1 Emacs TODO List -*-outline-*-
3 Copyright (c) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
4 Free software Foundation, Inc.
5 See the end of the file for copying permissions.
7 If you are ready to start working on any of these TODO items, we
8 appreciate your help; please write to emacs-devel@gnu.org so we can be
9 aware that the problem is being addressed, and talk with you how to do
10 it best. Since Emacs is an FSF-copyrighted package, please be
11 prepared to sign legal papers to transfer the copyright on your work
14 * Small but important fixes needed in existing features:
16 ** In C-x d, the default if you type RET should be the directory name,
17 but if you type M-n you should get the visited file name of the
20 ** whitespace-cleanup should work only on the region if the region is active.
22 ** Distribute a bar cursor of width > 1 evenly between the two glyphs
23 on each side of the bar (what to do at the edges?).
25 ** Make vc-checkin avoid reverting the buffer if has not changed after
26 the checkin. Comparing (md5 BUFFER) to (md5 FILE) should be enough.
28 ** buffer-offer-save should be a permanent local.
30 ** revert-buffer should eliminate overlays and the mark.
32 ** erase-buffer should perhaps disregard read-only properties of text.
34 ** Make occur correctly handle matches that span more than one line,
35 as well as overlapping matches.
37 ** Fix the kill/yank treatment of invisible text. At the moment,
38 invisible text is placed in the kill-ring, so that the contents of
39 the ring may not correspond to the text as displayed to the user.
40 It ought to be possible to omit text which is invisible (due to a
41 text-property, overlay, or selective display) from the kill-ring.
43 ** Change the way define-minor-mode handles autoloading.
44 It should not generate :require. Or :require in defcustom
45 should not be recorded in the user's custom-set-variables call.
47 ** The buttons at the top of a custom buffer should not omit
48 variables whose values are currently hidden.
50 ** Clean up the variables in browse-url. Perhaps use a shell command string to
51 specify the browser instead of the mushrooming set of functions.
52 See also ESR's proposal for a BROWSER environment variable
53 <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/BROWSER/browse-url.patch>.
55 ** Enhance scroll-bar to handle tall line (similar to line-move).
57 ** Make occur handle multi-line matches cleanly with context.
59 ** In Custom buffers, put the option that turns a mode on or off first,
60 using a heuristic of some kind?
62 ** Define recompute-arg and recompute-arg-if for fix_command to use.
63 See rms message of 11 Dec 05.
65 ** Height returned by frame-parameter ... and height given to
66 make-frame does not mean the same thing. The former includes menu and
67 tool bar lines, the latter don't. frame-parameter should return height
68 without menu and tool bar lines.
70 ** In Emacs Info, examples of using Customize should be clickable
71 and they should create Custom buffers.
73 ** The toolbar should show keyboard equivalents in its tooltips.
75 ** Modify allout.el to use overlays, like outline.el.
77 ** M-! M-n should fetch the buffer-file-name as the default.
79 ** Redesign the load-history data structure so it can cope better
80 with evaluating definitions of the same function from different files,
81 recording which file the latest definition came from.
85 ** Provide user-friendly ways to list all available font families,
86 list fonts, display a font as a sample, etc. [fx is looking at
87 multilingual font selection for the Unicode branch of Emacs.]
89 ** Rewrite the face code to be simpler, clearer and faster.
91 ** Program Enriched mode to read and save in RTF. [Is there actually a
92 decent single definition of RTF? Maybe see info at
93 http://latex2rtf.sourceforge.net/.] This task seems to be addressed
94 by http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/emacs-rtf/, which is still in
97 ** Implement something better than the current Refill mode. This
98 probably needs some primitive support.
100 ** Add a command to make a "Local Variables" section in the current buffer
101 and/or add a variable to the list.
103 ** Implement primitive and higher-level functions to allow filling
104 properly with variable-pitch faces.
106 ** Implement a smoother vertical scroll facility, one that allows
107 C-v to scroll through a tall image. The primitive operations
108 posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y should now make it doable in elisp.
