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4236 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4238 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4239 failure if the command produces no output.
4241 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4242 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4245 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4246 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4247 function and variable names.
4249 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4250 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4251 file-coding-system-alist.
4253 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4254 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4255 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4256 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4257 according to the current fontset.
4259 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4261 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4262 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4263 nonascii-insert-offset.
4265 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4266 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4267 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4268 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4270 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4271 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4273 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4274 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4276 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4277 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4280 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4281 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4283 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4284 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4285 all variables that have documentation.
4287 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4288 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4289 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4290 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4291 it should show; the default is 20.
4293 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4294 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4297 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4298 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4299 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4300 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4301 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4302 Newly added options are included as well.
4304 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4305 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4306 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4308 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4311 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4312 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4314 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4315 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4318 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4319 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4322 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4323 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4324 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4325 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4328 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4330 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4331 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4332 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4334 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4335 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4336 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4341 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4342 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4344 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4345 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4347 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4348 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4350 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4351 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4352 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4353 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4354 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4355 made invisible again.
4357 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4359 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4360 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4361 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4364 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4365 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4366 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4367 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4368 rmail-default-body-file.
4370 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4371 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4372 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4374 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4375 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4376 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4378 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4379 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4380 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4381 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4382 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4383 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4385 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4386 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4387 provided by feedmail are:
4389 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4390 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4391 there is also a queue for draft messages
4393 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4394 be prompted for confirmation
4396 **** does smart filling of address headers
4398 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4399 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4400 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4402 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4403 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4404 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4405 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4409 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4410 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4412 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4413 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4415 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4416 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4417 for a specified regexp.
4421 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4424 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4425 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4428 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4429 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4430 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4431 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4433 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4434 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4435 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4436 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4437 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4439 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4440 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4441 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4442 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4443 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4445 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4446 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4447 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4448 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4450 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4451 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4452 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4454 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4455 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4456 session to resolve them.
4458 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4459 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4460 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4463 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4464 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4465 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4466 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4467 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4468 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4471 ** Changes in Font Lock
4473 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4474 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4475 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4476 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4477 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4479 ** Frame name display changes
4481 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4482 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4483 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4484 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4486 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4487 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4490 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4492 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4493 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4494 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4496 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4498 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4499 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4500 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4502 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4503 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4506 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4507 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4508 previously sent input.
4510 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4511 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4512 as the search string.
4514 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4515 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4519 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4520 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4521 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4524 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4525 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4526 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4527 style is still the default however.
4529 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4531 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4532 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4533 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4535 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4536 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4538 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4539 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4541 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4542 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4544 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4545 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4547 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4548 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4549 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4550 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4552 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4554 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4555 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4556 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4558 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4559 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4560 expanding dynamically.
4562 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4563 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4565 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4566 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4567 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4568 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4570 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4572 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4574 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4575 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4576 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4577 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4578 against the first word in the title.
4580 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4581 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4582 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4583 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4584 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4585 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4587 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4588 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4589 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4590 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4592 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4594 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4595 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4596 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4597 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4598 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4599 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4601 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4602 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4604 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4605 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4606 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4608 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4609 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4613 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4614 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4615 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4617 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4618 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4619 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4620 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4623 o URLs are automatically skipped
4624 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4626 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4628 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4630 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4631 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4632 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4633 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4635 *** New recursive parser.
4637 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4638 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4639 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4641 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4643 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4644 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4645 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4647 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4649 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4651 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4653 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4655 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4657 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4658 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4660 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4662 *** References to external documents.
4664 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4665 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4666 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4667 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4668 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4669 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4670 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4672 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4674 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4675 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4677 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4678 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4680 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4682 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4683 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4685 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4687 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4688 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4689 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4690 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4691 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4692 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4695 *** Support for the varioref package
4697 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4701 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4702 and citations are created. These hooks are
4703 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4704 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4706 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4708 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4709 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4711 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4713 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4714 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4717 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4719 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4720 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4721 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4722 directories that contain the same file name.
4724 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4725 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4726 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4727 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4728 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4729 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4730 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4733 ** New modes and packages
4735 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4736 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4737 it, but some do not.
