1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 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 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
12 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
17 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
18 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
19 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
22 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
24 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
27 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
28 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
32 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
33 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
34 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
35 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
36 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
37 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
38 in each user's home directory.
41 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
42 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
46 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
48 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
49 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
50 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
51 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
54 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
57 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
58 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
59 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
60 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
62 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
65 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
68 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
71 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
72 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
75 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
78 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
81 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
84 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
88 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
89 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
90 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
91 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
92 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
94 The following values are supported:
96 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
110 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
113 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
114 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
115 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
117 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
118 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
119 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
120 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
122 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
123 '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
125 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
126 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
127 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
129 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
130 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
131 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
132 osql flushes it's error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
133 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
136 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
137 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
138 credentials to authenticate the user.
140 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
141 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
144 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
145 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
148 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
149 with special modes such as Tar mode.
151 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
153 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
154 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
155 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
158 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
159 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
160 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
161 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
162 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
166 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
167 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
168 the operating system or your X server.
170 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
171 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
172 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
174 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
175 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
178 ** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
179 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
180 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
182 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
186 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
187 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
188 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
189 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
190 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
191 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
192 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
194 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
195 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
197 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
198 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
200 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
201 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
203 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
204 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
206 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
207 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
209 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
210 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
212 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
213 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
214 at the edges of the window.
216 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
217 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
219 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
220 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
221 or when the frame is resized.
223 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
225 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
226 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
228 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
229 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
231 ** `describe-char' can show data from the Unicode database file. See
232 user option `unicode-data'.
234 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
236 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
237 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
239 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
240 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
242 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
244 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
245 and other common debugger commands.
249 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
250 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
253 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
254 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
255 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
256 recent list with different symbolic links.
258 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
259 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
260 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
261 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
262 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
264 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
269 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
270 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
272 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
274 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
275 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
276 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
277 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
278 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
279 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
283 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
284 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
287 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
288 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
289 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
291 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
294 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
295 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
296 appears between the position information and the major mode.
298 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
299 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
302 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
303 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
304 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
305 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
309 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
310 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
311 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
315 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
316 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
317 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
320 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
321 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
323 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
327 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
329 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
330 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
331 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
334 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
335 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
336 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
338 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
339 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
340 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
341 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
342 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
344 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
345 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
346 t, and the status is shown.
348 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
349 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
352 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
353 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
354 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
357 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Windows-1251, Tajik,
358 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
359 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
360 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
361 automatically according to the locale.)
363 ** Indian support has been updated.
364 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
365 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
366 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
370 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
371 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
372 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
373 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
374 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
378 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
379 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
380 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
383 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
384 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
385 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings.
387 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
388 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
389 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
390 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
391 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
392 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
393 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
394 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
395 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
396 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
397 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
399 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
400 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
401 fontset appropriately.
403 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
407 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
408 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
409 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
410 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
411 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
412 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
413 mule-unicode-... ones.
415 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
416 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
417 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
420 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
421 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
422 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
423 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
424 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
426 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
427 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
428 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
429 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
431 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
432 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
433 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
437 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
438 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
439 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
442 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
443 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
444 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
447 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
448 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
449 program files that include other program files.
451 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
452 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
456 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
457 when Emacs visits them.
460 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
462 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
463 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
464 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
467 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
468 now shown as a hollow box or a thin bar. However, you can control how
469 it blinks off by setting the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
471 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
472 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
473 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
474 and use the more appropriately result.
477 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
478 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
479 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
480 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
482 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
483 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
484 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
485 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
486 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
487 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
489 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
490 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
493 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
495 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
496 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
497 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
498 TeX commands to use at startup.
499 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
500 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
502 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
505 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
506 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
507 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
508 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
509 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
510 feature is not enabled.
513 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
514 description various information about a character, including its
515 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
516 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
517 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
520 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
521 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
522 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
523 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
524 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
527 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
528 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
529 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
530 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
531 also disable mouse highlighting.
534 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
535 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
536 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
537 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
538 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
541 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
542 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
543 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
547 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
548 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
549 the mode line of the currently selected window.
551 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
552 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
555 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
556 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
557 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
558 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
559 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
560 current date and time, current line and column number in the
564 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
567 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
568 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
569 `display-time-mail-directory'.
572 ** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
575 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
578 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
579 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
580 argument it toggles the mode.
582 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
583 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
586 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
587 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
588 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
589 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
590 `inhibit-splash-screen').
592 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
595 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
596 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
597 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
598 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
599 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
600 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
601 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
602 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
603 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
606 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
607 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
608 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
609 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
613 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
616 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
618 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
619 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
620 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
621 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
624 ** Info-index offers completion.
627 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
631 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
632 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
633 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
634 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
637 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
639 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
641 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
644 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
645 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
647 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
648 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
650 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
652 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
653 run by the key sequence.
655 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
656 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
659 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
660 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
662 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
663 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
665 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
666 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
668 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
669 new-kill-line is on C-k
672 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
673 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
674 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
675 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
678 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
679 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
680 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
681 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
684 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
685 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
686 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
687 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
690 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
691 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
692 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
693 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
694 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
695 command lines to be used than was possible before.
698 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
699 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
700 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
701 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
702 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
703 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
704 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
707 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
708 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
709 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
710 under the "[State]" button.
712 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
713 point (no integers are allowed).
716 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
717 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
720 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
722 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
723 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
724 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
725 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
726 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
728 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
729 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
730 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
733 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
736 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
737 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
738 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
740 Added Customization Variables
742 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
744 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
745 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
746 java sources (previous method).
748 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
749 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
754 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
757 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
758 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
759 changes the behavior of motion commands line C-e and C-p.
762 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
763 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
764 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
765 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
766 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
767 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
770 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
771 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
772 what external viewers to use and when.
775 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
776 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
777 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
778 is only rarely needed.
781 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
783 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
784 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
785 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
786 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
789 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
790 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
791 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
792 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
793 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
797 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
798 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
799 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
800 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
801 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
804 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
805 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
806 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
809 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
810 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
811 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
815 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
816 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
817 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
820 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
821 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
825 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
826 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
827 affects the initial frame.
830 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
831 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
832 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
835 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
839 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
840 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
841 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
842 directory listing into a buffer.
845 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
846 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
848 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
849 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
850 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
851 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
854 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
855 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
856 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
857 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
858 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
859 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
860 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
861 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
864 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
865 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
866 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
867 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
868 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
871 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
872 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
875 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
876 of the recognized cursor types.
879 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
880 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
881 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
884 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
885 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
886 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
887 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
888 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
889 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
890 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
891 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
892 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
896 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
897 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
898 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
899 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
900 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
902 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
904 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
907 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
908 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
909 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
910 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
911 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
914 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
919 *** When comparing directories.
920 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
921 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
922 from one directory to another.
925 *** When comparing files or buffers.
926 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
927 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
928 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
931 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
932 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
933 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
938 *** New regular expressions features
940 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
941 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
942 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
943 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
944 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
945 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
946 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
947 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
948 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
949 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
950 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
952 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
953 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
954 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
957 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
958 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
959 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
960 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
962 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
963 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
964 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
966 *** New language parsing features
968 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
969 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
971 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
972 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
973 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
976 **** New language PHP.
977 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
978 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
980 **** New language HTML.
981 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
982 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
984 **** New default keywords for TeX.
985 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
988 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
989 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
990 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
992 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
994 *** Honour #line directives.
995 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
996 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
997 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
998 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
999 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1001 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1002 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1003 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1004 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1010 *** Font lock support.
1011 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1012 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1013 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1014 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1015 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1016 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1018 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1019 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1020 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1021 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1022 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1023 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1024 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1025 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1026 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1028 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1029 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1030 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1031 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1032 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1033 take the better part of a minute.
1035 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1036 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1037 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1038 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1039 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1040 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1042 **** Support for documentation comments.
1043 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1044 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1045 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1046 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1048 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1049 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1050 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1051 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1053 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1054 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1055 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1056 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1059 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1060 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1061 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1062 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1063 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1065 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1066 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1067 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1068 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1069 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1071 *** Support for the AWK language.
1072 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1073 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1074 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1077 **** Indentation Engine
1078 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1080 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1081 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1082 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1083 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1084 definition, or structured statement.
1086 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1087 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1088 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1090 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1091 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1092 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1093 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1096 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1097 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1098 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1099 the AWK language itself.
1101 **** Comment Commands
1102 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1103 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1105 **** Movement Commands
1106 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1107 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1108 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1110 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1111 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1112 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1115 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1116 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1117 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1118 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1120 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1121 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1122 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1123 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1124 composition-close, and incomposition.
1126 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1127 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1128 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1129 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1131 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1132 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1133 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1134 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1135 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1136 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1138 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1139 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1140 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1141 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1142 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1144 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1148 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1150 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1153 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1154 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1155 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1156 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1158 *** API changes for derived modes.
1159 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1160 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1161 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1162 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1163 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1165 **** New language variable system.
1166 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1168 **** New initialization functions.
1169 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1170 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1171 c-init-language-vars.
1173 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1174 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1175 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1176 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1178 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1179 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1180 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1181 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1182 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1184 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1185 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1186 its substatement. E.g:
1192 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1194 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1195 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1196 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1197 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1198 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1201 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1202 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1203 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1204 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1205 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1206 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1207 empty lines within the macro better.
1209 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1210 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1211 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1213 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1214 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1215 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1216 backslashes can be moved.
1218 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1219 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1220 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1221 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1223 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1224 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1225 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1226 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1227 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1228 backslash) in the macro.
1230 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1231 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1232 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1233 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1234 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1235 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1237 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1238 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1240 *** New lineup functions
1242 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1243 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1246 result = prefix + "A message "
1247 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1249 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1250 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1252 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1253 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1254 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1256 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1257 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1260 **** c-lineup-argcont
1261 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1262 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1264 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1265 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1266 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1267 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1268 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1269 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1271 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1272 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1273 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1274 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1277 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1278 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1279 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1280 happen when macros are involved.
1282 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1283 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1284 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1285 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1286 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1287 line is left untouched.
1289 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1290 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1291 syntactic indentation.
1293 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1294 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1297 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1298 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1301 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1302 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1303 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1306 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1307 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1308 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1311 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1312 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1313 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1316 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1317 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1318 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1319 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1320 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1321 from the file name or buffer contents.
1324 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1327 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1328 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1329 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1332 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1335 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1338 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1339 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1340 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1343 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1344 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1347 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1348 to support use of font-lock.
1351 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1352 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1356 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1357 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1358 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1361 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1362 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1363 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1364 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1365 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1366 candidate is a directory.
1369 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1370 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1371 it remains unchanged.
1374 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1375 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1376 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1379 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1382 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1383 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1384 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1387 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1388 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1391 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1392 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1393 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1394 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1395 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1396 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1400 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1401 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1402 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1403 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1404 sound support for those formats.
1407 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1408 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1411 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1412 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1413 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1414 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1417 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1418 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1419 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1420 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1421 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1422 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1423 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1424 wish to use them in other faces.
1427 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1428 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1429 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1430 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1432 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1433 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1435 * New modes and packages in 21.4
1437 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1440 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1442 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1443 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1444 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1445 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1448 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1450 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1451 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1452 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1453 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1454 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1455 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1457 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1458 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1459 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1460 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1462 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1463 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1464 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1465 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1466 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1467 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1468 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1470 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1471 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1472 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1474 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1475 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1477 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1478 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1479 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1480 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1482 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1483 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1484 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1485 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1487 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1488 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1489 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1490 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1492 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1493 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1494 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1495 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1496 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1498 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1499 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1500 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1501 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1502 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1503 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1505 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1506 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1507 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1508 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1509 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1510 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1511 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1512 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1513 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1516 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1517 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1519 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1520 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1521 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1522 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1524 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1527 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1528 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1529 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1530 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1531 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1534 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1535 the keyboard macro ring.
1537 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1538 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1540 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1541 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1542 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1543 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1545 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1546 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1547 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1550 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1551 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1552 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1553 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1555 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1557 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1558 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1559 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1560 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1561 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1562 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1565 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1567 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1568 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1569 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1570 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1573 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1575 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1576 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1577 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1578 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1579 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1580 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1581 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1582 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1583 `rsync' to do the copying).
1585 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1589 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1590 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1591 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1592 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1593 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1594 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1597 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1598 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1599 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1603 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1604 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1605 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1606 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1608 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1611 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1612 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1614 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1615 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1616 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1617 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1618 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1619 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1622 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1623 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1624 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1625 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1628 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1629 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1630 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1631 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1634 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1636 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1637 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1639 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1640 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1641 in Indented-Text mode.
1643 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1644 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1645 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1648 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1651 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
1652 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
1653 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
1657 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
1658 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
1661 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
1664 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
1668 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
1669 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
1672 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
1673 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
1674 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
1677 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
1681 ** VC changes for backends:
1682 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
1683 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
1684 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
1685 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
1686 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
1689 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
1690 as a dynamic completion table.
1692 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
1694 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
1695 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
1696 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
1697 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
1698 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
1699 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
1702 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
1703 as a lazy completion table.
1705 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
1707 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
1708 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
1709 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
1710 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
1711 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
1712 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
1715 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
1718 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
1719 for all (existing and future) frames.
1722 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
1725 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
1728 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
1731 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
1732 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
1733 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
1734 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
1735 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
1738 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
1739 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
1740 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
1741 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
1744 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
1745 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
1746 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
1747 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
1750 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
1751 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
1754 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
1755 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
1756 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
1757 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
1760 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
1761 of a string given to a process's filter.
1764 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
1765 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
1768 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
1769 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
1770 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
1771 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
1774 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
1775 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
1776 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
1777 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
1778 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
1781 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
1782 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
1785 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
1786 on garbage collection.
1789 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
1790 it is read from a file without decoding.