110 ** Implement intelligent search/replace, going beyond query-replace
111 (see http://graphics.csail.mit.edu/~rcm/chi04.pdf).
113 ** Implement other text formatting properties.
114 *** Footnotes that can appear either in place or at the end of the page.
115 *** text property that says "don't break line in middle of this".
116 Don't break the line between two characters that have the
117 same value of this property.
118 *** Discretionary hyphens that are not visible when they are at end of line.
120 ** Internationalize Emacs's messages.
122 ** Install mmc@maruska.dyndns.org's no-flicker change.
124 ** Add a "current vertical pixel level" value that goes with point,
125 so that motion commands can also move through tall images.
126 This value would be to point as window-vscroll is to window-start.
128 ** Address internationalization of symbols names essentially
129 as documentation, e.g. in command names and Custom.
131 ** Make the Lucid menu widget display multilingual text. [This
132 probably needs to be done from actual Emacs buffers, either directly
133 in the menu or by rendering in an unmapped window and copying the
134 pixels. The current code assumes a specific locale; that isn't good
135 enough even if X can render the arbitrary text] [The gtk
136 port now displays multilingual text in menus, but only insofar as
137 Emacs can encode it as utf-8 and gtk can display the result.]
138 Maybe making Lucid menus work like Gtk's (i.e. just force utf-8) is good
139 enough now that Emacs can encode most chars into utf-8.
141 ** Remove the limitation that window and frame widths and heights can
142 be only full columns/lines.
144 * Other features we would like:
146 ** Remove the default toggling behavior of minor modes when called from elisp
147 rather than interactively. This a trivial one-liner in easy-mode.el.
148 ** Create a category of errors called `user-error' for errors which are
149 typically due to pilot errors and should thus be in debug-ignored-errors.
151 ** Give Tar mode all the features of Archive mode.
153 ** Create a category of errors called `process-error'
154 for some or all errors associated with using subprocesses.
156 ** Maybe reinterpret `parse-error' as a category of errors
157 and put some other errors under it.
159 ** A function to tell you the argument pattern of functions.
160 See `function-arity' in http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/fx-misc.el.
162 ** Make byte-compile warn when a doc string is too wide.
164 ** A function to check for customizable options that have been
165 set but not saved, and ask the user whether to save them.
166 This could go in kill-emacs-query-functions, to remind people
167 to save their changes. If the user says yes, show them
168 in a Custom buffer using customize-customized.
170 ** Emacs Lisp mode could put an overlay on the defun for every
171 function that has advice. The overlay could have `after-text' like "
172 [Function has advice]". It might look like
173 (defun foo [Function has advice] (x y)
174 The overlay could also be a button that you could use to view the advice.
178 This is hard to make work because sftp doesn't print status
181 *** Use MLS for ange-ftp-insert-directory if a list of files is specified.
183 ** Ability to map a key, including all modified-combinations.
184 E.g map mouse-4 to wheel-up as well as M-mouse-4 -> M-wheel-up
185 M-C-mouse-4 -> M-C-wheel-up, H-S-C-M-s-double-mouse-4 ->
186 H-S-C-M-s-double-wheel-up, ...
188 ** Beefed-up syntax-tables.
189 *** recognize multi-character syntactic entities like `begin' and `end'.
190 *** nested string-delimiters (for Postscript's (foo(bar)baz) strings).
191 *** support for infix operators (with precedence).
192 *** support for the $ (paired delimiter) in parse-partial-sexp.
193 *** support for hook-chars whose effect on the parsing-state is specified
194 by elisp code. Thus a char could both close a string and open a comment
195 at the same time and do it in a context-sensitive way.
196 *** ability to add mode-specific data to the partial-parse-state.
198 ** Add a way to convert a keyboard macro to equivalent Lisp code.
200 ** Have a command suggestion help system that recognizes patterns
201 of commands which could be replaced with a simpler common command.
202 It should not make more than one suggestion per 10 minutes.
204 ** Add a way to define input methods by computing them (when first used)
205 from other input methods. Then redefine C-x 8 to use a
206 user-selected input method, with the default being the union of
207 latin-1-prefix and latin-1-postfix.