4739 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4742 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4743 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4746 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4748 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4749 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4750 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4751 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4753 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4754 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4755 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4757 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4758 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4759 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4760 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4761 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4764 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4765 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4767 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4768 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4769 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4770 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4772 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4774 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4775 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4776 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4777 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4778 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4779 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4780 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4781 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4782 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4783 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4784 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4786 Platform-specific modes:
4788 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4789 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4790 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4791 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4792 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4793 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4794 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4795 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4796 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4798 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4800 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4801 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4802 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4803 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4805 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4806 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4807 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4809 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4810 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4811 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4812 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4814 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4815 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4816 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4819 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4820 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4821 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4822 current input method for reading this one event.
4824 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4825 now control whether to output certain characters as
4826 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4827 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4828 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4829 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4831 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4833 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4834 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4836 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4837 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4838 always increases point by 1.
4840 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4841 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4843 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4845 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4846 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4847 default value changed. For example,
4849 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4854 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4857 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4858 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4859 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4860 `:version' in the top level group.
4862 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4864 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4865 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4867 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4868 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4869 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4872 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4873 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4876 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4877 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4878 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4880 ** Frame-local variables.
4882 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4883 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4884 local bindings for that variable.
4886 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4887 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4888 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4891 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4892 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4893 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4894 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4896 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4897 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4898 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4899 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4901 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4902 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4903 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4904 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4905 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4907 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4908 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4909 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4910 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4912 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4913 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4915 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4916 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4917 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4919 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4920 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4921 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4922 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4924 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4925 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4928 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4929 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4930 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4931 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4932 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4934 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4935 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4936 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4937 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4939 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4940 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4941 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4942 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4943 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4945 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4946 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4947 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4948 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4950 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4951 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4952 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4954 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4955 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4956 was directed to display this buffer.
4958 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4959 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4960 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4961 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4962 set-window-configuration.
4964 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4965 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4966 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4967 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4969 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4970 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4971 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4973 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4974 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4975 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4977 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4978 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4980 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4981 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4983 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4984 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4985 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4987 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4988 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4989 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4990 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4994 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4995 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4998 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4999 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5000 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5001 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5002 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5004 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5006 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5007 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5008 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5009 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5012 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5013 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5014 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5015 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5016 The supported properties include
5018 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5020 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5021 item should appear in the menu.
5023 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5024 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5025 It should return a binding to use instead.
5027 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5028 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5029 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5030 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5031 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5034 This means that the command normally has no
5035 keyboard equivalent.
5036 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5037 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5038 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5039 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5040 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5042 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5043 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5045 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5049 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5050 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5051 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5052 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5054 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5056 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5057 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5058 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5059 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5060 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5061 forward, away from the user.
5063 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5065 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5066 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5067 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5068 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5069 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5071 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5073 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5074 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5075 that were dragged and dropped.
5077 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5079 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5081 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5082 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5083 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5085 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5086 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5087 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5089 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5090 in Emacs 19 and before.
5092 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5093 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5095 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5096 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5097 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5098 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5100 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5101 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5102 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5103 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5104 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5106 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5107 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5108 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5109 consistent with the new representation.
5111 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5112 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5113 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5114 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5116 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5117 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5118 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5120 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5121 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5122 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5124 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5125 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5126 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5128 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5129 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5131 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5132 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5134 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5135 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5136 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5137 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5139 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5140 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5142 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5143 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5144 buffer or string being searched.
5146 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5147 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5148 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5149 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5150 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5151 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5152 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5154 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5156 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5157 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5158 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5159 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5160 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5161 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5162 define-coding-system-alias.
5164 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5165 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5166 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5167 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5168 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5169 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5170 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5173 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5174 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5175 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5176 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5178 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5179 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5180 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5181 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5183 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5184 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5185 This function requires a user interaction.
5187 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5188 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5189 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5190 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5191 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5192 select-safe-coding-system.
5194 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5195 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5196 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5199 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5200 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5201 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5203 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5204 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5205 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5206 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5208 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5209 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5210 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5213 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5214 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5216 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5217 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5218 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5219 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5220 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5221 range of characters.
5223 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5224 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5226 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5227 in the current buffer at position POS.
5229 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5230 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5231 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5232 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5233 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5234 binding input-method-function to nil.
5236 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5237 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5238 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5239 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5240 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5242 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5243 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5245 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5246 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5248 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5249 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5250 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5251 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5252 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5254 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5256 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5257 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5258 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5261 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5262 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5264 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5265 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5266 in your .emacs file.)