1793 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
1796 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
1797 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
1798 by calling `select-window'.
1801 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
1802 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
1803 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
1804 need to have a name.
1806 ** Byte compiler changes:
1809 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
1810 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
1811 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
1812 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
1813 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
1817 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
1818 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
1819 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
1820 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
1823 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
1824 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
1826 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
1827 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
1828 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
1829 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
1830 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
1831 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
1834 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
1835 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
1838 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
1839 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
1840 be inserted is translated through it.
1843 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
1844 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
1845 current file redefined it).
1848 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
1849 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
1850 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
1851 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
1852 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
1853 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
1855 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
1856 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
1857 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
1858 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
1859 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
1861 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
1862 out the test coverage tool. The macro 1value suppresses a brown splotch for
1863 its argument. The macro noreturn suppresses a red splotch.
1866 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
1867 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
1868 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
1871 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
1872 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
1873 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
1874 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
1876 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
1877 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
1880 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
1881 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
1884 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
1885 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
1888 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
1889 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
1890 can start with this line:
1892 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
1895 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
1896 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
1899 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
1900 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
1903 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
1904 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
1907 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
1908 and `display-warning'.
1911 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
1912 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
1913 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
1917 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
1918 much pure storage it will approximately need.
1921 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
1922 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
1923 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
1924 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
1927 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
1928 of one coding system from another coding system.
1930 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
1931 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
1932 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
1933 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
1936 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
1937 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
1938 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
1939 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
1940 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
1941 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
1943 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
1944 confirmation as before.
1946 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
1948 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
1949 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
1950 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
1951 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
1953 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
1954 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
1955 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
1956 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
1957 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
1958 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
1960 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
1961 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
1962 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
1963 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
1965 ** Per-window fringes settings
1967 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
1970 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
1971 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
1972 `set-window-fringes'.
1974 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
1975 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
1976 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
1977 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
1979 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
1980 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
1981 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
1982 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
1983 an update of the display margins.
1985 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
1987 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
1988 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
1990 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
1991 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
1992 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
1993 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
1994 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1995 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1996 of the display margins.
1998 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
1999 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2000 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2003 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2004 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2005 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2006 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2007 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2008 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2010 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2011 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2012 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2014 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2015 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2016 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2017 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2018 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2020 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2021 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2023 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2024 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2025 will only show directories.
2027 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2028 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2029 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2031 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2032 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2033 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2035 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
2037 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2038 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2039 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2041 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2043 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2044 declaration specifiers supported are:
2047 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2050 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2051 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2053 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2055 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2056 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2057 binding and lookup functionality.
2059 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2060 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2064 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2065 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2066 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2067 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2070 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2071 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2072 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2073 map using define-key:
2075 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2076 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2078 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2079 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2081 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2082 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2083 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2085 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2087 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2088 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2089 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2090 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2092 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2093 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2095 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2096 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2098 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2099 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2100 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2101 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2102 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2103 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2105 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2106 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2107 command was not remapped.
2109 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2111 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2112 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2115 ** Atomic change groups.
2117 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2118 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2119 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2121 (atomic-change-group
2123 (delete-region x y))
2125 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2126 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2127 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2128 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2130 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2131 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2133 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2134 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2135 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2136 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2138 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2139 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2142 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2143 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2144 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2145 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2147 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2148 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2149 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2150 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2151 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2152 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2155 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2156 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2157 returned values, like this:
2159 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2160 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2162 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2163 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2164 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2166 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2167 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2168 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2169 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2173 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2175 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2176 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2177 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2178 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2180 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2182 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2183 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2184 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2185 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2187 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2189 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2190 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2191 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2193 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2195 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2196 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2197 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2198 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2199 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2201 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2203 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2204 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2206 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2208 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2209 text properties from the inserted substring.
2211 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2212 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2214 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to five
2215 elements with the following format:
2216 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2218 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2219 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2220 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2221 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2223 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2224 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2225 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2226 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2227 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2229 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2230 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2231 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2232 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2233 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2234 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2235 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2236 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2238 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now has an
2239 optional third argument to specify the yank-handler text property
2240 to put on the killed text.
2242 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2243 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2244 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2245 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2246 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2248 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2249 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2251 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2252 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2253 defined with defface.
2255 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2256 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2257 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2259 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2260 help with handling relative face attributes.
2262 ** Enhancements to process support
2264 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2265 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2267 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2268 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2269 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2271 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2272 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2274 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2275 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2277 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2278 and modify elements on this property list.
2280 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2281 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
2284 ** Enhanced networking support.
2286 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
2287 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
2288 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
2290 - A server is started using :server t arg.
2291 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
2292 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
2293 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
2294 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
2295 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
2296 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
2297 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
2299 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
2300 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
2302 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
2304 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
2306 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
2307 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
2308 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
2309 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
2310 matching "open" or "failed".
2312 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
2314 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
2315 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
2316 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
2317 is called for the new process.
2319 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
2321 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
2322 and set the current address of the remote partner.
2324 *** New function format-network-address.
2326 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
2327 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
2328 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
2329 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
2330 string for other formatting options.
2332 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
2333 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
2334 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
2336 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
2337 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
2338 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
2339 the fifth is the port number.
2341 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
2342 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
2343 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
2344 no input is received in the stopped state.
2346 ** New function copy-tree.
2348 ** New function substring-no-properties.
2350 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
2352 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
2354 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
2355 are now always lower case. If you specify the
2356 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
2357 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
2359 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
2360 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
2362 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
2363 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
2364 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
2365 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
2367 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
2368 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
2370 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
2371 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
2372 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
2375 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
2376 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
2379 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
2380 (function (lambda ()
2382 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2383 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
2384 (function (lambda ()
2385 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2387 ** File local variables.
2389 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
2390 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
2393 ** New function window-body-height.
2395 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
2398 ** New function format-mode-line.
2400 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
2401 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
2403 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
2405 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
2406 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
2408 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
2410 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
2411 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
2412 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
2413 you specify the map to use as an argument.
2416 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
2418 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
2419 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
2420 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
2423 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
2425 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
2426 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
2427 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
2428 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
2429 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
2432 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
2433 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
2434 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
2435 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
2437 ** Mode line display ignores text properties in the value
2438 of a variable whose `risky-local-variables' property is nil.
2441 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
2442 cl-indent package. The new user options
2443 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
2444 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
2445 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
2448 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
2449 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
2451 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
2453 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
2454 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
2455 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
2458 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
2460 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
2461 the time it takes to convert the format.
2463 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
2466 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
2467 over minor mode keymaps.
2469 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
2470 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
2472 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
2473 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
2474 image or composition property.
2476 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
2477 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
2478 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
2479 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
2480 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
2482 ** Only one of the beginning or end of an invisible, intangible region is
2483 considered an acceptable value for point; which one is determined by
2484 examining how the invisible/intangible properties are inherited when new
2485 text is inserted adjacent to them. (The `front-sticky' and `rear-sticky'
2486 properties control this.)
2488 If the invisible/intangible would be inherited by any text inserted
2489 before this region, then the position before it is considered
2490 unacceptable, and point is forced to continue (if moving forwards, to
2491 the position following the invisible/intangible text; if moving
2492 backwards, to one position before). If the properties would be
2493 inherited by any text inserted after, then the position after is
2494 considered unacceptable, and point is forced to keep moving (if moving
2495 backwards, to the position preceding the invisible/intangible text; if
2496 moving forwards, to one position later).
2498 Thus, point can only go to one end of an invisible, intangible region, but
2499 not the other one. This prevents C-f and C-b from appearing to stand still
2502 You should not set it up so that both the position before and the position
2503 after are unacceptable.
2506 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
2510 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
2511 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
2512 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
2513 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
2517 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
2520 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
2523 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
2524 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
2525 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
2526 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
2527 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
2528 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
2531 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
2532 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
2533 bindings of the parent keymap.
2536 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
2537 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
2538 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
2539 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
2540 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
2541 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
2549 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
2550 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
2551 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
2552 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
2555 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
2556 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
2558 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
2559 (the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
2562 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
2563 it receives a request from emacsclient.
2566 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
2567 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
2568 than 3 levels of nesting.
2571 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
2572 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
2576 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
2577 properties from surrounding text.
2580 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
2582 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
2583 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
2584 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
2587 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
2588 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
2592 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
2593 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
2594 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
2595 other properties than `face'.
2596 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
2597 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
2600 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
2601 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
2602 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
2603 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
2604 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
2607 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
2608 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
2609 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
2612 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
2613 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
2616 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
2617 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
2620 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
2621 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
2622 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
2625 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
2626 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
2627 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
2630 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
2631 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
2632 accepts a float as UID parameter.
2635 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
2638 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
2641 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
2642 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
2643 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
2644 the output of other GNU tools.
2647 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
2650 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
2653 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
2654 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
2657 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
2659 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
2661 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
2662 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
2663 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
2664 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
2666 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
2667 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
2669 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
2671 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
2672 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
2673 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
2675 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
2676 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
2679 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
2680 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
2683 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
2684 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
2687 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
2688 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
2691 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
2692 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
2693 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
2695 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
2696 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
2697 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
2701 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2702 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2703 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2704 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
2705 that of GDB and displays expressions and their current values in their own
2706 buffers. It also uses features of Emacs 21 such as the display margin for
2707 breakpoints, and the toolbar.
2709 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
2711 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
2712 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
2714 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
2715 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
2718 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
2719 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
2721 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
2722 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
2723 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
2724 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
2725 as help and apropos buffers.
2728 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
2730 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
2734 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
2736 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
2739 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
2740 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
2741 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
2742 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
2743 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
2745 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
2748 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
2749 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
2750 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
2751 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
2752 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
2753 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
2754 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
2755 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
2756 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
2757 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
2759 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
2760 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
2762 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
2763 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
2764 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
2765 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
2766 contrary to the compound text specification.
2769 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
2771 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
2773 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
2776 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
2778 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
2780 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
2781 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
2782 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
2783 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
2784 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
2786 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
2789 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
2790 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
2792 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
2793 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
2794 instead of using default-major-mode.
2796 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
2797 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
2798 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
2799 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
2800 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
2801 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
2802 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
2804 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
2808 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
2810 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
2811 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
2812 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
2814 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
2815 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
2818 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
2820 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
2821 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
2822 charsets in this release.
2824 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
2826 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
2828 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
2829 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
2832 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
2833 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
2834 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
2835 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
2836 necessary changes to unexec.
2838 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
2839 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
2841 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
2842 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
2844 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
2845 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
2847 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
2848 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
2849 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
2850 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
2851 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
2853 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
2854 new display features described below.
2857 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
2859 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
2861 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
2862 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
2863 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
2864 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
2867 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
2869 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
2870 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
2871 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
2872 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
2875 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
2876 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
2877 under Lisp changes, below.
2879 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
2881 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
2882 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
2883 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
2884 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
2885 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
2886 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
2889 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
2890 supported on character terminals.
2892 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
2893 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
2894 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
2895 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
2897 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
2901 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
2902 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
2903 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
2904 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
2907 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
2909 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
2910 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
2911 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
2912 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
2914 - User option: max-mini-window-height
2916 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
2917 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
2918 specifies a number of lines.
2922 - User option: resize-mini-windows
2924 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
2925 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
2926 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
2929 Default is `grow-only'.
2933 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
2934 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
2936 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
2938 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
2939 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
2942 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
2944 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
2945 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
2946 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
2948 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
2950 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
2951 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
2952 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
2953 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
2954 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
2957 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
2958 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
2959 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
2960 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
2961 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
2962 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
2964 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
2965 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
2966 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
2967 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
2968 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
2969 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
2971 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
2972 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
2973 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
2974 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
2975 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
2977 ** Tool bar support.
2979 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
2980 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
2981 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
2982 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
2983 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
2986 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
2987 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
2991 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
2992 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
2993 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
2995 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
2996 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
2997 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
2998 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3000 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3002 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3003 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3006 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3007 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3008 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3009 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3010 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3012 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3013 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3014 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3015 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3016 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3017 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3019 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3020 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3021 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3022 customizing face `fringe'.
3024 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3025 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3026 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3027 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3028 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3029 the window to be partially obscured.)
3031 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3032 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3033 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3034 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3036 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3038 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3039 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3040 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3041 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3042 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3045 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3047 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3049 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3051 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3052 `*') toggles the status.
3054 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3056 ** Hourglass pointer
3058 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3059 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3063 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3064 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3065 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3068 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3070 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3071 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3072 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3075 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3076 have to do anything to activate it.
3078 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3080 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3081 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3083 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3084 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3085 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3086 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3087 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3088 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3089 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3090 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3092 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3093 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3094 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3095 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3096 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3097 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3099 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3100 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3102 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3103 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3106 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3107 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3108 beginning and end of the buffer.
3110 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3111 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3114 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3115 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3117 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3118 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3121 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3122 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3125 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3127 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3128 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3129 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3131 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3132 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3133 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3135 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3138 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3140 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3141 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3142 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3143 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3144 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3147 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3148 all frames except the selected one.
3150 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3151 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3153 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3154 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3155 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3156 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3157 `Info-use-header-line'.
3159 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3160 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3161 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3163 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3165 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3166 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3169 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3170 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3171 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3172 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3174 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3176 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3177 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3178 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3179 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3181 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3182 point in a pop-up window.
3184 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3185 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3186 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3188 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3189 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3191 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3192 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3193 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3194 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3196 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3198 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3199 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3201 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3202 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3203 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3205 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3206 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3209 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3210 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3211 file that is already visited under a different name.
3213 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3214 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3216 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3217 and displays information about that.
3219 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3220 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3222 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3223 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3224 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3225 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3226 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3227 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3229 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3230 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3232 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3233 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3234 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3235 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3236 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3237 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3238 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3240 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3241 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3243 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3244 system for keyboard input.
