1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 1992.
3 Copyright (C) 1993-1995, 2001, 2006-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
7 This file is about changes in emacs versions 19.
11 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
15 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
17 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
18 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
20 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
21 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
22 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
26 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
28 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
29 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
31 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
32 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
33 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
34 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
35 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
38 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
39 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
41 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
42 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
43 as in previous Emacs versions.
45 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
46 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
47 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
50 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
51 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
52 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
53 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
56 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
57 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
58 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
59 line and then executing the macro.
61 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
63 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
64 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
65 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
70 *** Font Lock support modes
72 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
73 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
74 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
75 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
76 Font Lock mode is enabled.
78 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
80 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
86 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
87 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
88 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
89 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
90 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
91 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
92 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
94 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
96 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
98 To control the package behavior, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
100 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
102 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
105 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
110 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
111 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
112 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
113 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
115 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
116 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
118 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
119 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
122 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
123 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
125 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
127 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
129 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
131 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
134 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
136 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
138 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
140 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
142 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
145 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
147 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
149 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
151 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
153 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
155 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
157 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
159 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
162 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
164 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
167 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
169 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
170 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
172 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
174 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
176 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
178 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
180 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
183 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
185 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
186 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
188 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
189 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
190 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
192 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
193 articles with the `*' command.
195 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
197 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
199 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
201 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
203 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
204 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
206 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
209 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
211 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
213 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
215 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
217 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
219 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
221 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
223 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
225 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
227 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
228 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
230 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
233 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
235 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
236 buffer to allow easier treatment.
238 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
240 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
242 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
244 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
247 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
249 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
251 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
252 cited text to hide is now customizable.
254 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
256 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
258 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
260 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
262 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
264 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
268 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
270 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
271 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
272 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
275 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
278 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
281 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
282 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
285 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
286 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
287 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
288 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
289 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
294 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
296 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
298 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
299 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
300 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
301 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
302 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
304 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
305 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
306 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
308 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
310 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
311 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
312 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
313 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
314 chapter of the manual for details.
316 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
317 customization variables take effect.
319 ** Marking with the mouse.
321 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
322 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
323 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
325 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
327 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
329 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
330 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
332 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
333 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
334 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
335 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
336 applications, these problems are significant.
338 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
339 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
340 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
341 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
342 other DOS application as a subprocess.
344 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
345 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
347 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
348 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
349 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
350 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
351 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
352 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
354 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
356 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
357 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
360 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
362 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
363 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
364 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
365 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
367 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
368 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
369 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
370 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
372 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
373 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
375 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
376 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
377 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
379 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
380 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
381 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
382 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
384 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
386 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
387 to replace the characters it "deletes".
389 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
391 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
392 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
393 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
394 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
395 immediately after the selected one.
397 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
398 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
400 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
402 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
403 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
404 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
405 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
408 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
409 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
412 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
413 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
414 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
415 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
416 now that the bug is fixed.
418 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
420 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
421 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
422 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
423 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
425 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
426 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
427 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
428 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
430 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
431 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
432 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
434 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
435 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
436 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
437 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
440 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
441 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
443 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
444 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
445 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
446 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
448 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
449 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
450 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
451 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
452 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
453 `mail-directory-stream'.)
455 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
456 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
457 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
458 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
460 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
461 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
462 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
464 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
465 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
466 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
467 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
468 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
469 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
470 to a limitation in font-lock).
472 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
474 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
475 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
476 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
479 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
480 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
482 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
484 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
486 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
488 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
490 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
491 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
492 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
493 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
494 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
495 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
497 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
500 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
501 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
503 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
508 *** Global Font Lock mode
510 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
511 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
512 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
513 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
514 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
516 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
518 (global-font-lock-mode t)
522 *** Local Refontification
524 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
525 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
526 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
527 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
529 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
530 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
531 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
532 above and below point.
534 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
538 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
539 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
540 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
541 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
542 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
545 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
547 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
548 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
550 ** hide-show changes.
552 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
553 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
556 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
557 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
559 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
560 recognized by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
561 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
565 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
566 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
568 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
569 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
571 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
573 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
574 pressing both mouse buttons.
576 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
577 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
580 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
583 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
585 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
586 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
588 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
590 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
592 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
594 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
596 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
599 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
601 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
602 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
603 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
604 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
605 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
607 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
609 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
610 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
611 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
614 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
617 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
619 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
620 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
622 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
623 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
625 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
626 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
627 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
629 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
630 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
633 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
635 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
636 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
637 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
639 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
640 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
641 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
643 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
644 up if too much time passes.
646 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
648 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
649 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
650 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
653 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
654 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
655 call looks like this:
657 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
659 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
660 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
661 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
664 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
665 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
668 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
669 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
670 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
671 each time Emacs becomes idle.
673 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
674 idle for SECS seconds.
676 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
677 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
678 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
681 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
682 there is no answer within a certain time.
684 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
686 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
687 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
688 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
690 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
691 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
692 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
693 arguments in between are ignored.
695 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
696 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
698 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
699 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
700 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
701 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
704 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
705 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
706 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
707 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
708 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
709 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
711 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
712 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
713 systems with limited file name syntax.
715 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
716 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
717 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
720 (defvar save-completions-file-name
721 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
722 "*The filename to save completions to.")
724 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
725 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
726 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
727 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
728 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
730 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
731 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
732 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
734 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
735 marker from its buffer position.
737 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
738 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
739 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
741 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
742 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
743 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
744 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
745 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
746 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
748 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
749 errors that happen often during editing.
751 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
752 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
753 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
755 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
756 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
758 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
759 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
760 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
761 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
762 and not get-buffer-window.
764 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
765 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
766 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
768 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
769 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
770 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
771 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
772 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
773 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
774 over and over for the same text.
776 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
778 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
779 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
784 in addition to the normal
788 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
789 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
790 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
794 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.30.
796 ** Be sure to recompile your byte-compiled Emacs Lisp files
797 if you last compiled them with Emacs 19.28 or earlier.
798 You can use M-x byte-force-recompile to recompile all the .elc files
799 in a specified directory.
801 ** Emacs now provides multiple-frame support on Windows NT
804 ** M-x column-number-mode toggles a minor mode which displays
805 the current column number in the mode line.
807 ** Line Number mode is now enabled by default.
809 ** M-x what-line now displays the line number in the accessible
810 portion of the buffer as well as the line number in the full buffer,
811 when narrowing is in effect.
813 ** If you type a M-x command that has an equivalent key binding,
814 the equivalent is shown in the minibuffer before the command executes.
815 This feature is enabled by default for the sake of beginning users.
816 You can turn the feature off by setting suggest-key-bindings to nil.
818 ** The menu bar is now visible on text-only terminals. To choose a
819 command from the menu bar when you have no mouse, type M-`
820 (Meta-Backquote) or F10. To turn off menu bar display,
821 do (menu-bar-mode -1).
823 ** Whenever you invoke a minibuffer, it appears in the minibuffer
824 window that the current frame uses.
826 Emacs can only use one minibuffer window at a time. If you activate
827 the minibuffer while a minibuffer window is active in some other
828 frame, the outer minibuffer window disappears while the inner one is
831 ** Echo area messages always appear in the minibuffer window that the
832 current frame uses. If a minibuffer is active in some other frame,
833 the echo area message does not hide it even temporarily.
835 ** The minibuffer now has a menu-bar menu. You can use it to exit or
836 abort the minibuffer, or to ask for completion.
838 ** Dead-key and composite character processing is done in the standard
839 X11R6 manner (through the default "input method" using the
840 /usr/lib/X11/locale/*/Compose databases of key combinations). I.e. if
841 it works in xterm, it should also work in emacs now.
845 *** You can now use the mouse when running Emacs in an xterm.
846 Use M-x xterm-mouse-mode to let emacs take control over the mouse.
848 *** C-mouse-1 now once again provides a menu of buffers to select.
849 S-mouse-1 is now the way to select a default font for the frame.
851 *** There is a new mouse-scroll-min-lines variable to control the
852 minimum number of lines scrolled by dragging the mouse outside a
855 *** Dragging mouse-1 on a vertical line that separates windows
856 now moves the line, thus changing the widths of the two windows.
857 (This feature is available only if you don't have vertical scroll bars.
858 If you do use them, a scroll bar separates two side-by-side windows.)
860 *** Double-click mouse-1 on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as
861 underscore, in C mode) selects the entire symbol surrounding that
862 character. (Double-click mouse-1 on a letter selects a whole word.)
864 ** When incremental search wraps around to the beginning (or end) of
865 the buffer, if you keep on searching until you go past the original
866 starting point of the search, the echo area changes from "Wrapped" to
867 "Overwrapped". That tells you that you are revisiting matches that
868 you have already seen.
872 *** If the variable colon-double-space is non-nil, the explicit fill
873 commands put two spaces after a colon.
875 *** Auto-Fill mode now supports Adaptive Fill mode just as the
876 explicit fill commands do. The variable adaptive-fill-regexp
877 specifies a regular expression to match text at the beginning of
878 a line that should be the fill prefix.
880 *** Adaptive Fill mode can take a fill prefix from the first line of a
881 paragraph, *provided* that line is not a paragraph-starter line.
883 Paragraph-starter lines are indented lines that start a new
884 paragraph because they are indented. This indentation shouldn't
885 be copied to additional lines.
887 Whether indented lines are paragraph lines depends on the value of the
888 variable paragraph-start. Some major modes set this; you can set it
889 by hand or in mode hooks as well. For editing text in which paragraph
890 first lines are not indented, and which contains paragraphs in which
891 all lines are indented, you should use Indented Text mode or arrange
892 for paragraph-start not to match these lines.
894 *** You can specify more complex ways of choosing a fill prefix
895 automatically by setting `adaptive-fill-function'. This function
896 is called with point after the left margin of a line, and it should
897 return the appropriate fill prefix based on that line.
898 If it returns nil, that means it sees no fill prefix in that line.
902 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has been rewritten and expanded. Most
903 things that worked with the old version should still work with the new
904 version. Code that relies heavily on Gnus internals is likely to
907 *** Incompatibilities with the old GNUS.
909 **** All interactive commands have kept their names, but many internal
910 functions have changed names.
912 **** The summary mode gnus-uu commands have been moved from the `C-c
913 C-v' keymap to the `X' keymap.
915 **** There can now be several summary buffers active at once.
916 Variables that are relevant to each summary buffer are buffer-local to
919 **** Old hilit code doesn't work at all. Gnus performs its own
920 highlighting based not only on what's visible in the buffer, but on
921 other data structures.
923 **** Old packages like `expire-kill' will no longer work.
925 **** `C-c C-l' in the group buffer no longer switches to a different
926 buffer, but instead lists killed groups in the group buffer.
930 **** The look of all buffers can be changed by setting format-like
933 **** Local spool and several NNTP servers can be used at once.
935 **** Groups can be combined into virtual groups.
937 **** Different mail formats can be read much the same way as one would
938 read newsgroups. All the mail backends implement mail expiry schemes.
940 **** Gnus can use various strategies for gathering threads that have
941 lost their roots (thereby gathering loose sub-threads into one thread)
942 or it can go back and retrieve enough headers to build a complete
945 **** Killed groups can be read.
947 **** Gnus can do partial group updates - you do not have to retrieve
948 the entire active file just to check for new articles in a few groups.
950 **** Gnus implements a sliding scale of subscribedness to groups.
952 **** You can score articles according to any number of criteria. You
953 can get Gnus to score articles for you using adaptive scoring.
955 **** Gnus maintains a dribble buffer that is auto-saved the normal
956 Emacs manner, so it should be difficult to lose much data on what you
957 have read if your machine should go down.
959 **** Gnus now has its own startup file (`.gnus.el') to avoid
960 cluttering up the `.emacs' file.
962 **** You can set the process mark on both groups and articles and
963 perform operations on all the marked items.
965 **** You can grep through a subset of groups and create a group from
968 **** You can list subsets of groups using matches on group names or
971 **** You can browse foreign servers and subscribe to groups from those
974 **** Gnus can pre-fetch articles asynchronously on a second connection
977 **** You can cache articles locally.
979 **** Gnus can fetch FAQs to and descriptions of groups.
981 **** Digests (and other files) can be used as the basis for groups.
983 **** Articles can be highlighted and customized.
985 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
987 *** General changes (all backends).
989 VC directory listings (C-x v d) are now kept up to date when you do a
990 vc-next-action (C-x v v) on the marked files. The `g' command updates
991 the buffer properly. `=' in a VC dired buffer produces a version
992 control diff, not an ordinary diff.
996 Under CVS, you no longer need to type C-x C-q before you can edit a
997 file. VC doesn't write-protect unmodified buffers anymore; you can
998 freely change them at any time. The mode line keeps track of the
1001 If you do want unmodified files to be write-protected, set your
1002 CVSREAD environment variable. VC sees this and behaves accordingly;
1003 that will give you the behavior of Emacs 19.29, similar to that under
1004 RCS and SCCS. In this mode, if the variable vc-mistrust-permissions
1005 is nil, VC learns the modification state from the file permissions.