5268 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5269 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5271 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5272 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5274 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5275 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5278 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5279 delete the character before point, as usual.
5281 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5282 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5283 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5285 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5286 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5287 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5288 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5289 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5292 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5293 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5294 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5295 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5296 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5298 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5299 and is an alias for it.
5301 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5302 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5304 ** Scrolling changes
5306 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5307 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5309 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5310 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5313 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5314 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5315 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5316 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5318 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5319 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5320 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5321 recenters the window.
5323 ** International character set support (MULE)
5325 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5326 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5327 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5328 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5329 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5330 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5332 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5333 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5334 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5335 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5336 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5338 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5339 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5340 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5341 language, to make it possible to type them.
5343 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5344 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5346 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5347 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5349 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5351 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5353 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5354 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5355 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5356 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5357 characters for their work until they want to change.
5361 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5362 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5363 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5364 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5365 support several input methods.
5367 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5368 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5371 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5372 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5373 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5374 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5375 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5378 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5379 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5380 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5381 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5382 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5384 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5385 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5386 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5387 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5389 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5390 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5391 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5392 the first guess is wrong.
5394 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5395 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5397 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5398 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5399 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5400 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5402 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5403 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5404 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5405 translate automatically to and from either one.
5407 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5409 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5410 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5411 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5414 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5415 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5416 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5417 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5419 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5420 character conversion as well.
5422 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5424 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5425 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5426 requires using many fonts.
5428 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5429 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5431 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5432 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5433 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5434 you would use a font.
5436 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5437 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5438 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5440 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5441 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5442 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5443 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5444 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5446 *** Defining fontsets.
5448 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5449 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5450 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5452 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5453 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5454 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5455 standard fontset are created automatically.
5457 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5458 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5459 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5460 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5461 name is `fontset-startup'.
5463 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5464 The resource value should have this form:
5465 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5466 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5467 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5468 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5469 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5470 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5471 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5472 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5473 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5475 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5476 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5477 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5479 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5480 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5482 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5483 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5484 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5485 Here is the substitution rule:
5486 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5487 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5488 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5489 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5490 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5492 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5493 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5494 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5496 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5497 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5498 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5499 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5502 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5503 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5505 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5506 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5507 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5508 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5509 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5510 system for new files that you create.
5512 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5513 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5514 whole Emacs session.
5516 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5517 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5518 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5520 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5521 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5522 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5523 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5524 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5526 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5527 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5528 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5529 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5530 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5532 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5533 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5535 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5536 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5538 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5539 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5541 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5542 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5543 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5544 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5547 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5548 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5549 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5550 translated into that character code.
5552 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5553 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5555 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5557 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5558 the coding system for keyboard input.
5560 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5561 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5562 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5564 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5566 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5567 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5568 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5569 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5570 designed to work with terminals.
5572 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5573 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5574 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5575 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5576 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5577 in the corresponding buffer.
5579 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5581 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5582 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5583 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5585 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5586 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5587 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5590 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5591 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5593 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5594 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5595 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5596 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5598 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5599 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5600 related information.
5602 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5603 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5606 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5607 information about the support for a particular language.
5608 You specify the language as an argument.
5610 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5611 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5614 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5615 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5616 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5617 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5619 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5621 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5622 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5623 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5624 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5625 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5626 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5627 K euc-korea (Korean)
5630 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5633 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5634 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5635 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5639 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5640 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5641 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5642 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5644 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5645 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5647 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5648 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5649 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5650 Rmail files themselves.
5652 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5653 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5655 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5658 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5659 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5660 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5661 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5662 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5664 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5665 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5666 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5669 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5670 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5671 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5672 without any conversion.
5674 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5675 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5676 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5677 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5679 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5680 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5682 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5683 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5685 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5686 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5688 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5689 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5690 in the buffer before point.
5692 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5693 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5696 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5697 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5699 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5701 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5702 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5704 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5705 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5706 can become a bottleneck.
5708 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5709 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5710 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5711 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5712 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5713 so useful that the change is worth while.
5715 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5716 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5717 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5718 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5720 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5721 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5724 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5725 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5726 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5728 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5729 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5730 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5732 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5733 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5734 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5736 ** Changes in View mode.
5738 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5739 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5741 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5742 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5744 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5747 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5748 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5750 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5751 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5752 not just the selected window.
5754 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5755 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5756 turns View mode on or off.