3246 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3247 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3248 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3249 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3250 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3251 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3252 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3253 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3254 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
3256 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
3257 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
3259 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
3260 displays all characters in that character set.
3262 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
3263 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
3265 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
3266 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
3267 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
3269 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
3270 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
3271 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
3272 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
3273 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
3274 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
3277 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
3278 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
3281 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
3282 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
3283 Lisp Coding Convention".
3285 new command old-binding
3286 --- ------- -----------
3287 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
3288 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
3289 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
3291 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
3292 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
3293 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
3295 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
3296 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
3297 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
3298 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
3299 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
3300 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
3302 ** There are new Leim input methods.
3303 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
3304 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
3307 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
3308 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
3309 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
3310 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
3311 "`", you must type "=q".
3313 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
3314 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
3315 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
3316 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
3317 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
3320 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
3321 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
3322 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
3323 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
3325 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
3326 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
3327 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
3328 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
3330 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
3331 on the display using several methods
3333 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
3334 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
3335 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
3337 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
3338 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
3340 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
3342 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
3343 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
3345 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
3346 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
3347 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
3348 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
3350 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
3351 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
3352 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
3354 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
3355 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
3357 ** New X resources recognized
3359 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
3360 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
3361 is useful for debugging X problems.
3365 emacs.synchronous: true
3367 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
3368 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
3369 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
3370 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
3371 visual class names are
3380 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
3381 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
3384 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
3385 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
3386 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
3391 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
3393 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
3394 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
3395 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
3396 resource values are `true' or `on'.
3400 emacs.privateColormap: true
3402 ** Faces and frame parameters.
3404 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
3405 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3406 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
3407 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
3408 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
3409 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
3410 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
3412 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
3413 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
3414 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
3415 `default' face and vice versa.
3419 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
3421 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
3423 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
3424 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
3425 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
3426 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
3428 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
3429 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
3430 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
3432 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
3435 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
3437 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
3438 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
3439 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
3440 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
3442 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
3444 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
3446 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
3448 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
3451 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
3454 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
3456 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
3457 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
3458 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
3460 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
3461 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
3463 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
3464 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
3465 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
3467 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
3469 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
3470 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
3471 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3472 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
3474 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
3475 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
3476 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3477 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
3479 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
3480 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
3481 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
3484 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
3486 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
3487 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
3488 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
3490 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
3491 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
3492 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
3493 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
3494 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
3495 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
3497 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
3499 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
3500 notably at the end of lines.
3502 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
3503 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
3505 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
3507 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
3508 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
3510 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
3511 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
3512 after each match to get the replacement text.
3514 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
3515 you edit the replacement string.
3517 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
3518 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
3519 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
3521 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
3523 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
3524 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
3526 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
3527 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
3528 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
3529 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
3532 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
3533 read mail from the menu etc.
3535 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
3536 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
3537 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
3538 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
3540 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
3541 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3543 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
3544 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
3545 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
3546 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
3547 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
3550 ** Customize changes
3552 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
3553 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
3554 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
3555 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
3556 earlier versions of Emacs.
3558 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
3559 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
3562 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3563 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
3564 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
3565 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
3568 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3569 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
3570 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
3571 already in your init file.
3573 ** New features in evaluation commands
3575 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
3576 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
3577 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
3578 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
3579 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
3581 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
3582 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
3583 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
3584 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
3587 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
3588 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
3590 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
3591 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
3593 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
3594 code when called with a prefix argument.
3598 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
3599 current user setups (although it's believed that these
3600 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
3601 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
3602 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
3603 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
3606 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
3607 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
3608 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
3611 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
3612 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
3613 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
3614 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
3616 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
3617 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
3619 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
3620 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
3622 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
3623 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
3624 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
3625 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
3627 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
3628 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
3629 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
3630 earlier statement. An example:
3632 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
3634 res += a[i]->offset;
3637 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
3638 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
3639 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
3640 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
3643 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
3646 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
3647 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
3648 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
3649 documentation or other natural language text.
3651 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
3652 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
3653 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
3654 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
3655 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
3656 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
3657 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
3659 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
3660 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
3661 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
3662 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
3664 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
3665 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
3666 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
3667 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
3670 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
3671 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
3672 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
3673 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
3674 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
3675 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
3676 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
3677 is reported afterwards.
3679 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
3680 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
3681 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
3683 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
3684 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
3685 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
3686 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
3687 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
3688 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
3691 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
3692 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
3693 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
3694 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
3695 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
3698 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
3699 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
3700 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
3701 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
3702 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
3703 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
3705 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
3706 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
3707 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
3708 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
3709 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
3710 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
3711 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
3712 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
3714 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
3715 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
3716 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
3717 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
3720 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
3721 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
3722 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
3723 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
3724 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
3725 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
3726 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
3727 function documentation for more info.
3729 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
3730 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
3731 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
3732 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
3733 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
3734 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
3735 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
3736 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
3738 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
3740 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
3741 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
3743 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
3744 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
3745 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
3746 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
3747 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
3750 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
3751 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
3752 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
3755 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
3756 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
3757 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
3758 chapter about this in the manual.
3760 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
3761 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
3762 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
3763 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
3764 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
3766 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
3767 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
3768 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
3770 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
3771 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
3773 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
3774 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
3775 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
3778 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
3779 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
3780 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
3781 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
3784 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
3785 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
3786 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
3787 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
3788 they were before the filling.
3790 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
3791 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
3792 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
3795 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
3796 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
3797 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
3798 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
3801 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
3802 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
3803 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
3804 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
3805 Thanks to Eric Eide.
3807 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
3808 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
3809 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
3811 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
3813 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
3814 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
3815 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
3816 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
3818 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
3819 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
3820 the column specified by comment-column.
3822 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
3823 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
3824 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
3825 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
3826 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
3827 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
3829 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
3830 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
3833 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
3835 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
3836 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
3837 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
3838 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
3841 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
3845 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
3846 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
3847 is, delete only empty directories.
3849 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
3850 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
3851 copy directories recursively.
3853 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
3854 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
3855 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
3857 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
3858 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
3861 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
3862 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
3863 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
3864 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
3865 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
3867 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
3870 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
3871 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
3872 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
3873 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
3877 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
3878 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
3879 internationalization and mail-fetching.
3881 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
3882 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
3884 If you used procmail like in
3886 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
3887 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
3888 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
3889 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
3891 this now has changed to
3894 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
3897 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
3898 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
3900 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
3901 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
3902 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
3903 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
3905 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
3906 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
3907 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
3909 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
3910 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
3911 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
3912 now just a compatibility layer.
3914 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
3917 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
3918 called to position point.
3920 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
3921 summary buffers and NOV files.
3923 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
3924 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
3926 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
3927 subtly different manner.
3929 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
3930 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
3931 ever-changing layouts.
3933 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
3935 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
3937 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
3939 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
3943 -------------------------
3947 C-c C-c q @quotation
3949 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
3952 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
3954 ** Changes in Outline mode.
3956 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
3957 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
3958 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
3960 ** Changes to Emacs Server
3962 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
3963 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
3964 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
3965 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
3966 buffers to kill, as before.
3968 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
3969 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
3972 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
3973 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
3975 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
3977 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
3978 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
3979 use. Default is 1000.
3981 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
3982 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
3984 ** Changes to hideshow.el
3986 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
3988 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
3989 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
3990 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
3991 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
3993 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
3994 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
3995 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
3998 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
3999 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4000 the normal block-hiding function.
4002 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4004 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4005 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4006 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4007 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4009 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4010 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4012 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4014 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4015 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4016 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4018 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4021 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4024 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4025 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4026 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4027 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4028 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4029 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4031 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4033 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4035 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4036 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4038 ** Changes in Font Lock
4040 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4041 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4043 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4044 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4046 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4047 the face used for each string/comment.
4049 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4050 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4052 ** Changes to Shell mode
4054 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4055 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4056 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4057 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4059 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4061 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4062 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4064 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4065 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4066 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4067 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4068 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4069 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4071 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4072 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4073 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4074 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4075 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4076 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4077 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4078 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4080 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4081 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4083 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4084 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4085 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4087 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4088 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4089 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4091 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4092 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4093 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4095 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4096 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4097 argument, it appends to the file.
4099 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4100 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4103 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4106 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4107 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4108 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4110 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4112 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4113 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4114 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4115 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4116 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4119 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4120 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4121 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4123 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4124 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4125 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4126 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4127 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4129 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4132 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4133 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4136 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4137 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4139 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4140 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4141 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4143 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4144 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4146 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4147 use the -f option when sending mail.
4149 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4150 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4151 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4152 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4153 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4154 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4156 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4157 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4158 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4160 ** Changes to TeX mode
4162 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4165 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4167 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4169 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4171 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4173 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4174 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4175 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4176 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4177 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4178 can be edited from that buffer.
4180 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4181 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4182 `A' to use all marked entries).
4184 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4185 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4187 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4188 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4189 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4192 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4193 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4194 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4195 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4197 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4198 has the following new features:
4200 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4201 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4202 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4203 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4205 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4206 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4207 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4208 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4209 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4212 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4217 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4218 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4219 spell-checks the current buffer.
4221 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4224 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4225 correction is made and re-checked.
4227 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4229 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4232 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4235 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4238 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4240 ** Makefile mode changes
4242 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4244 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4245 Fontlock mode is active.
4249 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4250 so that searches can be resumed.
4252 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4253 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4254 that started the search.
4256 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
4257 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
4259 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
4261 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
4262 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
4263 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
4264 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
4265 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
4266 `secondary-selection'.
4268 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
4269 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
4270 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
4271 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
4272 usual snappy response.
4274 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
4275 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
4276 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
4277 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
4281 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
4282 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
4283 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
4284 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
4285 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
4286 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
4287 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
4288 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
4289 file is registered in that backend.
4291 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
4292 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
4293 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
4294 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
4295 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
4296 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
4298 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
4299 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
4300 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
4301 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
4302 where it doesn't make sense.)
4304 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
4305 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
4306 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
4310 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
4311 checks are always done now.
4313 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
4316 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
4317 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
4318 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
4320 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
4321 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
4322 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
4323 the working file (``merge news'').
4325 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4326 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
4329 *** Multiple Backends
4331 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
4332 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
4333 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
4334 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
4337 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
4338 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
4339 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
4340 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
4342 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
4343 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
4344 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
4345 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
4346 current revision number from the more remote backend.
4348 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
4349 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
4350 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
4351 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
4353 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
4354 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
4355 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
4356 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
4360 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
4361 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
4362 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
4363 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
4364 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
4365 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
4366 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
4368 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
4369 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
4370 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
4371 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
4372 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
4373 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
4374 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
4375 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
4376 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
4377 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
4378 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
4381 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
4382 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
4383 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
4384 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
4385 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
4386 entire directory tree.
4388 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
4389 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
4390 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
4391 "watched" by other developers.)
4393 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4394 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
4395 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
4396 starting at the given directory.
4398 *** Lisp Changes in VC
4400 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
4401 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
4402 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
4403 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
4404 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
4405 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
4406 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
4407 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
4408 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
4410 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
4411 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
4412 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
4413 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
4415 ** New modes and packages
4417 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
4418 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
4419 the default is not applicable.
4421 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
4422 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
4423 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
4427 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
4428 drawn, like this: | \ /
4432 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
4433 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
4434 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
4435 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
4436 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
4439 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
4440 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
4442 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
4445 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
4446 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
4447 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
4448 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
4450 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
4451 also do without the mouse.
4453 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
4454 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
4455 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
4456 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
4457 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
4459 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
4461 lines straight-lines
4463 poly-lines straight poly-lines
4465 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
4466 spray-can setting size for spraying
4467 vaporize line vaporize lines
4468 erase characters erase rectangles
4470 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
4471 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
4472 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
4475 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
4476 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
4477 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
4478 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
4480 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
4483 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
4484 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
4485 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
4486 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
4487 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
4488 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
4489 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
4490 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
4491 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
4493 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
4494 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
4495 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
4496 on certain projects.
4498 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
4499 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
4501 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
4503 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
4504 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
4505 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
4506 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
4507 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
4508 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
4509 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
4510 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
4512 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
4515 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
4516 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
4518 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
4519 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
4521 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
4522 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
4523 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
4524 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
4525 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
4527 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
4528 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
4529 separate Texinfo file.
4531 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
4532 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
4533 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
4534 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
4535 enter check-in log messages.
4537 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
4538 without invoking external programs.
4540 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
4541 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
4542 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
4543 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
4544 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
4546 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
4547 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
4549 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
4550 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
4552 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
4553 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
4554 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
4555 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
4556 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
4559 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
4560 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
4561 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
4562 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
4564 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
4565 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
4566 actually modifying content of a buffer.
4568 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
4571 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
4573 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
4575 ; comment (until end of line)
4579 $A default non-terminal
4580 $"C" default terminal
4581 $?C? default special
4582 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
4583 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
4584 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
4585 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
4586 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
4587 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
4588 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
4589 C+ one or more occurrences of C
4590 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
4591 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
4592 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
4593 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
4594 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
4595 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4596 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4598 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
4600 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
4601 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
4602 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
4603 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
4604 equal signs of assignments.
4606 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
4607 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
4609 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
4610 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
4611 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
4613 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
4615 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
4616 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
4617 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
4618 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
4619 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
4620 which answers different needs.
4622 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
4623 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
4624 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
4625 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
4626 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
4629 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
4630 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
4632 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
4634 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
4635 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
4636 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
4638 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
4640 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
4641 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
4642 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
4643 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
4644 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
4645 and background colors.
4647 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
4650 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
4653 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
4655 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
4657 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
4658 whitespace in a file.