1006 When setting CVSREAD for the first time, you should check out the
1007 whole module anew, so that the file permissions are set correctly.
1009 VC also works with remote repositories now. When you visit a file, it
1010 doesn't run "cvs status" anymore, so there shouldn't be any long delays.
1012 Directory listings under VC/CVS have been enhanced. Type C-x v d, and
1013 you get a list of all files in or below the current directory that are
1014 not up-to-date. The actual status (modified, merge, conflict, ...) is
1015 displayed for each file. If you give a prefix argument (C-u C-x v d),
1016 up-to-date files are also listed. You can mark any number of files,
1017 and execute the next logical version control command on them (C-x v v).
1019 *** Starting a new branch.
1021 If you try to lock a version that is not the latest on its branch,
1022 VC asks for confirmation in the minibuffer. If you say no, it offers
1023 to lock the latest version instead.
1025 *** RCS non-strict locking.
1027 VC can now handle RCS non-strict locking, too. In this mode, working
1028 files are always writable and you needn't lock the file before making
1029 changes, similar to the default mode under CVS. To enable non-strict
1030 locking for a file, use the "rcs -U" command.
1032 *** Sharing RCS master files.
1034 If you share RCS subdirs with other users (through symbolic links),
1035 and you always want to work on the latest version, set
1036 vc-consult-headers to nil and vc-mistrust-permissions to `t'.
1037 Then you see the state of the *latest* version on the mode line, not
1038 that of your working file. When you do a check out, VC overwrites
1039 your working file with the latest version from the master.
1041 *** RCS customization.
1043 There is a new variable vc-consult-headers. If it is t (the default),
1044 VC searches for RCS headers in working files (like `$Id$') and
1045 determines the state of the file from them, not from the master file.
1046 This is fast and more reliable when you use branches. (The variable
1047 was already present in Emacs 19.29, but didn't get mentioned in the
1050 ** Calendar changes.
1052 *** New calendars supported: Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic
1054 Here are the commands for converting to and from these calendars:
1056 gC: calendar-goto-chinese-date
1057 gk: calendar-goto-coptic-date
1058 ge: calendar-goto-ethiopic-date
1060 pC: calendar-print-chinese-date
1061 pk: calendar-print-coptic-date
1062 pe: calendar-print-ethiopic-date
1064 *** Printed calendars
1066 Calendar mode now has commands to produce fancy printed calendars via
1067 LaTeX. You can ask for a calendar for one or more days, weeks, months
1068 or years. The commands all start with `t'; see the manual for a list
1071 *** New sexp diary entry type
1073 Reminders that apply in the days leading up to an event.
1075 ** The CC-mode package now provides the default C and C++ modes.
1076 See the manual for documentation of its features.
1078 ** The uniquify package chooses buffer names differently when you
1079 visit multiple files with the same name (in different directories).
1081 ** RMAIL now always uses the movemail program when it renames an
1082 inbox file, so that it can interlock properly with the mailer
1083 no matter where it is delivering mail.
1085 ** tex-start-of-header and tex-end-of-header are now regular expressions,
1088 ** To enable automatic uncompression of compressed files,
1089 type M-x auto-compression-mode. (This command used to be called
1090 toggle-auto-compression, but was not documented before.) In Lisp,
1093 (auto-compression-mode 1)
1095 to turn the mode on.
1097 ** The new pc-select package emulates the key bindings for cutting and
1098 pasting, and selection of regions, found in Windows, Motif, and the
1101 ** Help buffers now use a special major mode, Help mode. This mode
1102 normally turns on View mode; it also provides a hook, help-mode-hook,
1103 which you can use for other customization.
1105 ** Apropos now uses faces for enhanced legibility. It now describes
1106 symbol properties as well as their function definitions and variable
1107 values. You can use Mouse-2 or RET to get more information about a
1108 function definition, variable, or property.
1112 *** Supports Scheme, TCL and Help modes
1114 For example, to automatically turn on Font Lock mode in the *Help*
1117 (add-hook 'help-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
1121 *** Enhanced fontification
1123 The structure of font-lock-keywords is extended to allow "anchored" keywords.
1124 Typically, a keyword item of font-lock-keywords comprises a regexp to search
1125 for and information to specify how the regexp should be highlighted. However,
1126 the highlighting information is extended so that it can be another keyword
1127 item. This keyword item, its regexp and highlighting information, is processed
1128 before resuming with the keyword item of which it is part.
1130 For example, a typical keyword item might be:
1132 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face))
1134 which fontifies each occurrence of the discrete word "anchor" in the value of
1135 the variable anchor-face. However, the highlighting information can be used to
1136 fontify text that is anchored to the word "anchor". For example:
1138 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face) ("\\=[ ,]*\\(item\\)" nil nil (1 item-face)))
1140 which fontifies each occurrence of "anchor" as above, but for each occurrence
1141 of "anchor", each occurrence of "item", in any following comma separated list,
1142 is fontified in the value of the variable item-face. Thus the "item" text is
1143 anchored to the "anchor" text. See the variable documentation for further
1146 This feature is used to extend the level and quality of fontification in a
1147 number of modes. For example, C/C++ modes now have level 3 decoration that
1148 includes the fontification of variable and function names in declaration lists.
1149 In this instance, the "anchor" described in the above example is a type or
1150 class name, and an "item" is a variable or function name.
1152 *** Fontification levels
1154 The variables font-lock-maximum-decoration and font-lock-maximum-size are
1155 extended to specify levels and sizes for specific modes. The variable
1156 font-lock-maximum-decoration specifies the preferred level of fontification for
1157 modes that provide multiple levels (typically from "subdued" to "gaudy"). The
1158 variable font-lock-maximum-size specifies the buffer size for which buffer
1159 fontification is suppressed when Font Lock mode is turned on (typically because
1160 it would take too long).
1162 These variables can now specify values for individual modes, by supplying
1163 lists of mode names and values. For example, to use the above mentioned level
1164 3 decoration for buffers in C/C++ modes, and default decoration otherwise, put:
1166 (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration '((c-mode . 3) (c++-mode . 3)))
1168 in your ~/.emacs. Maximum buffer size values for individual modes are
1169 specified in the same way with the variable font-lock-maximum-size.
1171 *** Font Lock configuration
1173 The mechanism to provide default settings for Font Lock mode are the variables
1174 font-lock-defaults and font-lock-maximum-decoration. Typically, you should
1175 only need to change the value of font-lock-maximum-decoration. However, to
1176 support Font Lock mode for buffers in modes that currently do not support Font
1177 Lock mode, you should set a buffer local value of font-lock-defaults for that
1178 mode, typically via its mode hook.
1180 These variables are used by Font Lock mode to set the values of the variables
1181 font-lock-keywords, font-lock-keywords-only, font-lock-syntax-table,
1182 font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function and font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search.
1184 You need not set these variables directly, and should not set them yourself
1185 since the underlining mechanism may change in future.
1187 ** Archive mode is now the default mode for various sorts of
1188 archive files (files whose names end with .arc, .lzh, .zip, and .zoo).
1190 ** You can automatically update the years in copyright notice by
1191 means of (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'copyright-update).
1192 Optionally it can update the GPL version as well.
1194 ** Scripts of various languages (Shell, AWK, Perl, makefiles ...) can
1195 be automatically provided with a magic number and be made executable
1196 by their respective modes under control of various user variables.
1197 The mode must call (executable-set-magic "perl") or
1198 (executable-set-magic "make" "-f"). The latter for example has no
1199 effect on [Mm]akefile.
1201 ** Shell script mode now supports over 15 different shells. The new
1202 command C-c ! executes the region, and optionally beginning of script
1203 as well, by passing them to the shell.
1205 Cases such as `sh' being a `bash' are now accounted for.
1206 Fontification now also does variables, the magic number and all
1207 builtin commands. Shell script mode no longer mingles `tab-width' and
1208 indentation style. The variable `sh-tab-width' has been renamed to
1209 `sh-indentation'. Empty lines are now indented like previous
1210 non-empty line, rather than just previous line.
1212 The annoying $ variable prompting has been eliminated. Instead, shell
1213 script mode uses `comint-dynamic-completion' for commands, variables
1216 ** Two-column mode now automatically scrolls both buffers together,
1217 which makes it possible to eliminate the special scrolling commands
1220 The commands that operate in two-column mode are no longer bound to
1221 keys outside that mode. f2 o will now position at the same point in
1224 the new command f2 RET inserts a newline in both buffers, at point and
1225 at the corresponding position in the associated buffer.
1227 ** Skeleton commands now work smoothly as abbrev definitions. The
1228 element < no longer exists, ' is a new element.
1230 ** The autoinsert insert facility for prefilling empty files as soon
1231 as they are found has been extended to accommodate skeletons or calling
1232 functions. See the function auto-insert.
1236 Loading tpu-edt no longer turns on tpu-edt mode. In fact, it is no
1237 longer necessary to explicitly load tpu-edt. All you need to do to
1238 turn on tpu-edt is run the tpu-edt function. Here's how to run
1239 tpu-edt instead of loading the file:
1241 Running Emacs: Type emacs -f tpu-edt
1242 not emacs -l tpu-edt
1244 Within Emacs: Type M-x tpu-edt <ret>
1245 not M-x load-library <ret> tpu-edt <ret>
1247 In .emacs: Use (tpu-edt)
1248 not (load "tpu-edt")
1250 The default name of the tpu-edt X key definition file has changed from
1251 ~/.tpu-gnu-keys to ~/.tpu-keys. If you don't rename the file yourself,
1252 tpu-edt will offer to rename it the first time you invoke it under
1255 ** MS-DOS Enhancements:
1257 *** Better mouse control by adding the following functions [in dosfns.c]
1258 msdos-mouse-enable, msdos-mouse-disable, msdos-mouse-init.
1260 *** If another foreground/background color than the default is setup in
1261 your ~/_emacs, then the screen briefly flickers with the default
1262 colors before changing to the colors you have specified. To avoid
1263 this, the EMACSCOLORS environment variable exists. It shall be
1264 defined as a string with the following elements:
1266 set EMACSCOLORS=fb;fb
1268 The first set of "fb" defines the initial foreground and background
1269 colors using standard dos color numbers (0=black,.., 7=white).
1270 If specified, the second set of "fb" defines the colors which are
1271 restored when you leave emacs.
1273 *** The new SUSPEND environment variable can now be set as the shell to
1274 use when suspending emacs. This can be used to override the stupid
1275 limitation on the environment of sub-shells in MS-DOS (they are just
1276 large enough to hold the currently defined variables, not leaving
1277 room for more); to overcome this limitation, add this to autoexec.bat:
1279 set SUSPEND=%COMSPEC% /E:2000
1281 ** The escape character can now be displayed on X frames. Try
1283 (aset standard-display-table 27 (vector 27))
1284 after first creating a display table (you can do that by loading
1285 the disp-table library).
1287 ** The new command-line option --eval specifies an expression to evaluate
1288 from the command line.
1290 ** etags has now the ability to tag Perl files. They are recognized
1291 either by the .pm and .pl suffixes or by a first line which starts
1292 with `#!' and specifies a Perl interpreter. The tagged lines are
1293 those beginning with the `sub' keyword.
1295 New suffixes recognized are .hpp for C++; .f90 for Fortran; .bib,
1296 .ltx, .TeX for TeX (.bbl, .dtx removed); .ml for Lisp; .prolog for
1297 prolog (.pl is now Perl).
1299 ** The files etc/termcap.dat and etc/termcap.ucb have been replaced
1300 with a new, merged, and much more comprehensive termcap file. The
1301 new file should include all the special entries from the old one.
1302 This new file is under active development as part of the ncurses
1303 project. If you have any questions about this file, or problems with
1304 an entry in it, email terminfo@ccil.org.
1307 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.30.
1311 *** There is a new data type called a char-table which is an array
1312 indexed by a character. Currently this is mostly equivalent to a
1313 vector of length 256, but in the future, when a wider character set is
1314 in use, it will be different. To create one, call
1315 (make-char-table SUBTYPE INITIAL-VALUE)
1317 SUBTYPE is a symbol that identifies the specific use of this
1318 character table. It can be any of these values:
1322 keyboard-translate-table
1325 The function `char-table-subtype' returns the subtype of a char-table.
1326 You cannot alter the subtype of an existing char-table.
1328 A char-table has an element for each character code. It also has some
1329 "extra slots". The number of extra slots depends on the subtype and
1330 their use depends on the subtype. (Each subtype symbol has a
1331 `char-table-extra-slots' property that says how many extra slots to
1332 make.) Use (char-table-extra-slot TABLE N) to access extra slot N and
1333 (set-char-table-extra-slot TABLE N VALUE) to store VALUE in slot N.
1335 A char-table T can have a parent, which should be another char-table
1336 P. If you look for the value in T for character C, and the table T
1337 actually holds nil, P's element for character C is used instead.