5758 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5759 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5760 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5762 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5763 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5765 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5766 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5767 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5768 which version to compare with.
5770 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5771 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5773 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5774 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5775 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5776 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5778 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5779 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5780 blocks, all of them or none.
5782 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5783 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5786 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5787 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5788 However, the mode will not be changed if
5789 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5790 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5791 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5792 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5794 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5796 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5797 these commands do not change the major mode.
5799 ** M-x occur changes.
5801 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5802 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5804 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5805 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5806 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5808 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5809 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5810 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5811 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5812 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5814 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5815 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5816 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5817 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5819 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5820 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5821 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5823 ** Outline mode changes.
5825 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5827 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5829 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5830 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5831 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5834 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5835 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5838 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5839 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5841 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5843 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5844 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5845 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5846 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5848 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5849 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5850 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5852 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5853 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5856 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5857 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5858 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5859 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5861 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5862 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5863 can be. The default value is 30.
5865 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5867 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5868 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5869 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5870 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5871 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5874 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5875 compose-mail-other-frame.
5877 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5878 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5879 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5880 buffer that shows the original message.
5882 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5883 with separator lines around the contents.
5885 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5886 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5887 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5888 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5890 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5892 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5893 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5894 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5895 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5897 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5898 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5901 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5902 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5905 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5906 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5907 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5908 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5910 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5911 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5912 be taken to be magic.
5914 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5915 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5916 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5918 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5919 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5921 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5922 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5924 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5926 new key dired.el binding old key
5927 ------- ---------------- -------
5928 * c dired-change-marks c
5930 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5931 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5932 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5934 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5935 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5936 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5937 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5938 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5939 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5943 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5944 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5945 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5946 each time you run it.
5948 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5949 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5951 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5952 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5953 means to move in the opposite direction.
5955 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5956 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5958 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5959 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5960 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5961 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5966 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5968 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5971 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5972 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5974 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5977 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5979 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5981 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5983 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5984 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5985 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5987 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5989 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5991 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5992 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5994 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5995 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5996 used to pick articles.
5998 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5999 another have been added.
6001 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6003 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6004 generating lines in buffers.
6006 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6009 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6011 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6013 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6015 *** Scores can be decayed.
6017 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6019 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6020 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6022 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6025 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6027 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6028 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6030 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6032 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6033 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6035 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6036 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6038 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6041 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6042 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6044 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6046 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6048 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6050 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6052 Use the `Y c' command.
6054 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6056 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6058 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6060 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6061 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6063 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6065 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6067 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6068 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6070 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6072 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6073 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6074 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6075 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6078 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6079 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6080 particular news group. This can be done by:
6082 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6084 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6085 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6086 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6087 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6088 for reading and posting).
6090 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6091 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6092 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6093 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6096 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6097 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6099 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6100 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6101 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6102 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6103 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6105 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6106 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6110 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6111 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6112 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6113 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6114 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6117 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6118 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6119 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6120 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6121 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6122 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6124 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6125 of the current buffer.
6127 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6128 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6129 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6131 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6132 style that the Python developers like.
6134 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6135 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6136 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6140 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6141 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6142 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6144 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6145 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6148 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6149 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6151 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6152 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6153 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6154 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6156 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6157 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6159 ** Calendar changes.
6161 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6162 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6163 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6167 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6169 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6171 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6172 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6173 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6174 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6175 It defaults to `letter'.
6176 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6178 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6179 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6180 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6182 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6183 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6186 *** Horizontal layout
6188 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6189 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6190 All are measured in points.
6194 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6195 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6196 All are measured in points.
6200 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6201 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6202 margin above the text.
6204 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6205 framing box is printed around the header.
6207 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6208 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6210 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6211 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6212 `ps-header-font-size'.
6216 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6217 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6218 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6219 elements to this alist.
6221 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6222 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6224 ** hideshow changes.
6226 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6229 *** Support for java-mode added.
6231 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6232 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6234 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6235 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6236 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6238 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6239 robust and a lot faster.
6241 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6243 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6244 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6245 documentation for more details.
6247 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6249 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6250 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6251 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6252 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6253 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6255 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6256 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6257 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6258 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6264 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6265 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6266 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6267 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6268 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6269 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6271 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6273 *** Maximum decoration
6275 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6276 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6277 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6278 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6279 to get the old behavior.