4660 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
4661 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
4662 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
4663 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
4664 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
4665 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
4666 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
4668 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
4670 Here is an example of columns:
4673 dog pineapple car EXTRA
4674 porcupine strawberry airplane
4676 Doing the following settings:
4678 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
4679 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
4680 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
4681 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
4684 Selecting the lines above and typing:
4686 M-x delimit-columns-region
4690 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
4691 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
4692 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
4694 delim-col has the following options:
4696 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
4699 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
4700 between each column.
4702 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
4705 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
4708 delim-col has the following commands:
4710 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
4711 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
4713 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
4714 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
4715 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
4716 recent file list can be displayed:
4718 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
4719 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
4720 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
4722 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
4723 dynamically change the menu appearance.
4725 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
4728 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
4729 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
4730 specific to Message mode.
4732 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
4733 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
4734 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
4736 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
4737 interface to access directory servers using different directory
4738 protocols. It has a separate manual.
4740 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
4741 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
4743 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
4745 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
4746 minibuffer with completion.
4748 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
4749 with the diary features.
4751 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
4752 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
4754 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
4757 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
4758 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
4759 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
4760 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
4762 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
4763 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
4766 ** Changes in sort.el
4768 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
4769 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
4770 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
4773 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
4775 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
4776 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
4777 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
4779 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
4780 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
4782 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
4783 output ^M at the end of lines.
4785 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
4786 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
4788 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
4789 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
4792 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
4795 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
4796 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
4799 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
4800 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
4801 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
4802 nil -- just delete one character.
4804 Default value is `untabify'.
4806 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
4808 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
4809 symbol, not double-quoted.
4811 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
4812 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
4813 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
4814 moved to lisp/obsolete.
4816 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
4817 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
4818 `auto-compression-mode' command.
4820 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
4821 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
4822 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
4824 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
4825 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
4827 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
4828 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
4830 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
4831 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
4833 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
4834 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
4835 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
4836 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
4837 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
4838 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
4840 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
4841 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
4843 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
4845 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
4846 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
4848 ** Shell script mode changes.
4850 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
4851 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
4852 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
4856 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
4858 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
4859 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
4860 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
4861 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
4862 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
4864 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
4865 declarations when given the --declarations option.
4867 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
4868 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
4870 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
4871 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
4872 `template' keywords.
4874 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
4875 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
4877 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
4880 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
4882 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
4884 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
4887 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
4889 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
4890 variables are tagged.
4892 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
4894 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
4897 ** Changes in etags.el
4899 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
4900 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
4901 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
4903 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
4904 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
4906 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
4907 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
4908 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
4909 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
4911 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
4913 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
4914 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
4916 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
4918 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
4919 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
4920 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
4922 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
4923 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
4925 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
4926 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
4928 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
4929 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
4930 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
4931 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
4932 point will go to the beginning of the file.
4934 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
4935 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
4936 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
4938 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
4939 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
4940 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
4942 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
4943 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
4944 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
4946 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
4948 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
4950 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
4951 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
4952 expression from that list, are not checked.
4954 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
4955 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
4956 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
4957 the buffer, just like for the local files.
4959 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
4961 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
4962 displays local abbrevs, only.
4964 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
4965 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
4967 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
4968 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
4969 is measured in pixels.
4971 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
4972 to be visited as images.
4974 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
4975 were added to compile.el.
4977 ** Withdrawn packages
4979 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
4980 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
4982 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
4984 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
4987 * Incompatible Lisp changes
4989 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
4990 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
4991 See the sections below for details.
4993 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
4994 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
4995 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
4996 to remove the properties of the copy.
4998 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
4999 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5000 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5001 these properties are active.
5003 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5004 ranges may affect some code.
5006 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5007 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5008 make a difference to some code.
5010 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5011 operates on the minibuffer.
5013 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5014 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5015 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5016 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5017 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5018 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5019 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5020 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5021 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5022 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5023 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5024 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5026 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5027 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5028 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5030 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5031 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5032 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5034 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5035 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5036 such as `mapconcat'.
5038 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5041 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5042 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5043 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5044 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5045 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5046 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5047 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5048 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5050 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5051 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5052 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5053 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5054 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5055 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5056 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5057 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5058 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5059 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5062 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5063 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5065 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5067 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5068 allows the animated display of strings.
5070 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5071 interactive form of a function.
5073 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5074 between custom options. Example:
5076 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5077 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5078 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5079 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5081 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5082 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5084 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5085 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5086 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5088 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5089 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5090 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5091 (signal or normal termination).
5093 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5094 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5096 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5097 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5099 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5100 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5102 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5104 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5105 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5108 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5110 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5111 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5112 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5113 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5114 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5117 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5118 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5121 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5122 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5124 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5125 with the more general `:mask' property.
5127 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5129 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5132 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5133 is running in batch mode. For example,
5135 (message "%s" (read t))
5137 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5140 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5141 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5143 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5144 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5147 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5150 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5152 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5153 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5155 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5157 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5158 comparison is done with `eq'.
5160 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5162 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5163 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5164 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5166 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5167 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5168 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5170 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5171 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5173 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5174 function was declared obsolete.
5176 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5177 retained as an alias).
5179 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5180 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5181 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5183 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5185 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5187 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5188 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5189 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5190 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5191 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5192 means never include the minibuffer window.
5194 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5196 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5198 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5200 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5201 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5202 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5203 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5206 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5207 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5208 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5209 minibuffer even if it is active.
5211 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5212 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5213 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5214 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5215 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5216 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5218 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5219 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5220 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5221 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5222 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5223 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5224 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5226 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5227 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5228 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5230 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5231 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5232 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5233 Default value is nil.
5235 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5238 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5239 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5240 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5242 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5243 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5244 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5246 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5247 list of a primitive.
5249 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5251 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5252 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5253 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5254 than replacing the local map.
5256 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
5257 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
5258 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
5261 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
5263 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
5264 as promised long ago.
5266 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
5268 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
5269 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
5270 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
5273 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
5275 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
5276 regular expressions.
5278 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
5280 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5284 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5286 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
5290 matches string STRING literally.
5293 matches character CHAR literally.
5296 matches any character except a newline.
5299 matches any character
5302 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
5303 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
5309 matches any character not in SET
5312 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
5313 in the text being matched
5316 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
5319 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5320 string being matched against.
5323 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5324 string being matched against.
5327 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5328 buffer being matched against.
5331 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5332 buffer being matched against.
5335 matches the empty string, but only at point.
5338 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5342 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
5345 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5348 `(not word-boundary)'
5349 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
5353 matches 0 through 9.
5356 matches ASCII control characters.
5359 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5362 matches space and tab only.
5365 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5369 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5373 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5374 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5377 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5378 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5381 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5384 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5387 matches anything lower-case.
5390 matches anything upper-case.
5393 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5394 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5397 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5400 matches anything that has word syntax.
5403 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
5404 of the following symbols.
5406 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
5407 `punctuation' (\\s.)
5410 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
5411 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
5412 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
5413 `string-quote' (\\s\")
5414 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
5416 `character-quote' (\\s/)
5417 `comment-start' (\\s<)
5418 `comment-end' (\\s>)
5420 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
5421 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
5423 `(category CATEGORY)'
5424 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
5425 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
5427 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
5429 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
5430 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
5434 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
5436 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
5437 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
5438 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
5439 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
5440 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
5441 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
5442 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
5443 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
5444 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
5445 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
5446 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
5455 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
5459 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
5466 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
5467 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
5469 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5470 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
5472 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5473 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
5474 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
5476 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5477 another name for `submatch'.
5479 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5480 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
5481 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
5484 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
5485 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
5486 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
5487 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
5488 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
5490 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
5491 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
5493 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
5494 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5497 like `zero-or-more'.
5500 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5503 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5505 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
5506 matches one or more occurrences of A.
5512 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5515 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5517 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
5518 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
5524 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5527 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5530 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5533 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5536 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
5540 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
5542 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
5544 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
5545 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
5546 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
5547 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
5549 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
5550 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
5551 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
5552 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
5554 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
5555 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
5556 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
5558 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
5559 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
5560 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
5561 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
5562 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
5563 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
5564 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
5567 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
5569 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
5570 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
5571 character set as previously.
5573 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
5574 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
5575 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
5577 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
5578 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
5579 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
5580 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
5582 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
5583 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
5585 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
5586 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
5589 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
5590 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
5592 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
5593 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
5594 buffers and strings.
5596 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
5597 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
5598 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
5599 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
5600 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
5601 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
5602 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
5605 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
5606 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
5607 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
5609 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
5610 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
5611 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
5612 may differ between buffer and string text.
5614 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
5615 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
5617 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
5618 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
5619 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
5620 `composition' from STRING.
5622 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
5623 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
5625 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
5628 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
5629 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
5631 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
5632 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
5633 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
5634 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
5636 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
5637 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
5638 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
5639 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
5640 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
5641 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
5643 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
5644 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
5645 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
5647 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
5648 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
5649 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
5651 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
5652 have been introduced.
5654 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5655 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
5656 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
5657 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
5658 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
5659 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
5660 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
5661 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
5662 their multibyte equivalent.
5664 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
5665 that offset in the file before writing.
5667 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
5668 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
5670 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
5671 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
5672 from which the command was issued.
5674 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
5675 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
5676 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
5677 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
5680 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
5681 to `window-buffer-height'.
5683 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
5685 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
5686 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
5687 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
5689 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
5692 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
5693 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
5695 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
5696 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
5697 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
5699 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
5700 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
5701 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
5702 is currently displayed in some window.
5704 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
5705 argument function's results.
5707 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
5708 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
5709 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
5710 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
5713 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
5714 header in the list of headers passed to it.
5716 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
5717 ignores differences in case and text representation.
5719 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
5720 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
5723 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
5724 nil don't display a cursor
5725 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
5726 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
5727 others display a box cursor.
5729 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
5730 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
5731 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
5732 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
5734 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
5735 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
5736 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
5737 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
5741 (string-to-syntax "()")
5744 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
5747 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
5748 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
5755 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
5760 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
5765 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
5772 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
5773 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
5776 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
5777 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
5778 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
5779 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
5781 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
5783 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
5784 for a regexp in a string.
5786 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
5787 `mouse-position-function'.
5789 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
5790 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
5792 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
5793 Keywords are now always considered constants.
5795 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
5798 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
5799 returned by function `recent-keys'.
5801 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
5802 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
5803 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
5804 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
5807 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
5808 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
5810 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
5811 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
5812 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
5813 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
5816 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
5817 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
5818 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
5819 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
5821 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
5822 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
5823 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
5825 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
5826 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
5829 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
5831 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
5832 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
5833 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
5836 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
5837 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
5838 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
5839 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
5840 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
5842 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
5843 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
5845 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
5846 instead of being optional.
5848 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
5849 modify read-only text.
5851 ** New functions and variables for locales.
5853 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
5854 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
5855 time functions like strftime. The new variables
5856 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
5857 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
5859 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
5860 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
5861 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
5862 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
5863 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
5864 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
5865 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
5867 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
5868 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
5869 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
5872 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
5873 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
5875 ** New function `propertize'
5877 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
5878 strings with text properties.
5880 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
5882 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
5883 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
5884 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
5885 specified value of that property. Example:
5887 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
5889 ** push and pop macros.
5891 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
5892 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
5893 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
5895 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
5896 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
5897 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
5899 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
5901 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
5902 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
5904 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
5905 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
5906 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
5907 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
5909 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
5910 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
5911 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
5912 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
5914 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
5915 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
5916 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
5919 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
5920 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
5921 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5922 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
5923 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5925 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5927 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
5928 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5929 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5930 [:alpha:] matches letters.
5931 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5932 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5933 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5934 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5935 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
5936 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
5937 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5938 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5939 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5940 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
5941 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
5943 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
5945 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
5947 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
5949 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
5950 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
5954 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
5955 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
5956 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
5960 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
5961 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
5963 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
5965 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
5966 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
5967 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
5968 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
5969 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
5971 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
5973 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
5974 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
5975 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
5979 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
5980 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
5981 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
5982 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
5983 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
5985 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
5987 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
5989 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
5991 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
5993 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
5995 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
5998 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6000 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6002 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6004 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6006 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6008 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6010 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6012 Returns the size of TABLE.
6014 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6016 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6018 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6020 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6022 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6026 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6028 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6031 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6033 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6034 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6036 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6038 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6040 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6042 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6043 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6045 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6047 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6049 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6051 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6052 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6053 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6054 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6055 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6057 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6059 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6060 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6061 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6063 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6064 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6066 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6067 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6069 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6070 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6072 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6073 'case-fold-string-hash))
6075 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6077 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6079 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6080 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6081 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6083 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6085 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6086 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6088 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6089 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6090 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6091 is too short to reach that column.
6093 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6094 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6095 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6096 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6098 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6099 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6100 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6102 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6103 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6105 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6106 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6108 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6109 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6110 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6111 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6112 temporary-file-directory instead.
6114 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6115 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6116 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6117 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6119 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6120 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6122 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6124 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6125 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6126 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6128 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6130 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6131 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6132 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6133 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6134 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6135 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6137 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6138 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6139 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6140 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6142 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6144 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6145 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6146 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6149 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6150 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6154 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6156 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6157 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6160 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6162 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6164 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6165 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6168 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6170 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6171 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6176 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6177 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6179 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6180 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6181 to enable sound support.
6183 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6184 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6185 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6186 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6187 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6189 The following sound properties are supported:
6193 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6194 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6198 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6199 may be present, but not both.
6203 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6204 0..1. This property is optional.
6208 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6209 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6211 Other properties are ignored.
6213 An alternative interface is called as
6214 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6216 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6218 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6221 ** Changes to garbage collection
6223 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6224 of live and free strings.
6226 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6227 strings that have been consed so far.
6230 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6233 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6236 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6237 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6238 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6240 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6242 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6244 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6247 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6249 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6251 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6252 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6253 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6254 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
6255 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
6257 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
6260 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
6262 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
6263 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
6264 or omitted means use the selected frame.