1338 The functions `char-table-parent' and `set-char-table-parent'
1339 let you read or set the parent of a char-table.
1341 To scan all the values in a char-table, do not try to loop through all
1342 possible character codes. That would work for now, but will not work
1343 in the future. Instead, call map-char-table. (map-char-table
1344 FUNCTION TABLE) calls FUNCTION once for each character or character
1345 set that has a distinct value in TABLE. FUNCTION gets two arguments,
1346 RANGE and VALUE. RANGE specifies a range of TABLE that has one
1347 uniform value, and VALUE is the value in TABLE for that range.
1349 Currently, RANGE is always a vector containing a single character
1350 and it refers to that character alone. In the future, other kinds
1351 of ranges will occur. You can set the value for a given range
1352 with (set-char-table-range TABLE RANGE VALUE) and examine the value
1353 for a range with (char-table-range TABLE RANGE).
1355 *** Syntax tables are now represented as char-tables.
1356 All syntax tables other than the standard syntax table
1357 normally have the standard syntax table as their parent.
1358 Their subtype is `syntax-table'.
1360 *** Display tables are now represented as char-tables.
1361 Their subtype is `display-table'.
1363 *** Case tables are now represented as char-tables.
1364 Their subtype is `case-table'.
1366 *** The value of keyboard-translate-table may now be a char-table
1367 instead of a string. Normally the char-tables used for this purpose
1368 have the subtype `keyboard-translate-table', but that is not required.
1370 *** A new data type called a bool-vector is a vector of values
1371 that are either t or nil. To create one, do
1372 (make-bool-vector LENGTH INITIAL-VALUE)
1374 ** You can now specify, for each marker, how it should relocate when
1375 text is inserted at the place where the marker points. This is called
1376 the "insertion type" of the marker.
1378 To set the insertion type, do (set-marker-insertion-type MARKER TYPE).
1379 If TYPE is t, it means the marker advances when text is inserted. If
1380 TYPE is nil, it means the marker does not advance. (In Emacs 19.29,
1381 markers did not advance.)
1383 The function marker-insertion-type reports the insertion type of a
1384 given marker. The function copy-marker takes a second argument TYPE
1385 which specifies the insertion type of the new copied marker.
1387 ** When you create an overlay, you can specify the insertion type of
1388 the beginning and of the end. To do this, you can use two new
1389 arguments to make-overlay: front-advance and rear-advance.
1391 ** The new function overlays-in returns a list of the overlays that
1392 overlap a specified range of the buffer. The returned list includes
1393 empty overlays at the beginning of this range, as well as within the
1396 ** The new hook window-scroll-functions is run when a window has been
1397 scrolled. The functions in this list are called just before
1398 redisplay, after the new window-start has been computed. Each function
1399 is called with two arguments--the window that has been scrolled, and its
1400 new window-start position.
1402 This hook is useful for on-the-fly fontification and other features
1403 that affect how the redisplayed text will look when it is displayed.
1405 The window-end value of the window is not valid when these functions
1406 are called. The computation of window-end is byproduct of actual
1407 redisplay of the window contents, which means it has not yet happened
1408 when the hook is run. Computing window-end specially in advance for
1409 the sake of these functions would cause a slowdown.
1411 The hook functions can determine where the text on the window will end
1412 by calling vertical-motion starting with the window-start position.
1414 ** The new hook redisplay-end-trigger-functions is run whenever
1415 redisplay in window uses text that extends past a specified end
1416 trigger position. You set the end trigger position with the function
1417 set-window-redisplay-end-trigger. The functions are called with two
1418 arguments: the window, and the end trigger position. Storing nil for
1419 the end trigger position turns off the feature, and the trigger value
1420 is automatically reset to nil just after the hook is run.
1422 You can use the function window-redisplay-end-trigger to read a
1423 window's current end trigger value.
1425 ** The new function insert-file-contents-literally inserts the
1426 contents of a file without any character set translation or decoding.
1428 ** The new function safe-length computes the length of a list.
1429 It never gets an error--it treats any non-list like nil.
1430 If given a circular list, it returns an upper bound for the number
1431 of elements before the circularity.
1433 ** replace-match now takes a fifth argument, SUBEXP. If SUBEXP is
1434 non-nil, that says to replace just subexpression number SUBEXP of the
1435 regexp that was matched, not the entire match. For example, after
1436 matching `foo \(ba*r\)' calling replace-match with 1 as SUBEXP means
1437 to replace just the text that matched `\(ba*r\)'.
1439 ** The new keymap special-event-map defines bindings for certain
1440 events that should be handled at a very low level--as soon as they
1441 are read. The read-event function processes these events itself,
1442 and never returns them.
1444 Events that are handled in this way do not echo, they are never
1445 grouped into key sequences, and they never appear in the value of
1446 last-command-event or (this-command-keys). They do not discard a
1447 numeric argument, they cannot be unread with unread-command-events,
1448 they may not appear in a keyboard macro, and they are not recorded
1449 in a keyboard macro while you are defining one.
1451 These events do, however, appear in last-input-event immediately after
1452 they are read, and this is the way for the event's definition to find
1455 The events types iconify-frame, make-frame-visible and delete-frame
1456 are normally handled in this way.
1458 ** encode-time now supports simple date arithmetic by means of
1459 out-of-range values for its SEC, MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, and MONTH
1460 arguments; for example, day 0 means the day preceding the given month.
1461 Also, the ZONE argument can now be a TZ-style string.
1463 ** command-execute and call-interactively now accept an optional third
1464 argument KEYS. If specified and non-nil, this specifies the key
1465 sequence containing the events that were used to invoke the command.
1467 ** The environment variable NAME, if set, now specifies the value of
1468 (user-full-name), when Emacs starts up.
1472 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.29
1474 ** If you run out of memory.
1476 If you get the error message "Virtual memory exhausted", type C-x s.
1477 That way of saving files has the least additional memory needs. Emacs
1478 19.29 keeps a reserve of memory which it makes available when this
1479 error happens; that is to ensure that C-x s can complete its work.
1481 Once you have saved your data, you can exit and restart Emacs, or use
1482 M-x kill-some-buffers to free up space. If you kill buffers
1483 containing a substantial amount of text, you can go on editing.
1485 Do not use M-x buffer-menu to save or kill buffers when you are out of
1486 memory, because that needs a fair amount memory itself and you may not
1487 have enough to get it started.
1489 ** The format of compiled files has changed incompatibly.
1491 Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19.29 normally use a new format
1492 that will not work in older Emacs versions. You can compile files
1493 in the old format if you wish; see "Changes in compilation," below.
1495 ** Emacs 19.29 supports the DEC Alpha.
1497 ** Emacs runs on Windows NT.
1499 This port does not yet support windowing features. It works like a
1500 text-only terminal, but it does support a mouse.
1502 In general, support for non-GNU-like operating systems is not a high
1503 priority for the GNU project. We merged in the support for Windows NT
1504 because that system is expected to be very widely used.
1506 ** Emacs supports Motif widgets.
1508 You can build Emacs with Motif widgets by specifying --with-x-toolkit=motif
1509 when you run configure.
1511 Motif defines collections of windows called "tab groups", and uses the
1512 tab key and the cursor keys to move between windows in a tab group.
1513 Emacs naturally does not support this--it has other uses for the tab
1514 key and cursor keys. Emacs does not support Motif accelerators either,
1515 because it uses its normal keymap event binding features.
1517 We give higher priority to operation with a free widget set than to
1518 operation with a proprietary one.
1520 ** If Emacs or the computer crashes, you can recover all the files you
1521 were editing from their auto save files by typing M-x recover-session.
1522 This first shows you a list of recorded interrupted sessions. Move
1523 point to the one you choose, and type C-c C-c.
1525 Then recover-session asks about each of the files that were being
1526 edited during that session, asking whether to recover that file. If
1527 you answer y, it calls recover-file, which works in its normal
1528 fashion. It shows the dates of the original file and its auto-save
1529 file and asks once again whether to recover that file.
1531 When recover-session is done, the files you've chosen to recover
1532 are present in Emacs buffers. You should then save them.
1533 Only this--saving them--updates the files themselves.
1535 ** Menu bar menus now stay up if you click on the menu bar item and
1536 release the mouse button within a certain amount of time. This is in
1537 the X Toolkit version.
1539 ** The menu bar menus have been rearranged and split up to make for a
1540 better organization. Two new menu bar menus, Tools and Search,
1541 contain items that were formerly in the Files and Edit menus, as well
1542 as some that did not exist in the menu bar menus before.
1544 ** Emacs can now display on more than one X display at the same time.
1545 Use the command make-frame-on-display to create a frame, specifying
1546 which display to use.
1548 ** M-x talk-connect sets up a multi-user talk connection
1549 via Emacs. Specify the X display of the person you want to talk to.
1550 You can talk to any number of people (within reason) by using
1551 this command repeatedly to specify different people.
1553 Emacs does not make a fuss about security; the people who you talk to
1554 can use all Emacs features, including visiting and editing files. If
1555 this frightens you, don't use M-x talk-connect.
1557 ** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
1558 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
1561 ** When you start Emacs, you can now specify option names in
1562 long GNU form (starting with `--') and you can abbreviate the names.
1564 You can now specify the options in any order.
1565 The previous requirements about the order of options
1566 have been eliminated.
1568 The -L or --directory option lets you specify an additional
1569 directory to search for Lisp libraries (including libraries
1570 that you specify with the -l or --load options).
1572 ** Incremental search in Transient Mark mode, if the mark is already
1573 active, now leaves the mark active and does not change its position.
1574 You can make incremental search deactivate the mark once again with
1577 (add-hook 'isearch-mode-hook 'deactivate-mark)
1579 ** C-delete now deletes a word backwards. This is for compatibility
1580 with some editors in the PC world. (This key is not available on
1581 ordinary ASCII terminals, because C-delete is not a distinct character
1582 on those terminals.)
1584 ** ESC ESC ESC is now a command to escape from various temporary modes
1587 ** M-x pc-bindings-mode sets up bindings compatible with many PC editors.
1588 In particular, Delete and its variants delete forward instead of backward.
1589 Use Backspace to delete backward.
1591 C-Backspace kills backward a word (as C-Delete normally would).
1592 M-Backspace does undo.
1593 Home and End move to beginning and end of line
1594 C-Home and C-End move to beginning and end of buffer.
1596 ** The key sequence for evaluating a Lisp expression using the minibuffer
1597 is now ESC :. It used to be ESC ESC, but we moved it to make way for
1598 the ESC ESC ESC feature, on the grounds that people who evaluate Lisp
1599 expressions are experienced users and can cope with a change.
1600 If you prefer the old ESC ESC binding, put in your `~/.emacs':
1602 (global-set-key "\e\e" 'eval-expression)
1604 ** The f1 function key is now equivalent to the help key. This is
1605 done with key-translation-map; delete the binding for f1 in that map
1606 if you want to use f1 for something else.
1608 ** Mouse-3, in the simplest case, still sets the region. But now, it
1609 places the mark where point was, and sets point where you click.
1610 (It used to set the mark where you click and leave point alone.)
1612 If you position point with Mouse-1, then scroll with the scroll bar
1613 and use Mouse-3, Mouse-3 uses the position you specified with Mouse-1
1614 even if it has scrolled off the screen (and point is no longer there).
1615 This makes it easier to select a region with the mouse which is bigger
1618 Any editing of the buffer, and any cursor motion or scrolling for any
1619 reason other than the scroll bar, cancels the special state set up by
1620 Mouse-1--so that a subsequent Mouse-3 click will use the actual value
1623 ** C-mouse-3 now pops up a mode-specific menu of commands--normally
1624 the same ones available in the mode's own menu bar menus.
1626 ** C-mouse-2 now pops up a menu of faces, indentation, justification,
1627 and certain other text properties. This menu is also available
1628 through the menu-bar Edit menu. It is meant for use with Enriched
1631 *** You can use this menu to change the face of the region.
1632 You can also set the face of the region with the new M-g command.
1634 *** The menu also includes commands for indenting the region,
1635 which locally changes the values of left-margin and fill-column that
1638 *** All fill functions now indent every line to the left-margin. If
1639 there is also a fill-prefix, that goes after the margin indentation.
1641 *** Open-line and newline also make sure that the lines they create
1642 are indented to the left margin.
1644 *** It also allows you to set the "justification" of the region:
1645 whether it should be centered, flush right, and so forth. The fill
1646 functions (including auto-fill-mode) will maintain the justification
1647 and indentation that you request.
1649 *** The new function `list-colors-display' shows you what colors are
1650 available. This is also accessible from the C-mouse-2 menu.
1652 ** You can now save and load files including their faces and other
1653 text-properties by using Enriched-mode. Files are saved in an
1654 extended version of the MIME text/enriched format. You can use the
1655 menus described above, or M-g and other keyboard commands, to
1656 alter the formatting information.
1658 ** C-mouse-1 now pops up the menu for changing the frame's default font.