6283 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6285 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6286 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6288 *** Configurable support
6290 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6291 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6292 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6293 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6294 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6295 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6296 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6298 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6299 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6300 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6302 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6304 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6305 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6308 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6310 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6316 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6317 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6318 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6319 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6321 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6323 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6324 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6325 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6327 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6329 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6330 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6331 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6332 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6333 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6334 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6335 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6337 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6338 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6339 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6340 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6341 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6342 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6344 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6346 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6347 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6348 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6349 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6351 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6354 ** Ada mode changes.
6356 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6357 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6358 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6359 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6362 *** There are two new commands:
6363 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6364 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6366 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6367 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6368 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6370 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6371 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6372 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6374 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6375 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6376 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6377 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6379 ** Scheme mode changes.
6381 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6382 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6383 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6384 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6387 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6388 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6389 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6390 variables as buffer-local variables.
6392 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6395 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6397 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6398 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6399 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6400 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6402 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6403 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6406 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6407 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6408 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6409 option takes precedence.
6411 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6412 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6413 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6415 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6416 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6419 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6420 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6422 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6423 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6426 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6427 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6428 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6429 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6430 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6431 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6433 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6434 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6435 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6436 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6438 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6439 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6440 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6441 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6442 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6444 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6445 since it applies only to the current frame.
6447 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6448 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6449 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6451 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6452 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6453 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6454 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6455 instead of just the file you are editing.
6459 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6460 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6461 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6462 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6463 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6466 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6467 knows which kind of label is needed.
6469 C-c ) reftex-reference
6470 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6471 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6473 C-c [ reftex-citation
6474 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6475 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6477 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6478 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6481 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6482 can quickly jump to every section.
6484 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6485 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6486 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6487 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6488 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6490 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6492 *** Info documentation is now available.
6494 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6495 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6497 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6498 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6500 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6501 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6503 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6504 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6505 appropriate functions.
6507 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6508 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6510 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6513 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6514 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6516 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6519 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6520 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6521 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6523 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6524 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6525 prefixed with `ALT'.
6527 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6528 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6529 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6532 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6533 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6534 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6536 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6537 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6539 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6540 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6541 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6543 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6545 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6547 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6550 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6551 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6554 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6557 *** Added support for imenu.
6559 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6560 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6561 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6562 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6564 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6565 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6567 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6569 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6571 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6572 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6573 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6576 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6577 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6579 ** browse-url changes
6581 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6582 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6583 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6584 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6585 customization variables.
6587 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6589 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6590 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6591 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6595 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6596 pops up the Info file for this command.
6598 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6599 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6600 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6603 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6604 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6605 files in the same directory.
6607 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6608 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6609 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6613 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6614 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6616 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6617 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6618 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6619 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6620 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6621 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6622 color when Viper is in insert state.
6623 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6624 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6625 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6629 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6630 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6631 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6632 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6633 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6635 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6637 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6638 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6640 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6641 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6642 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6644 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6645 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6646 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6647 methods and protocols.
6649 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6650 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6651 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6654 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6655 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6656 at least M times and as many as N times.
6658 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6659 in files has changed slightly.
6661 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6662 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6663 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6664 with old time-stamp-format values.
6666 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6667 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6668 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6671 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6672 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6673 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6674 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6675 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6676 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6678 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6679 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6680 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6682 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6683 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6684 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6685 recommended now will continue to work then.
6687 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6690 ** There are some additional major modes:
6692 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6693 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6694 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6696 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6697 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6700 ** New Lisp packages include:
6702 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6704 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6705 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6707 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6709 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6712 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6713 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6716 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6717 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6718 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6719 strings or comments.
6721 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6722 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6723 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6724 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6727 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6728 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6730 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6731 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6733 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6735 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6736 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6738 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6740 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6742 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6744 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6745 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6747 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6748 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6749 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6750 original place after inserting the copy.
6752 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6755 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6756 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6757 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6759 Enable mouse-drag with:
6760 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6762 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6764 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6765 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6767 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6768 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6772 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6773 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6774 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6775 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6776 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6777 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6778 instance) and vice versa.
6780 To use this package load it using
6781 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6782 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6783 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6784 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6785 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6786 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6788 *** Interface to ph.
6790 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6792 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6793 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6796 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6798 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6799 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6800 while the real cursor does not move.