6266 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
6267 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
6269 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
6272 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
6276 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
6278 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
6279 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
6281 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
6282 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
6283 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
6284 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
6285 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
6286 just display it black instead.
6288 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
6291 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
6295 ** New face implementation.
6297 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
6298 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
6302 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
6304 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
6306 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
6307 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
6309 3. Font height in 1/10pt
6311 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
6313 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
6315 6. Foreground color.
6317 7. Background color.
6319 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
6321 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
6323 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
6325 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
6327 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
6330 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
6331 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
6333 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
6334 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
6335 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
6336 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
6337 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
6338 attributes mentioned above.
6340 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
6341 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
6344 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
6345 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
6350 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
6351 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
6352 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
6353 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
6354 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
6355 results in a fully-specified face.
6357 *** Face realization.
6359 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
6360 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
6361 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
6362 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
6363 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
6364 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
6366 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
6367 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
6368 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
6369 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
6371 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
6372 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
6373 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
6374 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
6375 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
6377 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
6378 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
6379 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
6380 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
6381 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
6384 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
6385 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
6386 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
6387 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
6389 **** Clearing face caches.
6391 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
6392 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
6397 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
6398 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
6399 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
6401 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
6402 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
6403 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
6404 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
6405 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
6407 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
6408 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
6409 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
6411 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
6413 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
6414 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
6415 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
6416 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
6417 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
6418 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
6419 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
6421 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6422 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
6425 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6426 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
6429 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
6432 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
6437 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
6438 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
6441 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
6442 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
6443 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
6444 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
6445 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
6448 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
6450 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
6452 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
6454 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
6456 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
6457 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
6458 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
6460 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
6461 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
6462 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
6463 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
6464 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
6465 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
6466 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
6467 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
6468 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
6469 of the face font sort order.
6471 - Function: x-font-family-list
6473 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
6474 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
6475 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
6476 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
6478 - Variable: font-list-limit
6480 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
6481 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
6482 matching font. The default is currently 100.
6484 *** Setting face attributes.
6486 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
6487 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
6488 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
6491 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
6492 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
6494 The following attributes are recognized:
6498 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
6499 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
6500 and `?' are allowed.
6504 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
6505 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
6506 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
6507 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
6511 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
6512 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
6513 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
6514 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
6518 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
6519 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
6520 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
6524 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
6525 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
6528 `:foreground', `:background'
6530 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
6534 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
6535 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
6536 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
6541 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
6542 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
6543 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
6548 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
6549 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
6550 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
6551 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
6555 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
6556 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
6557 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
6558 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
6559 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
6560 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
6561 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
6562 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
6563 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
6564 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
6565 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
6566 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
6567 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
6568 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
6569 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
6570 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
6575 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
6576 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
6580 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
6581 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
6582 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
6583 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
6584 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
6585 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
6587 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
6588 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
6592 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
6593 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
6594 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
6597 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
6598 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
6599 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
6601 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
6606 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
6607 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
6608 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
6610 *** Face attributes and X resources
6612 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
6615 Face attribute X resource class
6616 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
6617 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
6618 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
6619 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
6620 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
6621 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
6622 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
6623 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
6624 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
6625 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
6626 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
6627 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
6628 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
6629 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
6630 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
6631 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
6632 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6633 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
6634 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
6635 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6637 *** Text property `face'.
6639 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
6640 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
6641 specification can be
6643 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
6645 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
6646 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
6647 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
6648 for face attribute names.
6650 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
6651 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
6652 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
6654 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
6656 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
6657 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
6658 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
6659 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
6660 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
6661 used to clear the mapping table.
6663 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
6665 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
6666 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
6667 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
6668 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
6669 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
6670 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
6671 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
6672 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
6673 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
6674 modify their color-related behavior.
6676 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
6679 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
6681 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
6682 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
6683 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
6684 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
6685 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
6686 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
6687 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
6688 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
6689 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
6691 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
6692 display can display image files.
6694 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
6696 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
6697 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
6698 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
6699 `Inviolable' option.
6701 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
6702 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
6703 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
6705 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
6707 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
6708 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
6709 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
6711 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
6712 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
6713 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
6714 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
6715 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
6716 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
6717 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
6720 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
6721 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
6722 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
6724 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
6726 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
6728 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
6730 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6731 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
6732 constrained position if that is different.
6734 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
6735 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
6736 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
6737 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
6738 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6739 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
6740 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
6741 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
6742 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
6744 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
6745 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
6746 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
6747 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
6748 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
6750 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
6751 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
6753 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
6755 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
6757 Delete the field surrounding POS.
6758 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6759 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6761 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6763 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
6764 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6765 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6766 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
6767 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
6769 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6771 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
6772 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6773 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6774 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
6775 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
6777 - Function: field-string &optional POS
6779 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
6780 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6781 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6783 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
6785 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
6786 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6787 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6791 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
6792 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
6793 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
6794 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
6796 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
6797 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
6798 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
6799 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
6802 IMAGE is an image specification.
6804 *** Image specifications
6806 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
6807 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
6808 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
6809 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
6810 described below are ignored.
6812 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
6816 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
6817 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
6818 to use for its ascent.
6820 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
6821 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
6823 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
6824 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
6825 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
6826 overlays that apply to the image.
6830 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
6831 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
6832 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
6836 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
6841 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
6843 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
6844 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
6846 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
6847 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
6848 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
6849 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
6850 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
6851 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
6852 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
6853 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
6856 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
6858 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
6860 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
6861 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
6862 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
6863 of the factors' absolute values.
6865 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
6871 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
6877 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
6882 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
6883 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
6884 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
6885 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
6886 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
6887 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
6888 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
6891 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
6892 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
6897 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
6898 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
6899 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
6900 may be present in the image specification.
6904 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
6905 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
6906 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
6907 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
6909 *** Supported image types
6911 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
6913 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
6914 properties supported are:
6918 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
6919 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
6923 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
6924 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
6926 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
6927 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
6928 instead of a `:file' property.
6932 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
6936 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
6942 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
6943 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
6945 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
6947 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
6950 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
6951 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
6954 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
6956 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
6957 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
6958 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
6959 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
6961 Additional image properties supported are:
6963 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
6965 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
6966 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
6969 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
6970 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
6972 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
6973 to display compressed images.
6975 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
6977 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
6978 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
6983 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
6984 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
6988 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
6989 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
6991 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
6993 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
6994 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
6997 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
6999 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7000 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7003 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7005 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7006 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7008 Additional image properties supported are:
7012 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7013 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
7015 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7016 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7017 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7020 (defun show-anim (file max)
7021 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7022 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7024 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7027 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7030 (goto-char (point-min))
7031 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7032 (insert-image img "x"))
7033 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7035 **** PNG, image type `png'
7037 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7038 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7041 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7043 Additional image properties supported are:
7047 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7048 integer. This is a required property.
7052 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7053 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7057 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7058 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7059 files. This is an required property.
7061 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7066 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7067 which are supported in the current configuration.
7069 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7070 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7071 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7072 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7073 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7075 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7077 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7078 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7079 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7080 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7081 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7086 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7089 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7090 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7091 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7092 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7093 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7094 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7095 of the display margins.
7097 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7098 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7099 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7100 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7105 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7106 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7107 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7108 that have a `help-echo' property.
7110 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7111 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7112 the window in which the help was found.
7114 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7115 `help-echo' text property was found.
7117 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7118 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7120 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7121 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7124 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7125 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7127 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7128 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7129 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7130 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7131 used as help string.
7133 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7134 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7135 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7137 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7139 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7140 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7142 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7143 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7144 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7145 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7148 (global-set-key [A-down]
7151 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7152 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7153 (global-set-key [A-up]
7156 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7157 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7159 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7161 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7162 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7163 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7164 is called with one argument, POS.
7166 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7167 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7168 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7169 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7170 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7172 ** Tool bar support.
7174 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7175 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7176 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7177 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7178 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7179 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7181 *** Tool bar item definitions
7183 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7184 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7185 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7187 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7188 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7189 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7190 property (see below).
7192 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7193 binding are currently ignored.
7195 The following properties are recognized:
7199 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7204 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7208 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7209 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7210 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7212 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7214 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7215 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7219 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7220 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7221 meaning of each of the four elements:
7223 Index Use when item is
7224 ----------------------------------------
7225 0 enabled and selected
7226 1 enabled and deselected
7227 2 disabled and selected
7228 3 disabled and deselected
7230 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7231 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7233 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7235 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7236 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7238 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7239 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7240 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7243 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7244 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7245 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7247 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7249 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7250 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7251 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7253 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
7254 raised when the mouse moves over them.
7256 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
7257 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
7258 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
7259 vertical margins . Default is 1.
7261 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
7262 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
7264 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
7266 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
7269 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
7270 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
7271 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
7273 is the original tool bar item definition, then
7275 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
7277 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
7280 ** Mode line changes.
7282 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
7284 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
7285 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
7286 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
7288 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
7289 a `local-map' text property.
7291 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
7292 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
7294 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
7295 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
7296 `local-map' property.
7298 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
7299 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
7302 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
7303 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
7305 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
7306 variable mode-line-format to nil.
7308 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
7310 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
7311 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
7312 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
7313 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
7316 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
7319 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
7320 position in the header-line.
7322 ** Text property `display'
7324 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
7325 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
7326 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
7327 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
7328 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
7330 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
7332 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
7333 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
7335 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
7336 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
7337 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
7338 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7339 simpler form STRING as property value.
7341 *** Variable width and height spaces
7343 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
7344 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
7345 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
7346 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
7347 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
7348 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7349 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
7351 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
7352 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
7353 properties described below.
7355 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
7356 characters having the `display' property.
7360 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
7361 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
7363 - :relative-width FACTOR
7365 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
7366 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
7367 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
7368 width of that character by FACTOR.
7372 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
7373 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
7375 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
7379 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
7382 - :relative-height FACTOR
7384 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
7385 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
7389 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
7390 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
7391 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
7394 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
7398 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
7399 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
7400 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
7401 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
7402 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
7403 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
7404 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
7405 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
7406 as display specification.
7408 *** Other display properties
7410 - (space-width FACTOR)
7412 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
7413 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
7418 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
7420 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
7421 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
7422 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
7423 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
7424 a font is available counts as a step.
7426 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
7427 as tall as the frame's default font.
7429 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
7430 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
7432 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
7433 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
7437 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
7438 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
7439 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
7440 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
7441 `height' subproperty.
7443 *** Conditional display properties
7445 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
7446 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
7447 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
7448 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
7449 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
7450 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
7451 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
7452 different when object is a string.
7454 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
7457 ** New menu separator types.
7459 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
7460 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
7461 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
7462 to specify other menu separator types.
7464 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
7466 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
7469 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
7471 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
7473 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
7475 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
7477 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
7479 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7481 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
7483 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7485 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
7487 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
7488 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
7490 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
7492 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
7494 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
7496 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
7498 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
7500 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
7502 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
7504 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7506 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
7508 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
7510 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
7512 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7514 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
7516 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
7518 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
7519 the corresponding single-line separators.
7521 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
7523 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
7524 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
7525 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
7526 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
7527 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
7528 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
7529 default foreground is black.
7531 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
7532 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
7533 `ScrollBarBackground').
7535 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
7536 settings for scroll bar colors.
7538 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
7539 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
7541 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
7542 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
7543 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
7544 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
7545 the original window start.
7547 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
7548 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
7549 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
7551 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
7553 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
7554 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
7555 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
7556 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
7558 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
7559 fixed-width and fixed-height.
7561 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
7563 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
7564 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
7565 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
7566 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
7567 temporarily to nil, for example
7569 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
7570 (enlarge-window 10))
7572 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
7573 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
7575 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
7576 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
7577 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
7578 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
7579 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
7580 support a vertical-bar cursor).
7584 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
7586 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
7589 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
7591 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
7593 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
7594 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
7595 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
7596 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
7597 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
7599 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
7603 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
7605 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
7609 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7611 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
7612 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
7614 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
7616 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
7618 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
7619 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
7620 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
7622 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
7623 is the one that is used.
7625 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
7626 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
7627 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
7628 separate from the command's regular output.
7629 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
7630 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
7631 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
7634 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
7635 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
7636 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
7637 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
7639 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
7640 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
7641 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
7642 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
7644 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
7645 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
7646 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
7647 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
7649 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
7650 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
7651 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
7652 they never ignore case.
7654 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
7655 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
7656 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
7657 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
7658 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
7659 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
7660 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
7662 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
7663 the same format that was used in the file before.
7665 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
7666 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
7668 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
7669 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
7670 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
7672 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
7673 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
7674 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
7675 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
7676 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
7677 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
7678 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
7680 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
7681 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
7682 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
7683 format. You can now customize these variables.
7685 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
7686 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
7687 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
7688 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
7690 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
7691 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
7692 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
7694 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
7695 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
7696 doesn't have any effect.
7698 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
7701 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
7702 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
7703 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
7705 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
7706 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
7707 `auto-show-mode' command.
7709 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
7710 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
7711 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
7712 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
7713 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
7715 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
7716 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
7718 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
7719 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
7720 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
7722 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
7723 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
7724 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
7725 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
7727 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
7729 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
7730 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
7731 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
7732 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
7733 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
7735 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
7736 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
7738 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
7739 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
7740 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
7741 `?' on other systems.
7743 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
7744 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
7747 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
7748 current codepage when it starts.
7752 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
7753 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
7754 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
7755 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
7756 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
7757 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
7761 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
7762 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
7764 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
7765 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
7766 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
7767 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
7768 buffer-file-coding-system.
7770 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
7771 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
7774 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
7775 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
7776 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
7777 list of possible coding systems.
7781 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
7782 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
7783 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
7784 docstring for details.