209 ** Implement a clean way to use different major modes for
210 different parts of a buffer. This could be useful in editing
211 Bison input files, for instance, or other kinds of text
212 where one language is embedded in another language. See
213 http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/multi-mode.el and also
214 mmm-mode, as reference for approaches took by others.
216 ** Arrange a way for an input method to return the first character
217 immediately, then replace it later. So that C-s a with
218 input method latin-1-postfix would immediately search for an a.
220 ** Give start-process the ability to direct standard-error
221 output to a different filter.
223 ** Make desktop.el save the "frame configuration" of Emacs (in some
226 ** Give desktop.el a feature to switch between different named
229 ** Replace finder.el with something that generates an Info file
230 which gives the same information through a menu structure. [Dave
231 Love started on this.]
233 ** Add a cpio mode, more or less like tar mode.
235 ** Implement a variant of uncompress.el or jka-compr.el that works with
236 GNU Privacy Guard for encryption. [Code exists but isn't assigned.
237 See the Gnus development sources for assigned code concerning GPG
238 use with mail, which is probably a good start.] See also
239 http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/auto-crypt.tgz.
241 ** Save undo information in special temporary files, and reload it
242 when needed for undoing. This could extend undo capacity.
244 ** Change the Windows NT menu code
245 so that it handles the deep_p argument and avoids
246 regenerating the whole menu bar menu tree except
247 when the user tries to use the menubar.
249 This requires the RIT to forward the WM_INITMENU message to
250 the main thread, and not return from that message until the main
251 thread has processed the MENU_BAR_ACTIVATE_EVENT and regenerated
252 the whole menu bar. In the mean time, it should process other messages.
254 ** Get some major packages installed: W3 (development version needs
255 significant work), PSGML. Check the assignments file for other
256 packages which might go in and have been missed.
258 ** Make keymaps a first-class Lisp object (this means a rewrite of
259 keymap.c). What should it do apart from being opaque ?
260 multiple inheritance ? faster where-is ? no more fix_submap_inheritance ?
263 ** Provide real menus on ttys. The MS-DOS implementation can serve as
264 an example how to do part of this.
266 ** Implement popular parts of the rest of the CL functions as compiler
269 ** Make compiler warnings about functions that might be undefined at run time
270 smarter, so that they know which files are required by the file being
271 compiled and don't warn about functions defined in them.
273 ** Highlight rectangles (`mouse-track-rectangle-p' in XEmacs). Already in CUA,
274 but it's a valuable feature worth making more general.
276 ** Support simultaneous tty and X frames. [See the multi-tty branch of Emacs
277 at http://lorentey.hu/project/emacs.]
279 ** Provide MIME support for Rmail using the Gnus MIME library. [Maybe
280 not now feasible, given Gnus maintenance decisions. fx looked at
281 this and can say where some of the problems are.]
283 ** Eliminate the storm of warnings concerning char/unsigned char
284 mismatches that we get with GCC 4.x and proprietary compilers on
285 various systems. They make it difficult to spot the important
288 ** Fix anything necessary to use `long long' EMACS_INTs with GCC.
290 ** Split out parts of lisp.h and generate Makefile dependencies
295 ** Allow auto-compression-mode to use zlib calls if zlib is available.
296 [It's required for PNG, so may be linked anyhow.]
298 ** Add a --pristine startup flag which does -q --no-site-file plus
299 ignoring X resources (Doze equivalents?) and most of the
300 environment. What should not be ignored needs consideration.
302 ** Improve the GC (generational, incremental). (We may be able to use
303 the Boehm collector.) [See the Boehm-GC branch in CVS for work on
306 ** Check what hooks would help Emacspeak -- see the defadvising in W3.
308 ** Add horizontal scroll bars.
310 ** Provide an optional feature which computes a scroll bar slider's
311 size and its position from lines instead of characters.
313 ** Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering to
316 ** Allow unknown image types to be rendered via an external program
317 converting them to, say, PBM (in the same way as PostScript?).