1660 ** You can input Hyper, Super, Meta, and Alt characters, as well as
1661 non-ASCII control characters, on an ASCII-only terminal.
1671 These are not ordinary key sequences; they operate through
1672 function-key-map, which means they can be used even in the
1673 middle of an ordinary key sequence.
1675 ** Outline minor mode and Hideif mode now use C-c @ as their prefix
1678 ** Echo area messages are now logged in the "*Messages*" buffer. The
1679 size of this buffer is limited to message-log-max lines.
1681 ** RET in various special modes for read-only buffers that contain
1682 lists of items now selects the item point is on. These modes include
1683 Dired, Compilation buffers, Buffer-menu, Tar mode, and Occur mode.
1684 (In Info, RET follows the reference near point; in completion list
1685 buffers, RET chooses the completion around point.)
1687 ** set-background-color now updates the modeline face in a special
1688 way. If that face was previously set up to be reverse video, the
1689 reverse of the default face, then set-background-color updates it so
1690 that it remains the reverse of the default face.
1692 ** The functions raise-frame and lower-frame are now commands.
1693 When used interactively, they apply to the selected frame.
1695 ** M-x buffer-menu now displays the buffer list in the selected window.
1696 Use M-x buffer-menu-other-window to display it in another window.
1698 ** M-w followed by a kill command now *does not* append the text in
1699 the kill ring. In consequence, M-w followed by C-w works as you would
1700 expect: it leaves the top of the kill ring matching the region that
1703 ** In Lisp mode, the C-M-x command now executes defvar forms in a
1704 special way: it unconditionally sets the variable to the specified
1705 default value, if there is one. Normal execution of defvar does not
1706 alter the variable if it already has a non-void value.
1708 ** In completion list buffers, the left and right arrow keys run the
1709 new commands previous-completion and next-completion. They move one
1710 completion at a time.
1712 ** While doing completion in the minibuffer, the `prior' or `pageup'
1713 key switches to the completion list window.
1715 ** When you exit the minibuffer with empty contents, the empty string
1716 is not put in the minibuffer history.
1718 ** The default buffer for insert-buffer is now the "first" buffer
1719 other than the current one. If you have more than one window, this
1720 is a buffer visible in another window. (Usually it is the buffer
1721 that C-M-v would scroll.)
1723 ** The etags program is now capable of recording tags based on regular
1724 expressions provided on the command line.
1726 This new feature allows easy support for constructs not normally
1727 handled by etags, such as the macros frequently used in big C/C++
1728 projects to define project-specific structures. It also enables the
1729 use of etags and TAGS files for languages not supported by etags.
1731 The Emacs manual section on Tags contains explanations and examples
1732 for Emacs's DEFVAR, VHDL, Cobol, PostScript and TCL.
1734 ** Various mode-specific commands that used to be bound to C-c LETTER
1737 *** In gnus-uu mode, gnus-uu-interactive-scan-directory is now on C-c C-d,
1738 and gnus-uu-interactive-save-current-file is on C-c C-z.
1740 *** In Scribe mode, scribe-insert-environment is now on C-c C-v,
1741 scribe-chapter is on C-c C-c, scribe-subsection is on C-c C-s,
1742 scribe-section is on C-c C-t, scribe-bracket-region-be is on C-c C-e,
1743 scribe-italicize-word is on C-c C-i, scribe-bold-word is on C-c C-b,
1744 and scribe-underline-word is on C-c C-u.
1746 *** In Gomoku mode, gomoku-human-takes-back is now on C-c C-b,
1747 gomoku-human-plays is on C-c C-p, gomoku-human-resigns is on C-c C-r,
1748 and gomoku-emacs-plays is on C-c C-e.
1750 *** In the Outline mode defined in allout.el,
1751 outline-rebullet-current-heading is now on C-c *.
1753 ** M-s in Info now searches through the nodes of the Info file,
1754 just like s. The alias M-s was added so that you can use the same
1755 command for searches in both Info and Rmail.
1757 ** iso-acc.el now lets you enter inverted-! and inverted-?
1758 with the sequences ~! and ~?.
1760 ** M-x compare-windows now pushes mark in both windows before
1761 it starts moving point.
1763 ** There are two new commands in Dired, A (dired-do-search)
1764 and Q (dired-do-query-replace). These are similar to tags-search and
1765 tags-query-replace, but instead of searching the list of files that
1766 appears in a tags table, they search all the files marked in Dired.
1768 ** Changes to dabbrev.
1770 A new function, `dabbrev-completion' (bound to M-C-/), expands the
1771 unique part of an abbreviation.
1773 Dabbrev now looks for expansions in other buffers, looks for symbols
1774 instead of words and it works in the minibuffer.
1776 Dabbrev can be customized to work for shell scripts, with variables
1777 that sometimes have and sometimes haven't a leading "$". See the
1778 variable 'dabbrev-abbrev-skip-leading-regexp'.
1780 ** In Rmail, the command rmail-input-menu has been eliminated. The
1781 feature of selecting an Rmail file from a menu is now implemented in
1784 ** Bookmarks changes.
1786 *** It now works to set bookmarks in Info nodes.
1788 *** Bookmarks can have annotations; type "C-h m" after doing
1789 "M-x list-bookmarks", for more information on annotations.
1791 *** The bookmark-jump popup menu function is now `bookmark-menu-jump', for
1792 those who bind it to a mouse click.
1794 *** The default bookmarks file name is now "~/.emacs.bmk". If you
1795 already have a bookmarks file, it will be renamed automagically when
1798 ** New package, ps-print.
1800 The ps-print package generates PostScript printouts of buffers or
1801 regions, and includes face attributes such as color, underlining,
1802 boldface and italics in the printed output.
1804 ** New package, msb.
1806 The msb package provides a buffer-menu in the menubar with separate
1807 menus for different types of buffers.
1809 ** `cpp.el' is a new library that can highlight or hide parts of a C
1810 file according to C preprocessor conditionals. To try it, run the
1811 command M-x cpp-highlight-buffer.
1813 ** Changes in CC mode.
1815 *** c-set-offset and related functions and variables can now accept
1816 variable symbols. Also ++ and -- which mean 2* positive and negative
1817 c-basic-offset respectively.
1819 *** New variable, c-recognize-knr-p, which controls whether K&R C
1820 constructs will be recognized. Trying to recognize K&R constructs is a
1821 time hog so if you're programming strictly in ANSI C, set this
1822 variable to nil (it should already be nil in c++-mode).
1824 *** New variable, c-hanging-comment-ender-p for controlling
1825 c-fill-paragraph's behavior.
1827 *** New syntactic symbol: statement-case-open. This is assigned to lines
1828 containing an open brace just after a case/default label.
1830 *** New variable, c-progress-interval, which controls minibuffer update
1831 message displays during long re-indentation. This is a new feature
1832 which prints percentage complete messages at specified intervals.
1834 ** Makefile mode changes.
1836 *** The electric keys are not enabled by default.
1838 *** There is now a mode-specific menu bar menu.
1840 *** The mode supports font-lock, add-log, and imenu.
1842 *** The command M-TAB does completion of target names and variable names.
1844 ** icomplete.el now works more like a minor mode. Use M-x icomplete-mode
1845 to turn it on and off.
1847 Icomplete now supports an `icomplete-minibuffer-setup-hook', which is
1848 run on minibuffer setup whenever icompletion will be occurring. This
1849 hook can be used to customize interoperation of icomplete with other
1850 minibuffer-specific packages, eg rsz-mini. See the doc string for
1855 Use ediff-revision instead of vc-ediff. It also replaces rcs-ediff,
1856 for those who use that; if you want to use a version control package
1857 other than vc.el, you must set the variable
1858 ediff-version-control-package to specify which package.
1860 ** VC now supports branches with RCS.
1862 You can use C-u C-x C-q to select any branch or version by number.
1863 It reads the version number or branch number with the minibuffer,
1864 then checks out the file unlocked.
1866 Type C-x C-q again to lock the selected branch or version.
1867 When you check in changes to that branch or version, there are two
1870 -- If you've selected a branch, or a version at the tip of a branch,
1871 then the new version adds to that branch. If you wish to create a
1872 new branch, use C-u C-x C-q to specify a version number when you check
1875 -- If you've selected an inner version which is not the latest in its
1876 branch, then the new version automatically creates a new branch.
1878 ** VC now supports CVS as well as RCS and SCCS.
1880 Since there are no locks in CVS, some things behave slightly
1881 different when the backend is CVS. When vc-next-action is invoked
1882 in a directory handled by CVS, it does the following:
1884 If the file is not already registered, this registers it for version
1885 control. This does a "cvs add", but no "cvs commit".
1886 If the file is added but not committed, it is committed.
1887 If the file has not been changed, neither in your working area or
1888 in the repository, a message is printed and nothing is done.
1889 If your working file is changed, but the repository file is
1890 unchanged, this pops up a buffer for entry of a log message; when you
1891 finish the log message with C-c C-c, that checks in the resulting
1892 changes along with the log message as change commentary. A writable
1893 file remains in existence.
1895 If vc-next-action changes the repository file, it asks you
1896 whether to merge in the changes into your working copy.
1898 vc-directory, when started in a CVS file hierarchy, reports
1899 all files that are modified (and thus need to be committed).
1900 (When the backend is RCS or SCCS vc-directory reports all
1903 VC has no support for running the initial "cvs checkout" to get a
1904 working copy of a module. You can only use VC in a working copy of
1907 You can disable the CVS support as follows:
1909 (setq vc-master-templates (delq 'vc-find-cvs-master vc-master-templates))
1911 or by setting vc-handle-cvs to nil.
1913 This may be desirable if you run a non-standard version of CVS, or
1914 if CVS was compiled with FORCE_USE_EDITOR or (possibly)
1917 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
1919 *** Completion works with file names containing quoted characters.
1921 File names containing special characters (such as " ", "!", etc.) that are
1922 quoted with a "\" character are recognized during completion. Special
1923 characters are quoted when they are inserted during completion.
1925 *** You can use M-x comint-truncate-buffer to truncate the buffer.
1927 When this command is run, the buffer is truncated to a maximum number
1928 of lines, specified by the variable comint-buffer-maximum-size. Just
1929 like the command comint-strip-ctrl-m, this can be run automatically
1930 during process output by doing this:
1932 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
1933 'comint-truncate-buffer)
1935 ** Telnet mode buffer name changed.
1937 The buffer name for a Telnet buffer is now *telnet-HOST*, not
1938 *HOST-telnet*. This is for consistency with other Emacs packages.
1940 ** M-x man (man) is now faster and more robust. On systems where the
1941 entire man page is indented, the indentation is removed.
1943 The user option names that used to end in -p now end in -flag. The
1944 new names are: Man-reuse-okay-flag, Man-downcase-section-letters-flag,
1945 Man-circular-pages-flag. The Man-notify user option has been renamed to
1946 Man-notify-method and accepts one more value, `pushy', that just
1947 switches the current buffer to the manpage buffer, without switching
1948 frames nor changing your windows configuration.
1950 A new user option Man-fontify-manpage-flag disables fontification
1951 (thus speeding up man) when set to nil. Default is to fontify if a
1952 window system is used. Two new user options Man-overstrike-face
1953 (default 'bold) and Man-underline-face (default 'underline) can be set
1954 to the preferred faces to be used for the words that man overstrikes
1955 and underlines. Useful for those who like colored man pages.
1957 Two new interactive functions are provided: Man-cleanup-manpage and
1958 Man-fontify-manpage. Both can be used on a buffer that contains the
1959 output of a `rsh host man manpage' command, or the output of an
1960 `nroff -man -Tman manpage' command to make them readable.
1961 Man-cleanup-manpage is faster, but does not fontify.
1963 ** The new function modify-face makes it easy to specify
1964 all the attributes of a face, all at once.
1966 ** Faces now support background stippling.
1968 Use the command set-face-stipple to specify the stipple-pattern for a
1969 face. Use face-stipple to access the specified stipple pattern. The
1970 existing face functions now handle the stipple pattern when
1973 If you specify one of the standard gray colors as a face background
1974 color, and your display doesn't handle gray, Emacs automatically uses
1975 stipple instead to get the same effect.
1977 ** Changes in Font Lock mode.
1981 Two new default faces are provided; `font-lock-variable-name-face' and
1982 `font-lock-reference-face'. The face `font-lock-doc-string-face' has
1983 been removed since it is the same as the existing
1984 `font-lock-string-face'. Where appropriate, fontification
1985 automatically uses these new faces.
1987 Fontification via commands `font-lock-mode' and
1988 `font-lock-fontify-buffer' is now cleanly interruptible (i.e., with
1989 C-g). If you interrupt during the fontification process, the buffer
1990 remains in its previous modified state and all highlighting is removed
1993 For C/C++ modes, Font Lock mode is much faster but highlights much
1994 more. Other modes are faster/more extensive/more discriminatory, or a
1995 combination of these.