7786 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
7787 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
7788 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
7789 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
7790 lineup functions use this feature currently.
7792 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
7793 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
7795 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
7796 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
7798 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
7799 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
7800 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
7801 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
7804 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
7805 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
7807 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
7808 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
7809 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
7810 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
7812 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
7813 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
7814 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
7815 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
7816 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
7818 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
7820 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
7822 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
7823 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
7825 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
7827 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
7828 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
7829 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
7830 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
7831 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
7835 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
7836 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
7837 Gnus manual for the full story.
7839 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
7840 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
7841 group, which is created automatically.
7843 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
7846 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
7848 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
7849 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
7851 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
7854 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
7856 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
7857 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
7859 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
7861 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
7862 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
7864 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
7865 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
7867 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
7868 control over simplification.
7870 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
7872 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
7875 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
7877 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
7879 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
7880 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
7881 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
7883 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
7884 `a' forces normal posting method.
7886 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
7889 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
7892 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
7893 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
7895 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
7898 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
7900 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
7902 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
7903 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
7905 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
7906 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
7908 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
7910 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
7913 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
7914 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
7916 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
7917 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
7919 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
7921 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
7923 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
7925 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
7927 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
7928 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
7929 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
7931 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
7932 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
7933 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
7934 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
7935 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
7937 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
7938 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
7939 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
7940 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
7942 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
7943 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
7944 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
7947 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
7949 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
7950 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
7952 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
7953 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
7954 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
7955 removed from the label.
7957 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
7958 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
7960 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
7961 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
7963 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
7964 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
7967 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
7969 ** New/deleted modes and packages
7971 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
7972 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
7974 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
7975 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
7976 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
7978 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
7979 changes with a special face.
7981 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
7982 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
7983 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
7985 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
7987 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
7988 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
7989 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
7990 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
7991 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
7993 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
7994 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
7995 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
7997 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
7998 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
7999 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8000 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8001 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8002 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8003 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8004 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8005 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8007 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8008 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8009 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8010 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8011 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8014 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8015 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8016 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8017 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8018 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8019 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8021 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8022 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8023 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8024 was not documented clearly before.
8026 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8027 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8029 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8031 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8032 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8033 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8034 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8036 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8037 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8038 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8040 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8042 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8043 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8045 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8046 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8049 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8050 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8051 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8052 file names and attributes are returned.
8054 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8055 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8056 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8057 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8060 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8061 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8063 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8065 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8066 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8067 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8070 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8071 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8074 The new function process-running-child-p
8075 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8076 terminal to its own child process.
8078 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8079 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8080 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8081 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8083 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8084 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8086 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8087 :included is an alias for :visible.
8089 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8090 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8091 to move or copy menu entries.
8093 ** Multibyte editing changes
8095 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8096 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8097 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8098 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8099 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8100 (setq char (sref str idx)
8101 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8102 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8104 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8105 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8106 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8108 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8109 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8110 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8112 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8114 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8115 across the boundary.
8117 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8118 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8119 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8120 contains 8-bit characters.
8121 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8122 contains invalid characters.
8124 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8125 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8126 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8127 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8130 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8131 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8132 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8133 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8135 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8136 compose Thai characters in a string.
8138 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8139 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8140 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8141 menus should always use the third argument.
8143 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8144 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8145 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8146 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8148 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8149 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8150 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8151 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8153 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8154 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8155 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8158 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8160 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8161 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8162 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8164 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8165 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8166 means to clear out that attribute.
8168 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8169 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8171 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8172 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8173 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8174 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8176 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8177 the gap of the current buffer.
8179 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8180 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8183 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8184 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8185 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8186 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8188 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8190 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8191 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8192 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8193 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8194 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8196 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8197 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8198 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8199 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8200 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8202 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8203 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8204 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8206 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8207 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8208 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8209 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8210 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8213 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8214 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8215 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8216 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8218 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8220 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8221 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8222 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8223 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8225 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8226 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8227 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8228 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8229 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8230 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8231 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8234 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8237 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8238 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8239 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8240 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8241 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8243 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8244 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8245 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8246 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8248 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8249 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8250 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8251 something that most users not do.
8253 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
8254 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
8255 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
8258 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
8261 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
8262 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
8263 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
8264 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
8267 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
8268 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
8269 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
8270 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
8271 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
8274 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
8275 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
8276 to be confused by TeX commands.
8278 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
8279 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
8280 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
8281 of various alternative replacements and actions.
8283 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
8284 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
8285 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
8286 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
8287 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
8289 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
8290 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
8292 ** Changes in input method usage.
8294 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
8295 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
8298 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
8300 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
8301 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
8303 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
8304 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
8306 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
8308 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
8310 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
8311 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
8313 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
8314 given in the following case:
8315 o When you are using a complex input method.
8316 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
8318 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
8319 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
8320 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
8321 setting it to t is helpful.
8323 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
8325 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
8327 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
8328 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
8329 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
8330 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
8333 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
8334 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
8335 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
8338 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
8340 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
8342 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
8343 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
8345 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
8346 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
8347 its owner and group.
8349 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
8350 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
8352 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
8353 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
8355 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
8356 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
8357 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
8358 by the left edge of the rectangle.
8360 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
8361 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
8362 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
8363 for writing keyboard macros.
8365 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
8366 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
8367 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
8368 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
8369 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
8372 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
8374 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
8375 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
8378 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
8379 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
8380 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
8381 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
8383 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
8384 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
8385 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
8387 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
8388 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
8389 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
8390 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
8392 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
8393 failure if the command produces no output.
8395 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
8396 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
8399 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
8400 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
8401 function and variable names.
8403 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
8404 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
8405 file-coding-system-alist.
8407 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
8408 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
8409 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
8410 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
8411 according to the current fontset.
8413 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
8415 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
8416 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
8417 nonascii-insert-offset.
8419 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
8420 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
8421 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
8422 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
8424 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
8425 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
8427 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
8428 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
8430 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
8431 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
8434 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
8435 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
8437 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
8438 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
8439 all variables that have documentation.
8441 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
8442 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
8443 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
8444 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
8445 it should show; the default is 20.
8447 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
8448 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
8451 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
8452 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
8453 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
8454 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
8455 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
8456 Newly added options are included as well.
8458 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
8459 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
8460 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
8462 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
8465 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
8466 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
8468 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
8469 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
8472 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
8473 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
8476 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
8477 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
8478 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
8479 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
8482 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
8484 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
8485 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
8486 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
8488 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
8489 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
8490 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
8495 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
8496 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
8498 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
8499 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
8501 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
8502 read and post multi-lingual articles.
8504 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
8505 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
8506 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
8507 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
8508 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
8509 made invisible again.
8511 ** Mail reading and sending changes
8513 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
8514 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
8515 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
8518 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
8519 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
8520 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
8521 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
8522 rmail-default-body-file.
8524 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
8525 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
8526 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
8528 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
8529 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
8530 is evaluated to insert the signature.
8532 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
8533 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
8534 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
8535 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
8536 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
8537 especially interested in trying feedmail.
8539 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
8540 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
8541 provided by feedmail are:
8543 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
8544 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
8545 there is also a queue for draft messages
8547 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
8548 be prompted for confirmation
8550 **** does smart filling of address headers
8552 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
8553 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
8554 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
8556 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
8557 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
8558 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
8559 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
8563 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
8564 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
8566 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
8567 run Dired on the directory name at point.
8569 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
8570 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
8571 for a specified regexp.
8575 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
8578 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
8579 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
8582 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
8583 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
8584 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
8585 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
8587 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
8588 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
8589 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
8590 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
8591 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
8593 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
8594 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
8595 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
8596 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
8597 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
8599 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
8600 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
8601 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
8602 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
8604 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
8605 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
8606 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
8608 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
8609 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
8610 session to resolve them.
8612 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
8613 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
8614 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
8617 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
8618 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
8619 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
8620 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
8621 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
8622 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
8625 ** Changes in Font Lock
8627 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
8628 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
8629 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
8630 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
8631 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
8633 ** Frame name display changes
8635 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
8636 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
8637 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
8638 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
8640 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
8641 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
8644 ** Comint (subshell) changes
8646 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
8647 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
8648 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
8650 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
8652 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
8653 that is, the line after the last line you got.
8654 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
8656 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
8657 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
8660 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
8661 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
8662 previously sent input.
8664 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
8665 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
8666 as the search string.
8668 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
8669 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
8673 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
8674 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
8675 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
8678 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
8679 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
8680 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
8681 style is still the default however.
8683 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
8685 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
8686 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
8687 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
8689 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
8690 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
8692 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
8693 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
8695 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
8696 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
8698 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
8699 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
8701 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
8702 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
8703 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
8704 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
8706 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
8708 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
8709 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
8710 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
8712 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
8713 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
8714 expanding dynamically.
8716 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
8717 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
8719 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
8720 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
8721 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
8722 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
8724 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
8726 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8728 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
8729 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
8730 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
8731 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
8732 against the first word in the title.
8734 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
8735 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
8736 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
8737 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
8738 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
8739 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
8741 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
8742 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
8743 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
8744 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
8746 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
8748 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
8749 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
8750 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
8751 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
8752 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
8753 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
8755 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
8756 Editing group once the package is loaded.
8758 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
8759 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
8760 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
8762 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
8763 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
8767 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
8768 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
8769 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
8771 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
8772 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
8773 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
8774 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
8777 o URLs are automatically skipped
8778 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
8780 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
8782 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8784 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
8785 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
8786 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
8787 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
8789 *** New recursive parser.
8791 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
8792 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
8793 recursive parser scans the individual files.
8795 *** Parsing only part of a document.
8797 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
8798 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
8799 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
8801 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
8803 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
8805 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
8807 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
8809 *** Using multiple selection buffers
8811 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
8812 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
8814 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
8816 *** References to external documents.
8818 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
8819 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
8820 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
8821 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
8822 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
8823 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
8824 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
8826 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
8828 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
8829 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
8831 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
8832 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
8834 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
8836 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
8837 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
8839 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
8841 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
8842 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
8843 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
8844 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
8845 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
8846 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
8849 *** Support for the varioref package
8851 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
8855 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
8856 and citations are created. These hooks are
8857 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
8858 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
8860 *** Citations outside LaTeX
8862 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
8863 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
8865 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
8867 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
8868 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
8871 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
8873 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
8874 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
8875 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
8876 directories that contain the same file name.
8878 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
8879 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
8880 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
8881 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
8882 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
8883 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
8884 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
8887 ** New modes and packages
8889 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
8890 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
8891 it, but some do not.
8893 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
8896 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
8897 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
8900 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
8902 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
8903 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
8904 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
8905 established system of notation similar to Chess.
8907 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
8908 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
8909 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
8911 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
8912 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
8913 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
8914 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
8915 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
8918 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
8919 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
8921 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
8922 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
8923 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
8924 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
8926 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
8928 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
8929 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
8930 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
8931 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
8932 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
8933 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
8934 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
8935 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
8936 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
8937 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
8938 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
8940 Platform-specific modes:
8942 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
8943 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
8944 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
8945 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
8946 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
8947 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
8948 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
8949 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
8950 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
8952 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
8954 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
8955 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
8956 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
8957 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
8959 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
8960 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
8961 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
8963 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
8964 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
8965 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
8966 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
8968 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
8969 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
8970 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
8973 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
8974 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
8975 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
8976 current input method for reading this one event.
8978 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
8979 now control whether to output certain characters as
8980 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
8981 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
8982 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
8983 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
8985 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
8987 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
8988 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
8990 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
8991 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
8992 always increases point by 1.
8994 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
8995 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
8997 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
8999 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9000 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9001 default value changed. For example,
9003 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9008 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9011 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9012 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9013 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9014 `:version' in the top level group.
9016 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9018 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9019 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9021 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9022 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9023 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9026 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9027 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9030 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9031 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9032 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9034 ** Frame-local variables.
9036 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9037 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9038 local bindings for that variable.
9040 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9041 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9042 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9045 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9046 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9047 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9048 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9050 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9051 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9052 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9053 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9055 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9056 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9057 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9058 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9059 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9061 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9062 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9063 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9064 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9066 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9067 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9069 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9070 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9071 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9073 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9074 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9075 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9076 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9078 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9079 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9082 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9083 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9084 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9085 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9086 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9088 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9089 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9090 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9091 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9093 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9094 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9095 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9096 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9097 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9099 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9100 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9101 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9102 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9104 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9105 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9106 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9108 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9109 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9110 was directed to display this buffer.
9112 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9113 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9114 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9115 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9116 set-window-configuration.
9118 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9119 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9120 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9121 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9123 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9124 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9125 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9127 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9128 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9129 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9131 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9132 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9134 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9135 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9137 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9138 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9139 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9141 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9142 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9143 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9144 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9148 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9149 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9152 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9153 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9154 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9155 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9156 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9158 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9160 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9161 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9162 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9163 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9166 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9167 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9168 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9169 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9170 The supported properties include
9172 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9174 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9175 item should appear in the menu.
9177 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9178 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9179 It should return a binding to use instead.
9181 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9182 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9183 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9184 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9185 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9188 This means that the command normally has no
9189 keyboard equivalent.
9190 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9191 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9192 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9193 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9194 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9196 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9197 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9199 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9203 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9204 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9205 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9206 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9208 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9210 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9211 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9212 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9213 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9214 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9215 forward, away from the user.
9217 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9219 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9220 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9221 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9222 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9223 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9225 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9227 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9228 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9229 that were dragged and dropped.
9231 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9233 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9235 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9236 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9237 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9239 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9240 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9241 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9243 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9244 in Emacs 19 and before.
9246 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9247 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9249 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9250 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9251 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9252 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
9254 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
9255 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
9256 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
9257 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
9258 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
9260 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
9261 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
9262 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
9263 consistent with the new representation.