6802 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6803 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6805 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6806 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6810 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6811 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6812 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6813 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6815 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6817 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6819 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6821 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6822 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6823 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6824 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6825 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6827 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6828 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6829 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6830 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6831 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6832 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6834 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6836 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6837 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6838 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6839 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6841 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6842 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6844 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6845 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6848 ** Basic Lisp changes
6850 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6851 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6853 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6854 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6857 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6859 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6861 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6862 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6864 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6865 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6868 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6870 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6872 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6874 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6875 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6876 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6879 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6880 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6881 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6883 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6884 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6885 adding one of these suffixes.
6887 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6888 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6889 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6891 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6892 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6894 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6896 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6897 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6899 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6900 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6902 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6904 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6905 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6907 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6908 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6909 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6910 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6912 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6913 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6916 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6917 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6918 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6921 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6922 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6925 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6927 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6928 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6929 Then it returns that string.
6931 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6933 (with-output-to-string
6934 (princ "The buffer is ")
6935 (princ (buffer-name)))
6937 returns "The buffer is foo".
6939 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6942 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6943 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6944 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6946 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6947 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6949 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6950 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6951 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6952 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6953 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6954 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6956 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6957 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6958 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6961 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6962 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6963 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6964 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6965 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6967 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6968 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6969 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6970 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6972 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6973 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6975 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6977 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6978 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6979 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6980 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6983 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6984 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6987 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6989 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6990 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6991 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6992 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6993 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6995 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6997 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6998 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6999 more than the number of characters.
7001 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7002 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7003 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7004 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7005 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7006 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7008 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7009 and returns a string containing those characters.
7011 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7012 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7013 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7014 character, sref signals an error.
7016 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7017 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7018 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7020 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7021 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7022 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7024 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7025 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7026 to a vector of the characters in it.
7028 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7029 of a string. You call it as follows:
7031 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7033 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7034 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7035 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7036 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7037 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7039 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7040 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7042 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7043 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7045 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7046 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7047 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7048 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7050 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7052 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7054 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7055 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7056 are not included in the resulting value.
7058 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7059 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7060 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7061 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7063 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7064 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7065 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7066 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7067 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7068 column START-COLUMN.
7070 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7071 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7072 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7073 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7074 changed text, before the change.
7076 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7077 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7078 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7080 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7082 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7084 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7085 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7087 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7088 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7089 which identify the character within that character set.
7091 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7092 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7093 opposite of split-char.
7095 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7096 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7098 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7099 of all the characters in a string.
7101 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7102 and specifying coding systems.
7104 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7105 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7106 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7107 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7108 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7109 as what to do about code conversion.)
7111 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7112 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7114 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7115 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7116 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7118 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7119 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7120 to match against a file name.
7122 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7123 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7124 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7125 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7126 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7127 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7129 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7130 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7132 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7133 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7135 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7136 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7137 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7140 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7141 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7142 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7143 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7144 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7145 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7147 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7148 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7150 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7151 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7152 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7153 start the subprocess.
7155 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7156 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7157 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7158 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7159 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7161 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7162 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7165 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7166 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7167 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7168 connection permanently or until overridden.
7170 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7171 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7172 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7173 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7174 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7175 system for one operation at a time.
7177 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7178 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7180 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7181 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7182 The value is a cons cell,
7183 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7184 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7185 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7186 input to the subprocess.
7188 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7189 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7191 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7192 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7193 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7195 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7196 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7197 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7198 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7201 Thus, instead of writing
7203 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7204 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7206 you would now write this:
7208 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7209 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7213 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7214 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7215 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7216 for a description of them.
7218 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7219 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7221 (defgroup ispell nil
7222 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7225 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7226 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7227 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7228 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7229 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7231 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7232 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7233 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7234 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7235 first-level subgroups.
7237 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7239 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7240 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7244 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7245 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7246 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7247 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7248 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7249 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7251 ** Text property changes
7253 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7256 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7257 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7258 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7259 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7260 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7262 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7263 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7264 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7265 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7267 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7268 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7269 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7271 ** Changes in invisibility features
7273 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7274 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7275 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7276 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7277 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7278 make the overlay visible.
7280 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7281 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7282 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7283 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7284 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7285 t when it should hide it.