1997 To enable Font Lock mode, add the new function `turn-on-font-lock' in
1998 one of the following ways:
2000 (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
2002 Or for any visited file with:
2004 (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'turn-on-font-lock)
2006 *** Supports color and grayscale displays
2008 Font Lock mode supports different ways of highlighting, depending on
2009 the type of display and background shade. Attributes (face color,
2010 bold, italic and underline, and display type and background mode) can
2011 be controlled either from Emacs Lisp or X resources.
2013 See the new variables `font-lock-display-type' and
2014 `font-lock-face-attributes'.
2016 *** Supports more modes
2018 The following modes are directly supported:
2020 ada-mode, asm-mode, bibtex-mode, c++-c-mode, c++-mode, c-mode,
2021 change-log-mode, compilation-mode, dired-mode, emacs-lisp-mode,
2022 fortran-mode, latex-mode, lisp-mode, mail-mode, makefile-mode,
2023 outline-mode, pascal-mode, perl-mode, plain-tex-mode, rmail-mode,
2024 rmail-summary-mode, scheme-mode, shell-mode, slitex-mode, tex-mode,
2027 See the new variables `font-lock-defaults-alist' and
2028 `font-lock-defaults'.
2030 Some modes support different levels of fontification. You can choose
2031 to use the minimum or maximum available decoration by changing the
2032 value of the new variable `font-lock-maximum-decoration'.
2034 Programmers are urged to make available to the community their own
2035 keywords for modes not yet supported. See font-lock.el for
2036 information about efficiency.
2040 The fast-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by saving font choices
2041 in associated cache files. When you visit a file with Font Lock mode
2042 and Fast Lock mode turned on for the first time, the file's buffer is
2043 fontified as normal. When certain events occur (such as exiting
2044 Emacs), Fast Lock saves the highlighting in a cache file. When you
2045 subsequently visit this file, its cache is used to restore the
2048 To use this package, put in your `~/.emacs':
2050 (add-hook 'font-lock-mode-hook 'turn-on-fast-lock)
2052 To control the use of caches, see the documentation for `fast-lock-mode'.
2054 ** You can tell pop-to-buffer to display certain buffers in the selected
2055 window rather than finding some other window to display them in.
2056 There are two variables you can use to specify these buffers.
2058 same-window-buffer-names holds a list of buffer names; if a buffer's
2059 name appears in this list, pop-to-buffer puts it in the selected window.
2061 same-window-regexps holds a list of regexps--if any one of them
2062 matches a buffer's name, then pop-to-buffer puts that buffer in the
2065 The default values of these variables are not nil: they list various
2066 buffers that normally appear, when you as for them, in the selected
2067 window. These include shell buffers, mail buffers, telnet buffers,
2068 and others. By removing elements from these variables, you can ask
2069 Emacs to display those buffers in separate windows.
2071 ** The special-display-buffer-names and special-display-regexps lists
2072 have been generalized. An element may now be a list. The car of the list
2073 is the buffer name or regular expression for matching buffer names.
2075 The cdr of the list can be an alist specifying additional frame
2076 parameters for use in constructing the special display frame.
2078 Alternatively, the cdr can have this form:
2082 where FUNCTION is a symbol. Then the frame is constructed by calling
2083 FUNCTION; its first argument is the buffer, and its remaining
2086 ** If the environment variable REPLYTO is set, its value is the default
2087 for mail-default-reply-to.
2089 ** When you send a message in Emacs, if you specify an Rmail file with
2090 the FCC: header field, Emacs converts the message to Rmail format
2091 before writing it. Thus, the file never contains anything but Rmail
2094 ** The new variable mail-from-style controls whether the From: header
2095 should include the sender's full name, and if so, which format to use.
2097 ** The new variable mail-personal-alias-file specifies the name of the
2098 user's personal aliases. This defaults to the file ~/.mailrc.
2099 mailabbrev.el used to have its own variable for this purpose
2100 (mail-abbrev-mailrc-file). That variable is no longer used.
2102 ** In Buffer-Menu mode, the d and C-d commands (which mark buffers for
2103 deletion) now accept a prefix argument which serves as a repeat count.
2105 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
2107 *** Reference keys can now be entered with TAB completion. All
2108 reference keys defined in that buffer and all labels that appear in
2109 crossreference entries are object to completion.
2111 *** Braces are supported as field delimiters in addition to quotes.
2112 BibTeX entries may have brace-delimited and quote-delimited fields
2113 intermixed. The delimiters generated for new entries are specified by
2114 the variables bibtex-field-left-delimiter and
2115 bibtex-field-right-delimiter on a buffer-local basis. Those variables
2116 default to braces, since it is easier to put quote accented characters
2117 (as the german umlauts) into a brace-delimited entry.
2119 *** The function bibtex-clean-entry can now be invoked with a prefix
2120 argument. In this case, a label is automatically generated from
2121 various fields in the record. If bibtex-clean-entry is invoked on a
2122 record without label, a label is also generated automatically.
2123 Various variables (all beginning with `bibtex-autokey-') control the
2124 creation of that key. The variable bibtex-autokey-edit-before-use
2125 determines, if the user is allowed to edit auto-generated reference
2126 keys before they are used.
2128 *** A New function bibtex-complete-string completes strings with
2129 respect to the strings defined in this buffer and a set of predefined
2130 strings (initialized to the string macros defined in the standard
2131 BibTeX style files) in the same way in which ispell-complete-word
2132 works with respect to words in a dictionary. Candidates for
2133 bibtex-complete-string are initialized from variable
2134 bibtex-predefined-strings and by parsing the files found in
2135 bibtex-string-files for @String definitions.
2137 *** Every reference/field pair has now attached a comment which
2138 appears in the echo area when this field is edited. These comments
2139 should provide useful hints for BibTeX usage, especially for BibTeX
2140 beginners. New variable bibtex-help-message determines if these help
2141 messages are to appear in the minibuffer when moving to a text entry.
2143 *** Inscriptions of menu bar changed from "Entry Types" to
2144 "Entry-Types" and "Bibtex Edit" to "BibTeX-Edit".
2146 *** The variable bibtex-include-OPTcrossref is now not longer a binary
2147 switch but a list of reference names which should contain a crossref
2148 field. E.g., you can tell bibtex-mode you want a crossref field for
2149 @InProceedings and @InBook entries but for no other.
2151 *** The function validate-bibtex-buffer was completely rewritten to
2152 validate if a buffer is syntactically correct. find-bibtex-duplicates
2153 is no longer a function itself but was moved into
2154 validate-bibtex-buffer.
2156 *** Cleaning a BibTeX entry tests, if necessary fields are there.
2157 E.g., if you tell bibtex-mode to include a crossref entry, some fields
2158 are optional which would be required without the crossref entry. If
2159 you now leave the crossref entry empty and do a bibtex-clean-entry
2160 with some now required fields left empty, version 2.0 of bibtex.el
2161 complains about the absence of these fields, whereas version 1.3
2164 *** Default value for variables bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries and
2165 bibtex-sort-ignore-string-entries is now t.
2167 *** All interactive functions are renamed to begin with `bibtex-'.
2169 *** Keybindings with \C-c\C-e entry changed for unification. Often
2170 used reference types are now on control-modified keys, mediocre used
2171 types are on unmodified keys, seldom used types are on shift-modified
2172 keys and almost never used types on meta-modified keys.
2175 * Configuration Changes in Emacs 19.29
2177 ** Emacs now uses directory /usr/local/share for most of its installed
2178 files. This follows a GNU convention for directory usage.
2180 ** The option --with-x11 is no longer supported.
2181 X11 is the only version of X that Emacs 19.29 supports;
2182 use --with-x if you need to request X support explicitly.
2183 (Normally this should not be necessary, since configure should
2184 automatically enable X support if X is installed on your machine.)
2186 ** If you use the site-init.el file to set the variable
2187 mail-host-address to a string in the dumped Emacs, that string becomes
2188 the default host address for initializing user-mail-address.
2189 It is used instead of the value of (system-name).
2192 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.29
2196 *** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
2197 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
2200 *** You can now use Common Lisp syntax for the backquote and comma
2201 macros. Thus, you can now write `(x ,y z) instead of (` (x (, y) z)).
2203 The old syntax is still accepted.
2205 *** The new function rassoc is like assoc, except that it compares the
2206 key against the cdr of each alist element, where assoc would compare
2207 it against the car of each alist element.
2209 *** The new function unintern deletes a symbol from an obarray. The
2210 first argument can be the symbol to delete, or a string giving its
2211 name. The second argument specifies the obarray (nil means the
2212 current default obarray).
2214 If the specified symbol is not in the obarray, or if there's no symbol
2215 in the obarray matching the specified string, unintern does nothing
2216 and returns nil. If it does delete a symbol, it returns t.
2218 *** You can specify an alternative read function for use by load and
2219 eval-region by binding the variable load-read-function to some other
2220 function. This function should accept one argument just like read.
2221 If load-read-function is nil, load and eval-region use ordinary read.
2223 *** The new function `type-of' takes any object as argument, and
2224 returns a symbol identifying the type of that object--one of `symbol',
2225 `integer', `float', `string', `cons', `vector', `marker', `overlay',
2226 `window', `buffer', `subr', `compiled-function',
2227 `window-configuration', `process'.
2229 *** When you use eval-after-load for a file that is already loaded, it
2230 executes the FORM right away. As before, if the file is not yet
2231 loaded, it arranges to execute FORM if and when the file is loaded
2232 later. The result is: if you have called eval-after-load for a file,
2233 and if that file has been loaded, then regardless of the order of
2234 these two events, the specified form has been evaluated.
2236 *** The Lisp construct #@NUMBER now skips the next NUMBER characters,
2237 treating them as a comment.
2239 You would not want to use this in a file you edit by hand, but it is
2240 useful for commenting out parts of machine-generated files.
2242 *** Two new functions, `plist-get' and `plist-put',
2243 allow you to modify and retrieve values from lists formatted as property-lists.
2244 They work like `get' and `put', but operate on any list.
2245 `plist-put' returns the modified property-list; you must store it
2246 back where you got it.
2248 *** The new function add-to-list is called with two elements,
2249 a variable that holds a list and a new element.
2250 It adds the element to the list unless it is already present.
2251 It compares elements using `equal'. Here is an example:
2253 (setq foo '(a b)) => (a b)
2255 (add-to-list 'foo 'c) => (c a b)
2257 (add-to-list 'foo 'b) => (c a b)
2261 ** Changes in compilation.
2263 Functions and variables loaded from a byte-compiled file
2264 now refer to the file for their doc strings.
2266 This has a few consequences:
2268 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2269 -- Reference to doc strings is a little slower (the same speed
2270 as reference to the doc strings of primitive and preloaded functions).
2271 -- The compiled files will not work in old versions of Emacs.
2272 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2273 find these doc strings.
2274 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2275 version), then further access to documentation strings will get
2278 The byte compiler now optionally supports lazy loading of compiled
2279 functions' definitions. If you enable this feature when you compile,
2280 loading the compiled file does not actually bring the function
2281 definitions into core. Instead it creates references to the compiled
2282 file, and brings each function's definition into core the first time
2283 you call that function, or when you force it with the new function
2286 Using the lazy loading feature has a few consequences:
2288 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2289 -- Calling any function in the file for the first time is slower.
2290 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2291 find the function definitions.
2292 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2293 version), then further access to functions not already loaded
2294 will get nonsense results.
2296 To enable the lazy loading feature, set up a non-nil file local
2297 variable binding for the variable `byte-compile-dynamic' in the Lisp
2298 source file. For example, put this on the first line:
2300 -*-byte-compile-dynamic: t;-*-
2302 It's a good idea to use the lazy loading feature for a file that
2303 contains many functions, most of which are not actually used by a
2304 given user in a given session.
2306 To turn off the basic feature of referring to the file for doc
2307 strings, set byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings to nil. You can do this
2308 globally, or for one source file by adding this to the first line:
2310 -*-byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings: nil;-*-
2314 *** Do not pass integer arguments to `concat' (or `vconcat' or
2315 `append'). We are phasing out the old unrecommended support for
2316 integers as arguments to these functions, in preparation for treating
2317 numbers as single characters in a future release. To concatenate
2318 numbers in string form, use `number-to-string' first, or rewrite the
2319 call to use `format' instead of `concat'.
2321 *** The new function match-string returns the string of text matched at
2322 the given parenthesized expression by the last regexp search, or nil
2323 if there was no match. If the last match was by `string-match' on a
2324 string, the string must be given. Therefore, this function can be
2325 used in place of `buffer-substring' and `substring', when using
2326 `match-beginning' and `match-end' to find match positions.
2328 (match-string N) or (match-string N STRING)
2330 *** The function replace-match now accepts an optional fourth argument,
2331 STRING. Use this after performing string-match on STRING, to replace
2332 the portion of STRING that was matched. When used in this way,
2333 replace-match returns a newly created string which is the same as
2334 STRING except for the matched portion.
2336 *** The new function buffer-substring-no-properties
2337 is like buffer-substring except that the string it returns
2338 has no text properties.