9265 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
9266 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
9267 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
9268 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9270 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
9271 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
9272 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
9274 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
9275 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
9276 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9278 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
9279 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
9280 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
9282 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9283 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
9285 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9286 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
9288 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
9289 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
9290 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
9291 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
9293 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
9294 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
9296 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
9297 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
9298 buffer or string being searched.
9300 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
9301 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
9302 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
9303 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
9304 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
9305 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
9306 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
9308 *** Structure of coding system changed.
9310 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
9311 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
9312 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
9313 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
9314 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
9315 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
9316 define-coding-system-alias.
9318 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
9319 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
9320 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
9321 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
9322 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
9323 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
9324 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
9327 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
9328 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
9329 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
9330 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
9332 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
9333 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
9334 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
9335 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
9337 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
9338 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
9339 This function requires a user interaction.
9341 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
9342 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
9343 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
9344 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
9345 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
9346 select-safe-coding-system.
9348 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
9349 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
9350 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
9353 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
9354 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
9355 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
9357 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
9358 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
9359 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
9360 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
9362 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
9363 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
9364 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
9367 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
9368 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
9370 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
9371 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
9372 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
9373 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
9374 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
9375 range of characters.
9377 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
9378 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
9380 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
9381 in the current buffer at position POS.
9383 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
9384 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
9385 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
9386 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
9387 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
9388 binding input-method-function to nil.
9390 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
9391 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
9392 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
9393 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
9394 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
9396 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
9397 subsequent events of a key sequence.
9399 *** You can customize any language environment by using
9400 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
9402 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
9403 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
9404 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
9405 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
9406 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
9408 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
9410 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
9411 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
9412 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
9415 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
9416 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
9418 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
9419 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
9420 in your .emacs file.)
9422 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
9423 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
9425 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
9426 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
9428 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
9429 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
9432 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
9433 delete the character before point, as usual.
9435 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
9436 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
9437 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
9439 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
9440 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
9441 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
9442 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
9443 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
9446 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
9447 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
9448 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
9449 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
9450 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
9452 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
9453 and is an alias for it.
9455 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
9456 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
9458 ** Scrolling changes
9460 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
9461 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
9463 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
9464 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
9467 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
9468 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
9469 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
9470 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
9472 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
9473 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
9474 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
9475 recenters the window.
9477 ** International character set support (MULE)
9479 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
9480 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
9481 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
9482 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
9483 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
9484 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
9486 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
9487 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
9488 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
9489 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
9490 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
9492 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
9493 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
9494 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
9495 language, to make it possible to type them.
9497 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
9498 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
9500 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
9501 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
9503 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
9505 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
9507 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
9508 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
9509 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
9510 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
9511 characters for their work until they want to change.
9515 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
9516 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
9517 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
9518 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
9519 support several input methods.
9521 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
9522 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
9525 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
9526 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
9527 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
9528 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
9529 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
9532 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
9533 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
9534 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
9535 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
9536 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
9538 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
9539 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
9540 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
9541 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
9543 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
9544 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
9545 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
9546 the first guess is wrong.
9548 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
9549 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
9551 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
9552 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
9553 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
9554 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
9556 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
9557 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
9558 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
9559 translate automatically to and from either one.
9561 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
9563 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
9564 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
9565 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
9568 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
9569 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
9570 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
9571 multibyte characters in that buffer.
9573 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
9574 character conversion as well.
9576 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
9578 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
9579 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
9580 requires using many fonts.
9582 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
9583 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
9585 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
9586 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
9587 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
9588 you would use a font.
9590 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
9591 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
9592 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
9594 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
9595 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
9598 *** Defining fontsets.
9600 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
9601 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
9602 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
9604 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
9605 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
9606 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
9607 standard fontset are created automatically.
9609 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
9610 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
9611 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
9612 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
9613 name is `fontset-startup'.
9615 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
9616 The resource value should have this form:
9617 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
9618 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
9619 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
9620 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
9621 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
9622 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
9623 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
9624 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
9625 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
9627 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
9628 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
9629 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
9631 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
9632 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
9634 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
9635 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
9636 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
9637 Here is the substitution rule:
9638 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
9639 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
9640 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
9641 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
9642 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
9644 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
9645 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
9646 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
9648 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
9649 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
9650 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
9651 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
9654 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
9655 defaults for a particular choice of language.
9657 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
9658 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
9659 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
9660 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
9661 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
9662 system for new files that you create.
9664 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
9665 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
9666 whole Emacs session.
9668 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
9669 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
9670 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
9672 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
9673 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
9674 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
9675 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
9676 coding systems that Emacs supports.
9678 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
9679 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
9680 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
9681 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
9682 is used for *the immediately following command*.
9684 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
9685 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
9687 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
9688 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
9690 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
9691 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
9693 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
9694 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
9695 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
9696 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
9699 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
9700 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
9701 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
9702 translated into that character code.
9704 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
9705 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
9707 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
9709 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
9710 the coding system for keyboard input.
9712 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
9713 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
9714 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
9716 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
9718 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
9719 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
9720 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
9721 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
9722 designed to work with terminals.
9724 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
9725 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
9726 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
9727 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
9728 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
9729 in the corresponding buffer.
9731 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
9733 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
9734 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
9735 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
9737 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
9738 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
9739 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
9742 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
9743 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
9745 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
9746 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
9747 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
9748 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
9750 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
9751 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
9752 related information.
9754 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
9755 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
9758 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
9759 information about the support for a particular language.
9760 You specify the language as an argument.
9762 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
9763 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
9766 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
9767 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
9768 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
9769 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
9771 A alternativnyj (Russian)
9773 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
9774 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
9775 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
9776 E euc-japan (Japanese)
9777 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
9778 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
9779 K euc-korea (Korean)
9782 S shift_jis (Japanese)
9785 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
9786 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
9787 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
9791 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
9792 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
9793 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
9794 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
9796 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
9797 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
9799 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
9800 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
9801 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
9802 Rmail files themselves.
9804 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
9805 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
9807 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
9810 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
9811 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
9812 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
9813 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
9814 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
9816 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
9817 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
9818 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
9821 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
9822 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
9823 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
9824 without any conversion.
9826 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
9827 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
9828 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
9829 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
9831 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
9832 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
9834 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
9835 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
9837 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
9838 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
9840 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
9841 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
9842 in the buffer before point.
9844 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
9845 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
9848 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
9849 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
9851 ** File locking works with NFS now.
9853 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
9854 in the same directory as FILENAME.
9856 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
9857 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
9858 can become a bottleneck.
9860 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
9861 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
9862 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
9863 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
9864 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
9865 so useful that the change is worth while.
9867 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
9868 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
9869 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
9870 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
9872 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
9873 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
9876 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
9877 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
9878 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
9880 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
9881 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
9882 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
9884 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
9885 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
9886 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
9888 ** Changes in View mode.
9890 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
9891 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
9893 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
9894 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
9896 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
9899 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
9900 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
9902 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
9903 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
9904 not just the selected window.
9906 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
9907 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
9908 turns View mode on or off.
9910 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
9911 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
9912 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
9914 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
9915 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
9917 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
9918 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
9919 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
9920 which version to compare with.
9922 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
9923 blocks if a match is inside the block.
9925 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
9926 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
9927 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
9928 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
9930 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
9931 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
9932 blocks, all of them or none.
9934 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
9935 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
9938 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
9939 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
9940 However, the mode will not be changed if
9941 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
9942 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
9943 not suitable for ordinary files, or
9944 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
9946 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
9948 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
9949 these commands do not change the major mode.
9951 ** M-x occur changes.
9953 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
9954 it performs a case-sensitive search.
9956 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
9957 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
9958 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
9960 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
9961 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
9962 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
9963 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
9964 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
9966 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
9967 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
9968 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
9969 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
9971 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
9972 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
9973 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
9975 ** Outline mode changes.
9977 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
9979 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
9981 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
9982 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
9983 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
9986 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
9987 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
9990 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
9991 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
9993 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
9995 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
9996 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
9997 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
9998 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10000 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10001 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10002 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10004 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10005 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10008 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10009 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10010 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10011 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10013 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10014 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10015 can be. The default value is 30.
10017 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10019 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10020 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10021 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10022 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10023 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10026 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10027 compose-mail-other-frame.
10029 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10030 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10031 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10032 buffer that shows the original message.
10034 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10035 with separator lines around the contents.
10037 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10038 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10039 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10040 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10042 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10044 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10045 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10046 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10047 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10049 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10050 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10053 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10054 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10057 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10058 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10059 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10060 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10062 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10063 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10064 be taken to be magic.
10066 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10067 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10068 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10070 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10071 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10073 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10074 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10076 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10078 new key dired.el binding old key
10079 ------- ---------------- -------
10080 * c dired-change-marks c
10082 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10083 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10084 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10086 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10087 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10088 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10089 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10090 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10091 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10095 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10096 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10097 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10098 each time you run it.
10100 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10101 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10103 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10104 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10105 means to move in the opposite direction.
10107 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10108 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10110 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10111 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10112 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10113 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10118 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10120 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10123 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10124 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10126 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10129 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10131 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10133 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10135 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10136 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10137 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10139 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10141 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10143 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10144 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10146 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10147 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10148 used to pick articles.
10150 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10151 another have been added.
10153 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10155 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10156 generating lines in buffers.
10158 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10161 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10163 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10165 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10167 *** Scores can be decayed.
10169 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10171 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10172 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10174 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10177 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10179 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10180 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10182 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10184 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10185 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10187 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10188 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10190 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10193 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10194 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10196 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10198 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10200 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10202 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10204 Use the `Y c' command.
10206 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10208 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10210 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10212 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10213 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10215 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10217 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10219 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10220 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10222 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10224 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10225 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10226 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10227 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10230 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10231 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10232 particular news group. This can be done by:
10234 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10236 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10237 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10238 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10239 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10240 for reading and posting).
10242 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10243 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10244 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10245 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10248 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10249 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10251 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10252 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10253 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
10254 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
10255 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
10257 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
10258 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
10260 ** CC mode changes.
10262 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
10263 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
10264 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
10265 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
10266 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
10269 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
10270 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
10271 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
10272 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
10273 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
10274 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
10276 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
10277 of the current buffer.
10279 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
10280 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
10281 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
10283 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
10284 style that the Python developers like.
10286 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
10287 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
10288 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
10290 ** VC Changes [new]
10292 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
10293 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
10294 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
10296 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
10297 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
10300 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
10301 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
10303 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
10304 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
10305 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
10306 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
10308 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
10309 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
10311 ** Calendar changes.
10313 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
10314 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
10315 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
10316 following/previous years.
10318 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
10319 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
10320 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
10321 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
10322 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
10323 supposed attribute of God.
10325 ** ps-print changes
10327 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
10330 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
10332 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
10333 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
10334 printer system has this behavior, set variable
10335 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
10337 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
10338 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
10339 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
10341 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
10342 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
10344 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
10345 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
10346 printing for your printer.
10348 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
10349 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10351 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
10352 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10354 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
10355 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
10356 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
10357 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
10358 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
10359 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
10360 The default value is nil.
10362 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
10363 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
10365 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
10366 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
10367 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
10368 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
10369 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
10370 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
10371 color). The default is 0 ("black").
10373 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
10374 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
10376 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
10377 The default is 0 ("black").
10379 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
10380 The default is 0 ("black").
10382 border-width Specify the border width.
10383 The default is 0.4.
10385 Any other property is ignored.
10387 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
10388 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
10391 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
10392 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
10393 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
10394 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
10395 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
10396 controlling headers.
10398 *** Color management (subgroup)
10400 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
10403 *** Face Management (subgroup)
10405 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
10406 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
10407 background should be used. Valid values are:
10409 t always use face background color.
10410 nil never use face background color.
10411 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
10413 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
10415 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
10418 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
10419 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
10421 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
10424 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
10425 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
10426 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
10428 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
10432 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
10436 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
10440 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
10444 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
10446 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
10448 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
10451 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
10452 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
10453 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
10455 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
10456 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10457 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10458 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10459 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10463 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10464 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10465 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10468 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10469 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10470 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
10471 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
10472 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
10473 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10474 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10475 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10476 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
10477 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
10478 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
10481 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10483 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
10486 *** Printer management (subgroup)
10488 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
10489 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
10490 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
10491 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
10494 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
10495 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
10496 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
10498 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
10499 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
10502 *** Page settings (subgroup)
10504 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
10505 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
10506 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
10507 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
10508 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
10509 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
10512 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
10513 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
10514 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
10516 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
10517 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
10518 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
10519 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
10520 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
10521 its TO, are ignored.
10523 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
10524 pages. Valid values are:
10526 nil print all pages.
10528 `even-page' print only even pages.
10530 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
10532 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
10533 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10534 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
10535 print only the even sheet of paper.
10537 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
10538 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10539 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
10540 only the odd sheet of paper.
10542 Any other value is treated as nil.
10544 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
10545 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
10546 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
10548 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
10550 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
10551 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
10553 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
10554 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10555 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
10556 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10557 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10558 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10559 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10561 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
10562 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10563 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
10564 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
10565 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
10566 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
10567 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
10569 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
10571 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
10572 messages should be sent.
10574 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
10575 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
10576 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
10578 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
10580 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
10581 points for line numbers.
10583 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
10584 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
10586 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
10587 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
10588 to 2, the printing will look like:
10600 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
10601 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
10604 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
10605 zebra stripe is to be printed.
10607 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
10609 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
10610 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
10611 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
10612 3, the output will look like:
10626 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
10627 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
10629 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
10630 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10633 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
10634 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10637 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
10639 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
10640 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
10642 ** hideshow changes.
10644 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
10647 *** Support for java-mode added.
10649 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
10650 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
10652 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
10653 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
10654 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
10656 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
10657 robust and a lot faster.
10659 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
10661 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
10662 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
10663 documentation for more details.