319 ** Allow displaying an X window from an external program in a buffer,
320 e.g. to render graphics from Java applets. [gerd and/or wmperry
321 thought this was feasible.]
323 ** Allow images (not just text) in the margin to be mouse-sensitive.
324 (Requires recursing through display properties). Provide some way
325 to simulate mouse-clicks on marginal text without a mouse.
327 ** Implement Lisp functions to determine properly whether a character
328 is displayable (particularly needed in XFree 4, sigh). Use it to
329 define useful glyphs that may be displayed as images or unicodes
330 (with ASCIIfied fallback via latin1-disp). Examples include
331 box-drawing graphics in Custom buffers, W3 rules and tables, and
332 tree displays generally, mode-line mail indicator. [See work done
333 already for Emacs 22 and consult fx.]
335 ** Do something to make rms happy with fx's dynamic loading, and use it
336 to implement things like auto-loaded buffer parsers and database
337 access in cases which need more than Lisp.
339 ** Extend ps-print to deal with multiple font sizes, images, and extra
342 ** Provide portable undumping using mmap (per gerd design).
344 ** Make byte-compile avoid binding an expanded defsubst's args
345 when the body only calls primitives.
347 ** Use the XIE X extension, if available, for image display.
349 ** Make monochrome images display using the foreground and background
350 colors of the applicable faces.
354 ** Optionally make the cursor a little thinner at the end of a line
355 or the end of the buffer.
357 ** Add support for rendering antialiased text, probably using
360 ** Port the conservative stack marking code of Emacs' garbage collector
361 to more systems, so that we can completely get rid of GCPROs. Note
362 that Boehm garbage collector provides this.
364 ** Reorder defcustom's in each package so that the more important
365 options come first in the Customize buffers. This could be done by
366 either rearranging the file (since options are shown in the order
367 they appear in the *.el files), or by adding a few :set-after
370 ** Maybe document the features of libraries missing from the manual (or
371 ancillary manuals, including the Lisp manual in some cases).
372 This is not worth doing for all of these packages and we need not
373 aim for completeness, but some may be worth documenting.
375 Here's a list which is probably not complete/correct: align, allout,
376 artist, ansi-color, array, battery, calculator, cdl, cmuscheme,
377 completion, cua, delim-col, dirtrack, double, echistory, elide-head,
378 easymenu, expand, flow-ctrl, format [format-alist],
379 generic/generic-x [various modes], kermit, log-edit, ledit
380 [obsolete?], makesum, midnight [other than in Kill Buffer node],
381 mouse-copy [?], mouse-drag, mouse-sel, net-utils, rcompile,
382 snmp-mode [?], soundex [should be interactive?], strokes [start from
383 the web page], talk, thingatpt [interactive functions?], type-break,
384 vcursor, xscheme, zone-mode [?], mlconvert [?], iso-cvt, iso-swed,
385 swedish, feedmail [?], uce, bruce, gametree, meese, page-ext,
386 refbib, refer, scribe, sgml-mode, spell, texinfo, underline,
387 cmacexp, hideif, mantemp [obsolete?], pcomplete, assoc, xml,
388 cvs-status (should be described in PCL-CVS manual); other progmodes,
389 probably in separate manual.
391 ** Convert the XPM bitmaps to PPM, replace the PBMs with them and scrap
392 the XPMs so that the colour versions work generally. (Requires care
393 with the colour used for the transparent regions.)
395 ** Convenient access to the `values' variable. It would be nice to have an
396 interface that would show you the printed reps of the elements of the
397 list in a menu, let you select one of the values, and put it into some
398 other variable, without changing the value of `values'.
400 ** (Controlled by a flag) make open and close syntax match exactly,
401 i.e. `(' doesn't match `]'.
403 ** Specify parameter ID-FORMAT in all calls to `file-attributes' and
404 `directory-files-and-attributes' where attributes UID or GID are used.