2340 *** The function `equal' now considers two strings to be different
2341 if they don't have the same text properties.
2345 *** all-completions now takes an optional fourth argument.
2346 If that argument is non-nil, completions that start with a space
2347 are ignored unless the initial string also starts with a space.
2348 (This used to happen unconditionally.)
2352 *** Local hook variables.
2354 There is now a clean way to give a hook variable a buffer-local value.
2355 Call the function `make-local-hook' to do this.
2357 Once a hook variable is buffer-local, you can add hooks to it either
2358 globally or locally. run-hooks runs the local hook functions
2359 of the current buffer, then all the global hook functions.
2361 The functions add-hook and remove-hook take an additional optional
2362 argument LOCAL which says whether to add (or remove) a local hook
2363 function or a global one.
2365 Local hooks use t as an element of the (local) value of the hook
2366 variable as a flag meaning to use the global value also.
2368 *** The new function local-variable-p tells you whether a particular
2369 variable is buffer-local in the current buffer or a specified buffer.
2371 ** Editing Facilities
2373 *** The function copy-region-as-kill no longer sets this-command;
2374 as a result, a following kill command will not normally append
2375 to the text saved by copy-region-as-kill.
2377 *** Regular expression searching and matching no longer performs full
2378 Posix backtracking by default. They now stop with the first match found
2379 instead of looking for the longest match--just as they did in Emacs 18.
2380 The reason for this change is to get higher speed.
2382 There are new functions you can use if you really want to search or
2383 match with Posix behavior: posix-search-forward,
2384 posix-search-backward, posix-looking-at, and posix-string-match. Call
2385 these just like re-search-forward, re-search-backward, looking-at, and
2390 *** The new variable `format-alist' defines file formats,
2391 which are ways of translating between the data in a file and things
2392 (text, text-properties, and possibly other information) in a buffer.
2394 `format-alist' has one element for each format. Each element is a
2396 (NAME DOC-STRING REGEXP FROM-FN TO-FN MODIFY MODE-FN)
2397 containing the name of the format, a documentation string, a regular
2398 expression which is used to recognize files in that format, a decoding
2399 function, an encoding function, a flag that indicates whether the
2400 encoding function modifies the buffer, and a mode function.
2402 FROM-FN is called to decode files in that format; it gets two args, BEGIN
2403 and END, and can make any modifications it likes, returning the new
2404 end position. It must make sure that the beginning of the file no
2405 longer matches REGEXP, or else it will get called again.
2406 TO-FN is called to encode a region into that format; it is also passed BEGIN
2407 and END, and either returns a list of annotations as in
2408 `write-region-annotate-functions', or modifies the region and returns
2409 the new end position.
2410 MODIFY, if non-nil, means the TO-FN modifies the region. If nil, TO-FN may
2411 not make any changes and should return a list of annotations.
2413 `insert-file-contents' checks the beginning of the file that it is
2414 inserting to see if it matches one of the regexps. If so, then it
2415 calls the decoding function, and then looks for another match. When
2416 visiting a file, it also calls the mode function, and sets the
2417 variable `buffer-file-format' to the list of formats that the file
2420 `write-region' calls the encoding functions for each format in
2421 `buffer-file-format' before it writes the file. To save a file in a
2422 different format, either set `buffer-file-format' to a different
2423 value, or call the new function `format-write-file'.
2425 Since some encoding functions may be slow, you can request that
2426 auto-save use a format different from the buffer's default by setting
2427 the variable `auto-save-file-format' to the desired format. This will
2428 determine the format of all auto-save files.
2430 *** The new function file-ownership-preserved-p tells you whether
2431 deleting a file and recreating it would keep the file's owner
2434 *** The new function file-regular-p returns t if a file
2435 is a "regular" file (not a directory, symlink, named pipe,
2436 terminal, or other I/O device).
2438 *** The new function file-name-sans-extension discards the extension
2439 of a file name. You call it with a file name, and returns a string
2440 lacking the extension.
2442 *** The variable path-separator is a string which says which
2443 character separates directories in a search path. It is ":"
2444 for Unix and GNU systems, ";" for MSDOG and Windows NT.
2446 ** Commands and Key Sequences
2448 *** Key sequences consisting of C-c followed by {, }, <, >, : or ; are
2449 now reserved for major modes. Sequences consisting of C-c followed by
2450 any other punctuation character are now meant for minor modes. We don't
2451 plan to convert all existing major modes to stop using those sequences,
2452 but we hope to keep them to a minimum.
2454 *** When the post-command-hook or the pre-command-hook gets an error, the error
2455 is silently ignored. Emacs no longer sets the hook variable to nil when this
2456 happens. Meanwhile, the hook functions can now alter the hook variable in
2457 a normal fashion; there is no need to do anything special.
2459 *** define-key, lookup-key, and various other functions for changing or
2460 looking up key bindings now let you write an event type with a list
2461 like (ctrl meta newline) or (meta ?d), as in XEmacs. (ctrl meta newline)
2462 is equivalent to the event type symbol C-M-newline, and (meta ?d)
2463 is equivalent to the character ?\M-d.
2465 *** The function event-convert-list converts a list such as
2466 (meta ?d) into the corresponding event type (a symbol or integer).
2468 *** In an interactive spec, `k' means to read a key sequence. In this
2469 key sequence, upper case characters and shifted function keys which
2470 have no bindings are converted to lower case if that makes them
2473 The new interactive code `K' reads a key sequence similarly, but does
2474 not convert the last event. `K' is useful for reading a key sequence
2475 to be given a binding.
2477 *** The variable overriding-local-map now has no effect on the menu bar
2478 display unless overriding-local-map-menu-flag is non-nil. This is why
2479 incremental search no longer temporarily changes the menu bars.
2481 Note that overriding-local-map does still affect the execution of key
2482 sequences entered using the menu bar. So if you use
2483 overriding-local-map, and a menu bar key sequence comes in, you should
2484 make sure to clear overriding-local-map before that key sequence gets
2485 looked up and executed. But this is what you'd normally do anyway:
2486 programs that use overriding-local-map normally exit and "put back"
2487 any event such as menu-bar that they do not handle specially.
2489 *** The new variable `overriding-terminal-local-map' is like
2490 overriding-local-map, but is specific to a single terminal.
2492 *** delete-frame events.
2494 When you use the X window manager's "delete window" command, this now
2495 generates a delete-frame event. The standard definition of this event
2496 is a command that deletes the frame that received the event, and kills
2497 Emacs when the last visible or iconified frame is deleted. You can
2498 rebind the event to some other command if you wish.
2500 *** Two new types of events, iconify-frame and make-frame-visible,
2501 indicate that the user iconified or deiconified a frame with the
2502 window manager. Since the window manager has already done the work,
2503 the default definition for both event types in Emacs is to do nothing.
2507 *** Certain Lisp variables are now local to an X terminal (in other
2508 words, all the screens of a single X server). The value in effect, at
2509 any given time, is the one that belongs to the terminal of the
2510 selected frame. The terminal-local variables are
2511 default-minibuffer-frame, system-key-alist, defining-kbd-macro, and
2512 last-kbd-macro. There is no way for Lisp programs to create others.
2514 The terminal-local variables cannot be buffer-local.
2516 *** When you create an X frame, for the `top' and `left' frame
2517 parameters, you can now use values of the form (+ N) or (- N), where N
2518 is an integer. (+ N) means N pixels to the right of the left edge of
2519 the screen and (- N) means N pixels to the left of the right edge. In
2520 both cases, N may be zero (exactly at the edge) or negative (putting
2521 the window partly off the screen).
2523 The function x-parse-geometry can return values of these forms
2526 *** The variable menu-bar-file-menu has been renamed to
2527 menu-bar-files-menu to match the actual item that appears in the menu.
2528 (All the other such variable names do match.)
2530 *** The new function active-minibuffer-window returns the minibuffer window
2531 currently active, or nil if none is now active.
2533 *** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
2534 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
2535 and delete-windows-on, if you specify 0 for the last argument,
2536 it means to consider all visible and iconified frames.
2538 *** When you set a frame's cursor type with modify-frame-parameters,
2539 you can now specify (bar . INTEGER) as the cursor type. This stands
2540 for a bar cursor of width INTEGER.
2542 *** The new function facep returns t if its argument is a face name
2543 (or if it is a vector such as is used internally by the Lisp code
2544 to represent a face).
2546 *** Each frame can now have a buffer-predicate function,
2547 which is the `buffer-predicate' frame parameter.
2548 When `other-buffer' looks for an alternative buffer, it considers
2549 only the buffers that fit the selected frame's buffer predicate (if it
2550 has one). This is useful for applications that make their own frames.
2552 *** When you create an X frame, you can now specify the frame parameter
2553 `display'. This says which display to put the frame on. The value
2554 should be a display name--a string of the form
2555 "HOST:DPYNUMBER.SCREENNUMBER".
2557 The functions x-server-... and x-display-... now take an optional
2558 argument which specifies the display to ask about. You can use either
2559 a display name string or a frame. A value of nil stands for the
2562 To close the connection to an X display, use the function
2563 x-close-connection. Specify which display with a display name. You
2564 cannot close the connection if Emacs still has frames open on that
2567 x-display-list returns a list indicating which displays Emacs has
2568 connections to. Its elements are display names (strings).
2570 *** The icon-type frame parameter may now be a file name.
2571 Then the contents of that file specify the icon bitmap to use
2574 *** The title of an Emacs frame, displayed by most window managers, is
2575 set from frame-title-format or icon-title-format. These have the same
2576 structure as mode-line-format.
2578 *** x-display-grayscale-p is a new function that returns non-nil if
2579 your X server can display shades of gray. Currently it returns
2580 non-nil for color displays (because they can display shades of gray);
2581 we may change it in the next version to return nil for color displays.
2583 *** The frame parameter scroll-bar-width specifies the width of the
2584 scrollbar in pixels.
2588 *** Creating a buffer with get-buffer-create does not obey
2589 default-major-mode. That variable is now handled in a separate
2590 function, set-buffer-major-mode. get-buffer-create and generate-new-buffer
2591 always leave the newly created buffer in Fundamental mode.
2593 Creating a new buffer by visiting a file or with switch-to-buffer,
2594 pop-to-buffer, and similar functions does call set-buffer-major-mode
2595 to select the default major mode specified with default-major-mode.
2597 *** You can now create an "indirect buffer". An indirect buffer shares
2598 its text, including text properties, with another buffer (the "base
2599 buffer"), but has its own major mode, local variables, overlays, and
2600 narrowing. An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from
2601 those of the base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer
2602 cannot itself be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).
2603 The base buffer cannot itself be indirect.
2605 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
2606 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is an indirect
2607 buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new buffer.
2609 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
2610 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
2612 The function buffer-base-buffer, given an indirect buffer, returns its
2613 base buffer. It returns nil when given an ordinary buffer (not
2616 The library `noutline' has versions of Outline mode and Outline minor
2617 mode which let you display different parts of the outline in different
2622 *** The functions call-process and call-process-region now allow
2623 you to direct error message output from the subprocess into a
2624 separate destination, instead of mixing it with ordinary output.
2625 To do this, specify for the third argument, BUFFER, a list of the form
2626 (BUFFER-OR-NAME ERROR-DESTINATION)
2627 BUFFER-OR-NAME specifies where to put ordinary output; it should
2628 be a buffer or buffer name, or t, nil or 0. This is what would
2629 have been the BUFFER argument, ordinarily.
2631 ERROR-DESTINATION specifies where to put the error output.
2632 nil means discard it, t means mix it with the ordinary output,
2633 and a string specifies a file name to write this output into.
2635 You can't specify a buffer to put the error output in; that is not
2636 easy to implement directly. You can put the error output into a
2637 buffer by sending it to a temporary file and then inserting the file
2640 *** Comint mode changes:
2642 **** The variable comint-completion-addsuffix can also be a cons pair
2643 of the form (DIRSUFFIX . FILESUFFIX), where DIRSUFFIX and FILESUFFIX are
2644 strings added on unambiguous or exact completion of directories and file
2645 names, respectively.
2649 *** You can now specify which values of the `invisible' property
2650 make text invisible in a given buffer. The variable
2651 `buffer-invisibility-spec', which is always local in all buffers,
2654 If its value is t, then any non-nil `invisible' property makes
2655 a character invisible.
2657 If its value is a list, then a character is invisible if its
2658 `invisible' property value appears as a member of the list, or if it
2659 appears as the car of a member of the list.
2661 When the `invisible' property value appears as the car of a member of
2662 the `buffer-invisibility-spec' list, then the cdr of that member has
2663 an effect. If it is non-nil, then an ellipsis appears in place of the
2664 character. (This happens only for the *last* invisible character in a
2665 series of consecutive invisible characters, and only at the end of a
2668 If a character's `invisible' property is a list, then Emacs checks each
2669 element of the list against `buffer-invisibility-spec'. If any element
2670 matches, the character is invisible.