10665 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
10667 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
10668 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
10669 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
10670 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
10671 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
10673 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
10674 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
10675 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
10676 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
10682 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
10683 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
10684 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
10685 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
10686 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
10687 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
10689 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
10691 *** Maximum decoration
10693 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
10694 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
10695 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
10696 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
10697 to get the old behavior.
10701 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
10703 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
10704 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
10706 *** Configurable support
10708 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
10709 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
10710 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
10711 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
10712 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
10713 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
10714 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
10716 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
10717 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
10718 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
10720 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
10722 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
10723 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
10726 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
10728 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
10734 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
10735 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
10736 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
10737 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
10739 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
10741 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
10742 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
10743 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
10745 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
10747 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
10748 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
10749 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
10750 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
10751 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
10752 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
10753 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
10755 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
10756 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
10757 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
10758 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
10759 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
10760 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
10762 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
10764 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
10765 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
10766 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
10767 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
10769 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
10772 ** Ada mode changes.
10774 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
10775 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
10776 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
10777 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
10780 *** There are two new commands:
10781 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
10782 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
10784 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
10785 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
10786 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
10788 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
10789 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
10790 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
10792 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
10793 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
10794 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
10795 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
10797 ** Scheme mode changes.
10799 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
10800 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
10801 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
10802 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
10805 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
10806 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
10807 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
10808 variables as buffer-local variables.
10810 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
10811 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
10813 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
10815 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
10816 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
10817 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
10818 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
10820 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
10821 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
10824 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
10825 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
10826 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
10827 option takes precedence.
10829 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
10830 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
10831 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
10833 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
10834 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
10837 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
10838 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
10840 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
10841 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
10844 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
10845 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
10846 these register values no longer become completely useless.
10847 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
10848 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
10849 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
10851 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
10852 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
10853 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
10854 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
10856 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
10857 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
10858 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
10859 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
10860 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
10862 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
10863 since it applies only to the current frame.
10865 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
10866 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
10867 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
10869 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
10870 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
10871 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
10872 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
10873 instead of just the file you are editing.
10877 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
10878 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
10879 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
10880 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
10881 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
10884 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
10885 knows which kind of label is needed.
10887 C-c ) reftex-reference
10888 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
10889 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
10891 C-c [ reftex-citation
10892 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
10893 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
10895 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
10896 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
10899 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
10900 can quickly jump to every section.
10902 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
10903 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
10904 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
10905 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
10906 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
10908 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
10910 *** Info documentation is now available.
10912 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
10913 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
10915 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
10916 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
10918 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
10919 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
10921 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
10922 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
10923 appropriate functions.
10925 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
10926 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
10928 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
10931 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
10932 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
10934 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
10935 shall be delimited.
10937 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
10938 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
10939 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
10941 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
10942 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
10943 prefixed with `ALT'.
10945 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
10946 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
10947 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
10950 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
10951 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
10952 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
10954 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
10955 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
10957 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
10958 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
10959 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
10961 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
10963 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
10965 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
10966 from alien sources.
10968 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
10969 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
10972 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
10975 *** Added support for imenu.
10977 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
10978 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
10979 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
10980 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
10982 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
10983 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
10985 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
10987 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
10989 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
10990 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
10991 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
10994 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
10995 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
10997 ** browse-url changes
10999 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11000 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11001 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11002 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11003 customization variables.
11005 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11007 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11008 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11009 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11011 ** Changes in Ediff
11013 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11014 pops up the Info file for this command.
11016 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11017 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11018 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11021 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11022 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11023 files in the same directory.
11025 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11026 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11027 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11029 ** Changes in Viper
11031 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11032 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11034 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11035 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11036 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11037 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11038 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11039 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11040 color when Viper is in insert state.
11041 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11042 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11043 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11047 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11048 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11049 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11050 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11051 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11053 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11055 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11056 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11058 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11059 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11060 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11062 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11063 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11064 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11065 methods and protocols.
11067 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11068 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11069 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11072 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11073 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11074 at least M times and as many as N times.
11076 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11077 in files has changed slightly.
11079 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11080 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11081 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11082 with old time-stamp-format values.
11084 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11085 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11086 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11089 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11090 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11091 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11092 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11093 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11094 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11096 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11097 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11098 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11100 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11101 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11102 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11103 recommended now will continue to work then.
11105 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11108 ** There are some additional major modes:
11110 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11111 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11112 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11114 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11115 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11118 ** New Lisp packages include:
11120 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11122 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11123 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11125 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11127 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11130 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11131 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11134 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11135 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11136 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11137 strings or comments.
11139 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11140 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11141 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11142 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11145 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11146 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11148 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11149 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11151 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11153 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11154 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11156 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11158 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11160 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11162 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11163 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11165 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11166 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11167 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11168 original place after inserting the copy.
11170 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11173 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11174 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11175 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11177 Enable mouse-drag with:
11178 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11180 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11182 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11183 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11185 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11186 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11190 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11191 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11192 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11193 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11194 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11195 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11196 instance) and vice versa.
11198 To use this package load it using
11199 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11200 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11201 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11202 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11203 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11204 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11206 *** Interface to ph.
11208 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11210 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11211 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11214 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11216 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11217 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11218 while the real cursor does not move.
11220 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11221 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11223 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11224 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11228 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11229 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11230 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11231 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11233 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11235 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11237 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11239 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11240 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11241 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11242 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11243 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11245 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11246 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11247 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11248 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11249 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11250 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11252 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
11254 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
11255 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
11256 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
11257 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
11259 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
11260 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
11262 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
11263 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
11266 ** Basic Lisp changes
11268 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
11269 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
11271 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
11272 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
11275 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
11277 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
11279 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
11280 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
11282 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
11283 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
11286 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
11288 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
11290 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
11292 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
11293 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
11294 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
11297 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
11298 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
11299 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
11301 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
11302 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
11303 adding one of these suffixes.
11305 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
11306 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
11307 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
11309 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
11310 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
11312 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
11314 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
11315 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
11317 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
11318 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
11320 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
11322 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
11323 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
11325 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
11326 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
11327 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
11328 works using `save-current-buffer'.
11330 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
11331 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
11334 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
11335 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
11336 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
11339 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
11340 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
11343 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
11345 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
11346 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
11347 Then it returns that string.
11349 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
11351 (with-output-to-string
11352 (princ "The buffer is ")
11353 (princ (buffer-name)))
11355 returns "The buffer is foo".
11357 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
11360 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
11361 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
11362 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
11364 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
11365 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
11367 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
11368 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
11369 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
11370 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
11371 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
11372 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
11374 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
11375 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
11376 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
11379 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
11380 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
11381 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
11382 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
11383 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
11385 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
11386 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
11387 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
11388 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
11390 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
11391 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
11393 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
11395 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
11396 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
11397 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
11398 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
11401 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
11402 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
11405 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
11407 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
11408 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
11409 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
11410 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
11411 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
11413 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
11415 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
11416 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
11417 more than the number of characters.
11419 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
11420 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
11421 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
11422 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
11423 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
11424 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
11426 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
11427 and returns a string containing those characters.
11429 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
11430 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
11431 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
11432 character, sref signals an error.
11434 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
11435 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
11436 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11438 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
11439 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
11440 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11442 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
11443 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
11444 to a vector of the characters in it.
11446 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
11447 of a string. You call it as follows:
11449 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
11451 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
11452 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
11453 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
11454 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
11455 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
11457 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
11458 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11460 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
11461 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11463 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
11464 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
11465 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
11466 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
11468 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
11470 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
11472 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
11473 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
11474 are not included in the resulting value.
11476 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
11477 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
11478 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
11479 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
11481 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
11482 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
11483 character extends across that column), then the padding character
11484 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
11485 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
11486 column START-COLUMN.
11488 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
11489 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
11490 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
11491 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
11492 changed text, before the change.
11494 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
11495 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
11496 one character set for each script, not for each language.
11498 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
11500 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
11502 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
11503 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
11505 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
11506 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
11507 which identify the character within that character set.
11509 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
11510 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
11511 opposite of split-char.
11513 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
11514 of all the characters between BEG and END.
11516 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
11517 of all the characters in a string.
11519 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
11520 and specifying coding systems.
11522 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
11523 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
11524 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
11525 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
11526 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
11527 as what to do about code conversion.)
11529 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
11530 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
11532 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11533 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11534 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
11536 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11537 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
11538 to match against a file name.
11540 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11541 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11542 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11543 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11544 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11545 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11547 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11548 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11550 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
11551 the coding system to use for network sockets.
11553 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11554 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
11555 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
11558 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11559 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11560 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11561 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11562 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11563 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11565 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11566 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11568 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11569 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11570 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
11571 start the subprocess.
11573 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
11574 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
11575 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
11576 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
11577 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
11579 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
11580 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
11583 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
11584 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
11585 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
11586 connection permanently or until overridden.
11588 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
11589 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
11590 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
11591 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
11592 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
11593 system for one operation at a time.
11595 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
11596 files, subprocesses or network connections.
11598 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
11599 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
11600 The value is a cons cell,
11601 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
11602 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
11603 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
11604 input to the subprocess.
11606 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
11607 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
11609 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
11610 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
11611 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
11613 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
11614 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
11615 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
11616 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
11619 Thus, instead of writing
11621 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
11622 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
11624 you would now write this:
11626 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
11627 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
11631 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
11632 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
11633 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
11634 for a description of them.
11636 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
11637 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
11639 (defgroup ispell nil
11640 "Spell checking using Ispell."
11643 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
11644 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
11645 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
11646 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
11647 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
11649 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
11650 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
11651 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
11652 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
11653 first-level subgroups.
11655 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
11657 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
11658 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
11662 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
11663 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
11664 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
11665 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
11666 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
11667 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
11669 ** Text property changes
11671 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
11674 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
11675 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
11676 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
11677 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
11678 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
11680 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
11681 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
11682 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
11683 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
11685 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
11686 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
11687 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
11689 ** Changes in invisibility features
11691 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
11692 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
11693 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
11694 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
11695 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
11696 make the overlay visible.
11698 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
11699 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
11700 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
11701 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
11702 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
11703 t when it should hide it.
11705 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
11707 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
11708 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
11709 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
11710 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
11711 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
11712 Here is an example of how to do this:
11714 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
11715 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11716 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
11717 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11720 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
11723 ;; When done with the overlays:
11724 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11725 ;; Or respectively:
11726 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11728 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
11730 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
11731 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
11732 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
11733 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
11735 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
11736 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
11737 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
11739 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
11740 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
11742 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
11743 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
11745 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
11746 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
11747 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
11749 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
11750 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
11751 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
11752 determine the syntax type of the character.
11754 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
11755 of the current buffer.
11757 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
11758 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
11759 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
11761 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
11762 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
11763 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
11764 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
11765 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
11767 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
11770 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
11771 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
11772 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
11774 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
11775 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
11776 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
11777 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
11778 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
11780 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
11781 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
11782 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
11784 ** Changes in face features
11786 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
11787 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
11789 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
11790 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
11792 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
11793 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
11795 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
11796 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
11798 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
11799 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
11800 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
11801 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
11804 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
11805 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
11807 ** Changes in file-handling functions
11809 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
11810 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
11811 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
11812 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
11814 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
11817 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
11818 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
11820 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
11821 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
11823 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
11824 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
11826 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
11827 character code conversion as well as other things.
11829 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
11830 (formerly it did not).
11832 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
11833 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
11835 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
11836 instead of constant strings.
11838 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
11839 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
11840 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
11842 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
11843 in the same way as before.
11845 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
11846 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
11847 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
11849 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
11850 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
11851 else, and returns nil.
11853 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
11854 directory cannot be listed.
11856 ** Changes in minibuffer input
11858 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
11859 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
11860 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
11861 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
11864 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
11865 It is available through the history command M-n.
11867 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
11868 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
11869 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
11870 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
11871 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
11873 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
11874 argument in this way.
11876 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
11877 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
11878 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
11880 ** Echo area features
11882 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
11883 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
11884 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
11885 after the echo area is cleared.
11887 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
11888 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
11890 ** Keyboard input features
11892 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
11893 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
11895 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
11896 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
11897 by keyboard macros.
11899 ** Frame-related changes
11901 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
11902 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
11903 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
11905 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
11906 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
11907 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
11909 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
11910 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
11911 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
11912 in the selected frame.
11914 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
11915 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
11916 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
11918 ** X Windows features
11920 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
11921 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
11922 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
11924 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
11925 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
11927 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
11928 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
11929 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
11931 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
11932 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
11934 ** Subprocess features
11936 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
11937 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
11940 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
11941 and returns the output from the command as a string.
11943 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
11944 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
11946 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
11947 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
11949 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
11950 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
11951 goes after the other menu items.
11953 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
11954 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
11955 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
11958 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
11959 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
11961 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
11962 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
11965 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
11966 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
11967 but its hook is still run.
11969 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
11970 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
11972 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
11973 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
11974 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
11976 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
11977 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
11978 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
11981 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
11982 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
11984 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
11985 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
11986 functions like display-time.
11988 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
11989 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
11991 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
11992 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
11993 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
11995 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
11996 if there is an error in compilation.
11998 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
11999 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12000 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12001 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12003 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12004 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12005 the *scratch* buffer.
12007 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12008 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12009 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12010 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12012 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12013 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12014 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12016 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12017 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12018 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12019 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12021 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12022 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12023 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12025 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12026 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12027 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12028 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12029 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12032 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12033 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12034 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12035 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12037 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12038 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12039 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12040 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12042 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12044 ** imenu.el changes.
12046 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12047 item from menu created by imenu.
12049 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12050 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12051 select one of those items.
12053 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12055 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12056 Copyright information:
12058 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12060 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12061 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12062 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12063 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12065 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12066 of this document, or of portions of it,
12067 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12068 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12072 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"