7287 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7289 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7290 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7291 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7292 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7293 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7294 Here is an example of how to do this:
7296 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7297 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7298 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7299 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7302 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7305 ;; When done with the overlays:
7306 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7308 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7310 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7312 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7313 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7314 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7315 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7317 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7318 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7319 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7321 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7322 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7324 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7325 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7327 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7328 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7329 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7331 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7332 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7333 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7334 determine the syntax type of the character.
7336 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7337 of the current buffer.
7339 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7340 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7341 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7343 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7344 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7345 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7346 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7347 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7349 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7352 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7353 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7354 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7356 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7357 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7358 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7359 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7360 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7362 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7363 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7364 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7366 ** Changes in face features
7368 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7369 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7371 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7372 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7374 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7375 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7377 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7378 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7380 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7381 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7382 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7383 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7386 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7387 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7389 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7391 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7392 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7393 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7394 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7396 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7399 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7400 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7402 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7403 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7405 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7406 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7408 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7409 character code conversion as well as other things.
7411 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7412 (formerly it did not).
7414 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7415 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7417 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7418 instead of constant strings.
7420 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7421 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7422 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7424 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7425 in the same way as before.
7427 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7428 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7429 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7431 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7432 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7433 else, and returns nil.
7435 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7436 directory cannot be listed.
7438 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7440 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7441 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7442 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7443 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7446 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7447 It is available through the history command M-n.
7449 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7450 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7451 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7452 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7453 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7455 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7456 argument in this way.
7458 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7459 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7460 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7462 ** Echo area features
7464 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7465 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7466 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7467 after the echo area is cleared.
7469 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7470 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7472 ** Keyboard input features
7474 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7475 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7477 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7478 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7481 ** Frame-related changes
7483 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7484 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7485 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7487 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7488 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7489 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7491 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7492 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7493 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7494 in the selected frame.
7496 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7497 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7498 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7500 ** X Windows features
7502 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7503 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7504 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7506 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7507 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7509 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7510 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7511 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7513 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7514 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7516 ** Subprocess features
7518 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7519 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7522 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7523 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7525 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7526 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7528 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7529 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7531 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7532 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7533 goes after the other menu items.
7535 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7536 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7537 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7540 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7541 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7543 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7544 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7547 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7548 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7549 but its hook is still run.
7551 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7552 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7554 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7555 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7556 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7558 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7559 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7560 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7563 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7564 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7566 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7567 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7568 functions like display-time.
7570 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7571 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7573 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7574 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7575 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7577 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7578 if there is an error in compilation.
7580 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7581 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7582 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7583 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7585 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7586 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7587 the *scratch* buffer.
7589 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7590 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7591 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7592 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7594 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7595 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7596 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7598 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7599 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7600 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7601 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7603 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7604 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7605 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7607 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7608 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7609 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7610 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7611 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7614 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7615 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7616 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7617 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7619 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7620 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7621 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7622 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7624 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7626 ** imenu.el changes.
7628 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7629 item from menu created by imenu.
7631 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7632 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7633 select one of those items.
7635 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7637 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7639 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7640 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7642 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7643 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7644 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7646 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7648 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7649 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7651 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7652 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7653 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7654 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7655 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7658 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7659 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7661 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7662 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7663 as in previous Emacs versions.
7665 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7666 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7667 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7670 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7671 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7672 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7673 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7676 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7677 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7678 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7679 line and then executing the macro.
7681 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7683 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7684 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7685 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7690 *** Font Lock support modes
7692 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7693 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7694 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7695 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7696 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7698 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7700 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7706 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7707 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7708 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7709 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7710 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7711 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7712 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7714 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7716 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7718 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7720 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7722 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7725 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7730 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7731 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7732 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7733 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7735 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7736 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7738 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7739 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7742 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7743 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7745 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7747 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7749 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7751 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7754 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7756 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7758 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7760 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7762 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7765 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7767 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7769 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7771 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7773 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7775 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7777 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7779 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7782 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7784 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7787 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7789 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7790 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7792 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7794 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7796 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7798 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7800 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7803 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7805 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7806 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7808 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7809 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7810 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7812 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7813 articles with the `*' command.