2672 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' shows what text properties
2673 are in effect at point.
2675 *** Frame objects now exist in Emacs even on systems that don't support
2676 X Windows. You can create multiple frames, and switch between them
2677 using select-frame. The selected frame is actually displayed on your
2678 terminal; other frames are not displayed at all. The selected frame
2679 number appears in the mode line after `Emacs', except for frame 1.
2681 Switching frames on ASCII terminals is therefore more or less
2682 equivalent to switching between different window configurations.
2684 *** The new variable window-size-change-functions holds a list of
2685 functions to be called if window sizes change (or if windows are
2686 created or deleted). The functions are called once for each frame on
2687 which changes have occurred, with the frame as the sole argument.
2688 This takes place shortly before redisplay.
2690 *** The modification hook functions of overlays now work differently.
2691 They are called both before and after each change. This makes it
2692 possible for the functions to determine exactly what the change was.
2694 This change affects three overlay properties: the modification-hooks
2695 property, a list of functions called for deletions overlapping the
2696 overlay's range and for insertions inside it; the
2697 insert-in-front-hooks, a list of functions called for insertions at
2698 the beginning of the overlay; and the insert-behind-hooks, a list of
2699 functions called for insertions at the end of the overlay.
2701 Each function is called both before and after each change that it
2702 applies to. Before the change, it is called with four arguments:
2703 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY nil START END)
2704 START and END are the same arguments that the before-change-functions
2707 After the change, each function is called with five arguments:
2708 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY t START END OLDSIZE)
2709 The last arguments, START and END and OLDSIZE,
2710 are the same arguments that the after-change-functions receive.
2712 This means the function must accept either four or five arguments.
2714 *** You can set defaults for text-properties with the new variable
2715 `default-text-properties'. Its value is a property list; the values
2716 specified there are used whenever a character (or its category) does
2717 not specify a value.
2719 *** The `face' property of a character or an overlay can now be a list
2720 of face names. Formerly it had to be just one face name.
2722 *** Changes in handling the `intangible' text property.
2724 **** If inhibit-point-motion-hooks is non-nil, then `intangible' properties
2727 **** Moving to just before a stretch of intangible text
2728 is no longer special in any way. Point stays at that place.
2730 **** When you move point backwards into the midst of intangible text,
2731 point moves back to the beginning of that text. (It used to move
2732 forward to the end of that text, which was not very useful.)
2734 **** When moving across intangible text, Emacs stops wherever the
2735 property value changes. So if you have two stretches of intangible
2736 text, with different non-nil intangible properties, it is possible to
2737 place point between them.
2741 *** Overlay changes.
2743 **** The new function previous-overlay-change returns the position of
2744 the previous overlay start or end, before a specified position. This
2745 is the backwards-moving counterpart of next-overlay-change.
2747 **** overlay-get now supports category properties on an overlay
2748 the same way get-text-property supports them as text properties.
2750 Specifically, if an overlay does not have the property PROP that you
2751 ask for, but it does have a `category' property which is a symbol,
2752 then that symbol's PROP property is used.
2754 **** If an overlay has a non-nil `evaporate' property, it will be
2755 deleted if it ever becomes empty (i.e., when it spans no characters).
2757 **** If an overlay has a `before-string' and/or `after-string' property,
2758 these strings are displayed at the overlay's endpoints.
2762 *** The new variable fill-paragraph-function provides a way for major
2763 modes to override the filling of paragraphs. If this is non-nil,
2764 fill-paragraph calls it as a function, passing along its sole
2765 argument. If the function returns non-nil, fill-paragraph assumes it
2766 has done the job and simply passes on whatever value it returned.
2768 The usual use of this feature is to fill comments in programming
2771 *** Text filling and justification changes:
2773 **** The new variable use-hard-newlines can be used to make a
2774 distinction between "hard" and "soft" newlines; the fill functions
2775 will then never remove a newline that was manually inserted. Hard
2776 newlines are marked with a non-nil `hard' text-property.
2778 **** The fill-column and left-margin can now be modified by text-properties.
2779 Most lisp programs should use the new functions (current-fill-column) and
2780 (current-left-margin), which return the proper values to use for the
2783 **** There are new functions for dealing with margins:
2785 ***** Set-left-margin and set-right-margin (set the value for a region
2786 and re-fill). These functions take three arguments: two to specify
2787 a region, and the desired margin value.
2789 ***** Increase-left-margin, decrease-left-margin, increase-right-margin, and
2790 decrease-right-margin (change settings relative to current values, and
2793 ***** move-to-left-margin moves point there, optionally adding
2794 indentation or changing tabs to spaces in order to make that possible.
2795 beginning-of-line-text also moves past the fill-prefix and any
2796 indentation added to center or right-justify a line, to the beginning
2797 of the text that the user actually typed.
2799 ***** delete-to-left-margin removes any left-margin indentation, but
2800 does not change the property.
2802 **** The paragraph-movement functions look for the paragraph-start and
2803 paragraph-separate regexps at the current left margin, not at the
2804 beginning of the line. This means that those regexps should NOT use ^
2805 to anchor the search. However, for backwards compatibility, a ^ at
2806 the beginning of the regexp will be ignored, so most packages won't break.
2808 **** justify-current-line is now capable of doing left, center, or
2809 right justification as well as full justification.
2811 **** The fill functions can do any kind of justification based on the new
2812 `justification' text-property and `default-justification' variable,
2813 or arguments to the functions. They also have a new option which
2814 defeats the normal removal of extra whitespace.
2816 **** The new function `current-justification' returns the kind of
2817 justification used for the current line. The new function
2818 `set-justification' can be used to change it, including re-justifying
2819 the text of the region according to the new value.
2821 **** Filling and auto-fill are disabled if justification is `none'.
2823 **** The auto-fill-function is now called regardless of whether
2824 the fill-column has been exceeded; the function can determine on its
2825 own whether filling (or justification) is necessary.
2829 *** process-tty-name is a new function that returns the name of the
2830 terminal that the process itself reads and writes on (not the name of
2831 the pty that Emacs uses to talk with that terminal).
2833 *** Errors in process filters and sentinels are now normally caught
2834 automatically, so that they don't abort other Lisp programs.
2836 Setting debug-on-error non-nil turns off this feature; then errors in
2837 filters and sentinels are not caught. As a result, they can invoke
2838 the debugger, under the control of debug-on-error.
2840 *** Emacs now preserves the match data around the execution of process
2841 filters and sentinels. You can use search and match functions freely
2842 in filters and sentinels without explicitly bothering to save the
2847 *** The variable message-log-max controls how messages are logged in the
2848 "*Messages*" buffer. An integer value means to keep that many lines;
2849 t means to log with no limit; nil means disable message logging. Lisp
2850 code that calls `message' excessively (e.g. isearch.el) should probably
2851 bind this variable to nil.
2853 *** Display tables now have a new element, at index 261, specifying the
2854 glyph to use for the separator between two side-by-side windows. By
2855 default, this is the vertical bar character `|'. Probably the only
2856 other useful character to store for this element is a space, to make
2857 less visual separation between two side-by-side windows displaying
2858 related information.
2860 *** The new mode-line-format spec %c displays the current column number.
2862 *** The new variable blink-matching-delay specifies how long to keep
2863 the cursor at the matching open-paren, after you insert a close-paren.
2864 This is useful mainly on systems which can wait for a fraction of a
2865 second--you can then specify fractional values such as 0.5.
2867 *** Faster processing of buffers with long lines
2869 The new variable cache-long-line-scans determines whether Emacs
2870 should use caches to handle long lines more quickly. This variable is
2871 buffer-local, in all buffers.
2873 Normally, the line-motion functions work by scanning the buffer for
2874 newlines. Columnar operations (like `move-to-column' and
2875 `compute-motion') also work by scanning the buffer, summing character
2876 widths as they go. This works well for ordinary text, but if the
2877 buffer's lines are very long (say, more than 500 characters), these
2878 motion functions will take longer to execute. Emacs may also take
2879 longer to update the display.
2881 If cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, these motion functions cache
2882 the results of their scans, and consult the cache to avoid rescanning
2883 regions of the buffer until the text is modified. The caches are most
2884 beneficial when they prevent the most searching---that is, when the
2885 buffer contains long lines and large regions of characters with the
2886 same, fixed screen width.
2888 When cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, processing short lines will
2889 become slightly slower (because of the overhead of consulting the
2890 cache), and the caches will use memory roughly proportional to the
2891 number of newlines and characters whose screen width varies.
2893 The caches require no explicit maintenance; their accuracy is
2894 maintained internally by the Emacs primitives. Enabling or disabling
2895 the cache should not affect the behavior of any of the motion functions;
2896 it should only affect their performance.
2900 *** The function user-login-name now accepts an optional
2901 argument uid. If the argument is non-nil, user-login-name
2902 returns the login name for that user id.
2904 *** system-name, user-name, user-full-name and user-real-name are now
2905 variables as well as functions. The variables hold the same values
2906 that the functions would return. The new variable multiple-frames
2907 is non-nil if at least two non-minibuffer frames are visible. These
2908 variables may be useful in constructing the value of frame-title-format
2909 or icon-title-format.
2911 *** Changes in time-conversion functions.
2913 **** The new function format-time-string takes a format string and a
2914 time value. It converts the time to a string, according to the format
2915 specified. You can specify what kind of conversion to use with
2918 **** The new function decode-time converts a time value into a list of
2919 specific items of information: the year, month, day of week, day of
2920 month, hour, minute and second. (A time value is a list of two or
2923 **** The new function encode-time converts specific items of time
2924 information--the second, minute, hour, day, month, year, and time
2925 zone--into a time value.
2929 * Changes in Emacs 19.27
2931 There are no changes; however, here is one bug fix made in 19.26 that users
2932 think should be documented here.
2934 ** SPC and DEL in Info now handle menus consistently.
2936 SPC and DEL scroll through an entire subtree an Info manual. Once you
2937 scroll through a node far enough to reach a menu, SPC begins moving
2938 into the subnodes of the menu, starting with the first one. When you
2939 reach the end of a subnode, SPC moves into the next subnode, and so
2942 DEL more or less scrolls through the same text in reverse order.
2946 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.26
2948 ** In the X toolkit version, if you click on a menu bar item and
2949 release the button quickly outside the menu, the menu remains visible
2950 until you click or type something else. If you click on the menu, you
2951 select from the menu. Any other mouse click makes the menu disappear.
2952 Keyboard input gets rid of the menu and then is processed normally.
2954 "Quickly" means within double-click-time milliseconds.
2956 ** The C-x 5 commands to select a buffer in "another frame" now use an
2957 existing iconified frame, if any, deiconifying it. They also raise
2960 ** Region highlighting on a black-and-white-only display now uses
2961 underlining. Inverse-video had the problem that you couldn't see
2964 ** You can now change the height of a window by pressing mouse-1 on
2965 the mode line and dragging it up and down.
2967 ** If you set the environment variable LC_CTYPE to iso_8859_1 or
2968 iso-8859-1, Emacs automatically sets up for display and syntactic
2969 handling of the ISO Latin-1 character set.
2971 This does not automatically load any of the packages for input of
2972 these characters, because it's not yet clear what is right to do.
2973 You must still explicitly load either iso-transl or iso-acc.
2975 ** For a read-only buffer that is also modified, the mode line now displays
2978 ** M-prior (scroll-other-window-down) is a new command that works like
2979 M-next (and C-M-v) but scrolls in the opposite direction.
2981 M-home moves to the beginning of the buffer, in the other window.
2982 M-end moves to the end of the buffer, in the other window. These two
2983 commands, along with M-next and M-prior, form a series of commands for
2984 moving around in the other window.
2986 ** In change logs, the mail address is now delimited with <...> instead
2989 This makes it a little more convenient to extract the mail address for
2990 use in mailing a message.
2992 ** In Shell mode and other comint modes, C-a has now returned to
2993 its ordinary meaning: move to the beginning of the line.
2994 Use C-c C-a to move to the end of the prompt.
2996 ** If you set mail-signature to t to cause automatic insertion of
2997 your .signature file, you now get a -- before the signature.
2999 ** Setting rmail-highlighted-headers to nil entirely turns off
3000 highlighting in Rmail. However, if your motivation for doing this is
3001 that the highlighted text doesn't look good on your display, it might
3002 be better to change the appearance of the `highlight' face. Once
3003 you've done that, you may find Rmail highlighting is useful.
3005 ** In the calendar, mouse-2 is now used only for commands that apply to a date.
3006 If you click it when not on a date, it gives an immediate error.
3008 Mouse-3 in the calendar now gives a menu of commands that do not apply
3009 to a particular date.
3011 The D command displays diary entries from a specified diary file (not
3012 your standard diary file).
3014 ** In the gnus-uu package, the binding for gnus-uu-threaded-decode-and-view
3015 is now C-c C-v C-d, not C-c C-v C-h. Thus, C-c C-v C-h is now available
3016 for asking for a list of the subcommands of C-c C-v.