405 Whenever possible, use value 'string.
406 When done, change meaning of default value from 'integer to 'string.
407 If value 'integer is used nowhere, remove the parameter ID-FORMAT from
408 the definition of `file-attributes' and `directory-files-and-attributes'
411 ** Make language-info-alist customizable. Currently a user can customize
412 only the variable `current-language-environment'.
414 ** Improve language environment handling so that Emacs can fit
415 better to a users locale. Currently Emacs uses utf-8 language
416 environment for all utf-8 locales, thus a user in ja_JP.UTF-8 locale
417 are also put in utf-8 lang. env. In such a case, it is
418 better to use Japanese lang. env. but prefer utf-8 coding system.
420 ** Enhance locale handling: handle language, territory and charset
421 orthogonally and de-emphasize language environments. Use the locale
422 to set up more things, such as fontsets, the default Ispell
423 dictionary, diary format, calendar holidays and display, quoting
424 characters and phrase boundaries, sentence endings, collation for
425 sorting (at least for unicodes), HTTP Accept-language, patterns for
426 directory listings and compilation messages, yes-or-no replies,
427 common menu items when the toolkit supports it ... `locale-info'
428 needs extending for LC_COLLATE &c. [fx started on this.]
430 ** Eliminate the current restriction on header printing by ps-print.
431 Currently, a header can contain only single 1-byte charset in
434 ** In ps-print, provide an user friendly interface to specify fonts.
436 ** OpenType font support for various complex scripts (e.g. Devanagari).
437 As X protocal doesn't provide a way to access OpenType Layout Tables
438 in a OpenType font of a server side, we need a way to utilize local
439 fonts (perhaps by directly using the Freetype library or indirectly
442 ** Enhance word boundary detection for such a script that doesn't use
443 space at word boundary (e.g. Thai).
445 ** Implement interface programs with major Japanese conversion server
446 in lib-src so that they can be used from the input method
447 "japanese". Currently, most Japanese users are using external
448 packages (e.g. tamago, anthy) or an input method via XIM.
450 ** Let LEIM handle the Mode_switch key like XIM does (i.e. a toggle like C-\
451 but which can also be used as a modifier).
453 ** Provide the toolbar on ttys. This could map a bit like tmm-menubar
454 for the menubar and buttons could look a bit like those used by customize.
456 ** Improve Help buffers: Change the face of previously visited links (like
457 Info, but also with regard to namespace), add a forward button to make the
458 Help buffer more browser like and gives the value of lisp expressions
459 e.g auto-mode-alist, the right face. [nickrob@snap.net.nz has a patch
460 for this for inclusion after 22.1].
462 ** Possibly make `list-holidays' eval items in the calendar-holidays variable.
464 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2006-02/msg01034.html>.
465 [rgm@gnu.org will look at this after 22.1]
469 ** Replace gmalloc.c with the modified Doug Lea code from the current
470 GNU libc so that the special mmapping of buffers can be removed --
471 that apparently loses under Solaris, at least. [fx has mostly done
474 ** Rewrite make-docfile to be clean and maintainable.
476 ** Add an inferior-comint-minor-mode to capture the common set of operations
477 offered by major modes that offer an associated inferior
478 comint-derived mode. I.e. basically make cmuscheme.el/inf-lisp.el generic.
479 For use by sml-mode, python-mode, tex-mode, scheme-mode, lisp-mode,
480 haskell-mode, tuareg-mode, ...
482 ** Make SYNC_INPUT the default.
483 All loops using immediate_quit need to be checked to ensure that
484 C-g can interrupt them, in case of an infinite loop. Once we
485 switch to using SYNC_INPUT, we can remove the BLOCK_INPUTs in the
486 allocation functions (allocate_string etc.) without worrying about
491 ** a two-char comment-starter whose two chars are symbol constituents will
492 not be noticed if it appears within a word.
494 ** Fix unexelf.c to handle the .data.rel and .data.rel.local
495 sections made by GCC 3.4 on IRIX.
499 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
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506 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
507 included in all copies or substantial portions of the file.
509 ;;; arch-tag: b0a3e40b-726a-457d-9999-ba848321b036