7815 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7817 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7819 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7821 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7823 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7824 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7826 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7829 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7831 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7833 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7835 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7837 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7839 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7841 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7843 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7845 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7847 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7848 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7850 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7853 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7855 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7856 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7858 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7860 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7862 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7864 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7867 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7869 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7871 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7872 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7874 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7876 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7878 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7880 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7882 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7884 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7887 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7889 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7890 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7891 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7894 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7897 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7900 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7901 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7904 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7905 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7906 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7907 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7908 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7911 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7913 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7915 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7916 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7917 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7918 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7919 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7921 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7922 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7923 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7925 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7927 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7928 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7929 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7930 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7931 chapter of the manual for details.
7933 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7934 customization variables take effect.
7936 ** Marking with the mouse.
7938 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7939 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7940 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7942 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7944 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7946 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7947 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7949 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7950 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7951 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7952 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7953 applications, these problems are significant.
7955 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7956 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7957 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7958 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7959 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7961 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7962 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7964 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7965 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7966 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7967 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7968 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7969 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7971 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7973 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7974 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7975 minibuffer contains.
7977 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7979 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7980 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7981 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7982 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7984 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7985 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7986 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7987 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7989 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7990 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7992 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7993 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7994 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7996 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7997 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7998 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7999 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8001 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8003 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8004 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8006 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8008 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8009 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8010 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8011 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8012 immediately after the selected one.
8014 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8015 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8017 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8019 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8020 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8021 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8022 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8025 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8026 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8029 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8030 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8031 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8032 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8033 now that the bug is fixed.
8035 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8037 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8038 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8039 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8040 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8042 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8043 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8044 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8045 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8047 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8048 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8049 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8051 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8052 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8053 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8054 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8057 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8058 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8060 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8061 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8062 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8063 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8065 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8066 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8067 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8068 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8069 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8070 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8072 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8073 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8074 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8075 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8077 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8078 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8079 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8081 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8082 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8083 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8084 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8085 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8086 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8087 to a limitation in font-lock).
8089 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8091 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8092 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8093 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8096 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8097 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8099 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8101 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8103 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8105 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8107 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8108 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8109 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8110 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8111 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8112 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8114 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8117 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8118 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8120 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8125 *** Global Font Lock mode
8127 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8128 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8129 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8130 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8131 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8133 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8135 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8139 *** Local Refontification
8141 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8142 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8143 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8144 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8146 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8147 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8148 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8149 above and below point.
8151 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8155 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8156 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8157 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8158 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8159 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8162 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8164 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8165 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8167 ** hide-show changes.
8169 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8170 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8173 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8174 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8176 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8177 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8178 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8182 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8183 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8185 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8186 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8188 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8190 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8191 pressing both mouse buttons.
8193 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8194 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8197 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8200 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8202 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8203 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8205 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8207 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8209 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8211 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8213 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8215 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8217 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8218 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8219 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8220 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8221 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8223 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8225 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8226 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8227 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8230 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8233 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8235 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8236 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8238 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8239 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8241 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8242 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8243 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8245 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8246 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8249 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8251 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8252 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8253 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8255 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8256 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8257 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8259 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8260 up if too much time passes.
8262 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8264 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8265 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8266 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8269 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8270 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8271 call looks like this:
8273 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8275 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8276 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8277 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8280 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8281 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8284 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8285 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8286 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8287 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8289 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8290 idle for SECS seconds.
8292 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8293 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8294 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8297 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8298 there is no answer within a certain time.
8300 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8302 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8303 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8304 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8306 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8307 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8308 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8309 arguments in between are ignored.
8311 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8312 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8314 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8315 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8316 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8317 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8320 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8321 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8322 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8323 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8324 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8325 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8327 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8328 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8329 systems with limited file name syntax.
8331 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8332 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8333 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8336 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8337 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8338 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8340 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8341 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8342 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8343 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8344 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8346 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8347 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8348 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8350 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8351 marker from its buffer position.
8353 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8354 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8355 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8357 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8358 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8359 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8360 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8361 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8362 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8364 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8365 errors that happen often during editing.
8367 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8368 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8369 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8371 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8372 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8374 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8375 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8376 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8377 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8378 and not get-buffer-window.
8380 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8381 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8382 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8384 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8385 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8386 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8387 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8388 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8389 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8390 over and over for the same text.
8392 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8394 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8395 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8397 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8400 in addition to the normal
8404 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8405 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8406 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8408 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
8410 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8411 Copyright information:
8413 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8415 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8416 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8417 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8418 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8420 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8421 of this document, or of portions of it,
8422 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8423 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8427 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"