3018 ** You can now specify "who you are" for various Emacs packages by
3019 setting just one variable, user-mail-address. This currently applies
3020 to posting news with GNUS and to making change log entries. It may
3021 apply to additional Emacs features in the future.
3024 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.26:
3026 ** The function insert-char now takes an optional third argument
3027 which, if non-nil, says the inserted characters should inherit sticky
3028 text properties from the surrounding text.
3030 ** The `diary' library has been renamed to `diary-lib'. If you refer
3031 to this library in your Lisp code, you must update the references.
3033 ** Sending text to a subprocess can read input from subprocesses if it
3034 has to wait because the destination subprocess's terminal input buffer
3037 It was already possible in unusual occasions for this operation to
3038 read subprocess input, but it did not happen very often. It is now
3039 more likely to happen.
3041 ** last-nonmenu-event is now bound to t around filter functions and sentinels.
3042 This is to ensure that y-or-n-p and yes-or-no-p use the keyboard by default.
3044 ** In mode lines, %+ now displays as % for unmodified read-only
3045 buffers. It is now the same as %* except in the case of a modified
3046 read-only buffer; in that case, %+ displays as *.
3048 The old meaning of %+ is now available on %&.
3049 It displays * for a modified buffer and - for an unmodified buffer,
3050 regardless of read-only status.
3052 ** You can now use `underline' in the color list of a face.
3053 It serves as a last resort, and says to underline the face
3054 (if previous color list elements can't be used).
3056 ** The new function x-color-values returns the list of color values
3057 for a given color name (a string). The list contains three integers
3058 which give the amounts of red, green and blue in the color: (R G B).
3060 ** In run-at-time, 0 as the repeat interval means "don't repeat".
3062 ** The variable trim-versions-without-asking has been renamed to
3063 delete-old-versions.
3065 ** The new function other-window-for-scrolling returns the choice of
3066 other window for C-M-v to scroll.
3068 ** Note that the function fceiling was mistakenly documented as fceil before.
3071 * Changes in cc-mode.el in Emacs 19.26:
3073 ** A new syntactic symbol has been added: substatement-open. It
3074 defines the open brace of a substatement block. These used to get:
3075 ((block-open ...) (substatement . ...)).
3077 Non-block substatement lines still get just ((substatement . ...))
3079 Note that the custom indent function c-adaptive-block-open has been
3080 removed as obsolete.
3082 ** You can now specify the `hanginess' of closing braces. See
3083 c-hanging-braces-alist.
3085 ** Recognizes try and catch blocks in C++. They are given the
3086 substatement syntactic symbol.
3088 ** should be generally more forgiving about non-GNU standard top-level
3089 construct definition styles (i.e. where the function/class/struct
3090 opening brace does not start in column zero).
3092 If you hang the braces that open a top-level construct on the right
3093 edge, and you find you still need to define defun-open-prompt (Emacs
3094 19) please let me know. Note that there may still be performance
3095 issues related to non-column zero opening braces.
3097 ** c-macro-expand is put on C-c C-e
3099 ** New style: "Default". Resets indentation to those shipped with
3102 ** internal defun c-indent-via-language-element has been renamed
3103 c-indent-line for compatibility with c-mode.el and awk-mode.
3105 ** new buffer-local variable c-comment-start-regexp for (potential)
3106 flexibility in adding new modes based on cc-mode.el
3110 * Changes in Emacs 19.25
3112 The variable x-cross-pointer-shape (which didn't really exist) has
3113 been renamed to x-sensitive-text-pointer-shape, and now does exist.
3117 * Changes in Emacs 19.24
3119 Here is a list of new Lisp packages introduced since 19.22.
3121 derived.el Define new major modes based on old ones.
3122 dired-x.el Extra Dired features.
3123 double.el New mode for conveniently inputting non-beyond chars.
3124 easymenu.el Create menus easily.
3125 ediff.el Snazzy diff interface.
3126 foldout.el A kind of outline mode designed for editing programs.
3127 gnus-uu.el UUdecode in GNUS buffers.
3128 ielm.el Interactively evaluate Lisp.
3129 This is a replacement for Lisp Interaction Mode.
3130 iso-cvt.el Conversion of beyond-ASCII characters between
3131 various different representations.
3132 jka-compr.el Automatic compression/decompression.
3133 mldrag.el Drag modeline to change heights of windows.
3134 mail-hist.el Provides history for headers of outgoing mail.
3135 rsz-mini.el Automatically resizing minibuffers.
3136 s-region.el Set region by holding shift.
3137 skeleton.el Templates for statement insertion.
3138 soundex.el Classifying words by how they sound.
3139 tempo.el Template insertion with hotspots.
3143 * User Editing Changes in 19.23.
3145 ** Emacs 19.23 uses Ispell version 3.
3147 Previous Emacs 19 versions used Ispell version 4. That version had
3148 improvements in storing the dictionary compactly, but these are not
3149 very important nowadays. Meanwhile, in parallel to the work on Ispell
3150 4, many useful features were added to Ispell 3. Until a few months
3151 ago, the terms on Ispell 3 did not let us use it; but they have now
3152 been changed, so now we are using it. We are dropping Ispell 4.
3154 ** Emacs 19.23 can run on MS-DOG. See the file MSDOS in the same
3155 directory as this file.
3157 ** Emacs 19.23 can work with an X toolkit. You must specify toolkit
3158 operation when you configure Emacs: use the option
3159 --with-x-toolkit=yes. (This option uses code developed by Lucid;
3160 thanks to Frederic Pierresteguy for helping to adapt it.)
3162 ** Emacs now has dialog boxes; yes/no and y/n questions automatically
3163 use them in commands invoked with the mouse. For more information,
3164 see below under "Lisp programming changes".
3166 ** Menus now display the keyboard equivalents (if any) of the menu
3167 commands in parentheses after the menu item.
3169 ** Kill commands, used in a read-only buffer, now move point across
3170 the text they would otherwise have killed. This way, you can use
3171 repeated kill commands to transfer text into the kill ring.
3173 ** There is now a global mark ring in addition to the mark ring that is local
3174 to each buffer. The global mark ring stores positions in any buffer. Any
3175 time the mark is set and the current buffer is different from the last time
3176 the mark was set, the new mark is pushed on the global mark ring as well.
3177 The new command C-x C-SPC (pop-global-mark) pops the global mark ring and
3178 jumps to the last mark pushed, first switching to that buffer.
3180 ** Query Replace is now available in the Edit menu.
3182 ** ESC no longer simply exits a Query Replace. It now exits the Query
3183 Replace and remains pending. Thus, ESC A and M-A are now equivalent
3186 To simply exit a Query Replace, type RET or Period.
3188 ** M-mouse-2 now puts point at the end of the yanked secondary selection.
3190 ** Mouse-1 in the mode line now simply selects the window above that
3191 mode line. Mouse-2 in the mode line selects that window and expands
3192 it to fill the frame it is in.
3194 ** You can now use mouse-2 in a Dired buffer or Tar mode buffer to find
3195 a file you click on, in a compilation buffer to go to a particular
3196 error message, and in a *Occur* buffer to go to a particular
3199 (It was already possible to do likewise in Info and in completion list
3202 What's more, the sensitive areas of the buffer now highlight when you
3203 move the mouse over them.
3205 ** In a completion list buffer, the command RET now chooses the completion
3206 that is around or next to point.
3208 ** If you specify the foreground color for the `mode-line' face, and
3209 mode-line-inverse-video is non-nil, then the default background color
3210 is the usual foreground color.
3212 ** revert-buffer now preserves markers pointing within the unchanged
3213 text (if any) at the beginning and end of the file.
3215 ** Version control checkin and checkout preserve all markers if the
3216 file does not contain any of the magic version header sequences that
3217 are updated automatically by RCS and SCCS. If such version headers
3218 are present, checkin and checkout preserve a marker unless it comes
3219 between two such sequences. (So it's a good idea to put all the
3220 header sequences close together.)
3222 ** When a large deletion shuts off auto save temporarily in a buffer,
3223 you can now turn it on again by saving the buffer with C-x C-s (as was
3224 possible in Emacs 18). You can also turn it on again with M-1 M-x
3225 auto-save (as has been possible in Emacs 19).
3227 ** C-x r d now runs the command delete-rectangle.
3229 ** The new command imenu shows you a menu of interesting places in the
3230 current buffer and lets you select one; then it moves point there.
3231 The definition of interesting places depends on the major mode, but
3232 typically this includes function definitions and such. Normally,
3233 imenu displays the menu in a buffer; but if you bind it to a mouse
3234 event, it shows a mouse popup menu.
3236 ** You can make certain chosen buffers, that normally appear in a
3237 separate window, appear in special frames of their own. To do this,
3238 set special-display-buffer-names to a list of buffer names; any buffer
3239 whose name is in that list automatically gets a special frame when it
3240 is to be displayed in another window.
3242 A good value to try is ("*compilation*" "*grep*" "*TeX Shell*").
3244 More generally, you can set special-display-regexps to a list of regular
3245 expressions; then each buffer whose name matches any of those regular
3246 expressions gets its own frame.
3248 The variable special-display-frame-alist specifies the frame
3249 parameters for these frames. It has a default value, so you don't
3252 ** If you set sentence-end-double-space to nil, the fill commands
3253 expect just one space at the end of a sentence. (If you want the
3254 sentence commands to accept single spaces, you must modify the regexp
3257 ** You can suppress the startup echo area message by adding text like
3258 this to your .emacs file:
3260 (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "YOUR-LOGIN-NAME")
3262 Simply setting inhibit-startup-echo-area-message to your login name is
3263 not sufficient to inhibit the message; Emacs explicitly checks whether
3264 .emacs contains an expression as shown above. Your login name must
3265 appear in the expression as a Lisp string constant.
3267 This way, you can easily inhibit the message for yourself if you wish,
3268 but thoughtless copying of your .emacs file will not inhibit the
3269 message for someone else.
3271 ** Outline minor mode now uses C-c C-o as a prefix instead of just C-c.
3273 ** In Outline mode, hide-subtree is now C-c C-d. (It was C-c C-h; but
3274 that is now a conventional way to ask for help about C-c commands.)
3276 ** There are two additional commands in Outline mode.
3278 hides all headers except the topmost N levels.
3280 hides everything about the body that point is in
3281 plus the headers leading up from there to the top of the tree.
3283 ** In iso-transl and iso-insert, the sequences for entering A-ring and
3284 the AE ligature are now just A and E (plus the initial C-x 8 or Alt).
3285 You used to have to enter AA or AE, after the C-x 8 prefix of course.
3286 Likewise for lower case a-ring and ae.
3288 ** iso-transl now defines convenient Alt keys as well as the C-x 8 prefix.
3289 Instead of prefixing a sequence with C-x 8, you can add Alt to the
3290 first character of the sequence. For example, Alt-" a is now a way
3291 to enter an a-umlaut.
3293 ** CC mode is a greatly improved mode for C and C++.
3294 See the following page.
3296 ** tcl mode is a new major mode. It provides features for
3297 editing, indenting and running tcl programs.
3299 ** Compilation minor mode lets you parse error messages in any buffer,
3300 not just a normal compilation output buffer. Type M-x
3301 compilation-minor-mode to enable the minor mode; then C-c C-c jumps to
3302 the source location for the error at point, as in the `*compilation*'
3303 buffer. If you use compilation-minor-mode in an Rlogin buffer, it
3304 automatically accesses remote source files by ftp.
3306 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
3308 *** Comint modes (including Shell mode, GUD modes, etc.) now bind
3309 C-M-l to the command comint-show-output. This command scrolls the
3310 buffer to show the last batch of output from the subprogram.
3312 *** Completion in Comint modes now truly operates on the string before
3313 point, rather than the word that point is within.
3315 *** Comint mode file name completion ignores those files that end with a
3316 string in the new variable comint-completion-fignore. This variable's
3317 default value is nil.
3319 *** Shell mode uses the variable shell-completion-fignore to set
3320 comint-completion-fignore. The default value is nil, but some
3321 people prefer ("~" "#" "%").
3323 *** The function `comint-watch-for-password-prompt' can be used to
3324 suppress echoing when a subprocess asks for a password. To use it,
3327 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
3328 'comint-watch-for-password-prompt)
3330 *** You can use M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m to strip ^M characters from
3333 *** In Shell mode, TAB now completes environment variables, if possible,
3334 and expands directory references.
3336 *** You can use M-x comint-run to execute any program of your choice in
3337 a comint mode. Some programs such as shells, rlogin, and debuggers
3338 have their own specialized modes; this command is one way to use
3339 comint to run programs for which no such specialized mode exits. (You
3340 can also run a shell with M-x shell and run the program of your choice
3341 under the shell--but that gives you the specializations of Shell
3344 ** When you run GUD (M-x gdb, M-x dbx, and so on), you can use TAB
3345 to do file name completion in the minibuffer.
3347 The "Complete" menu includes an item for directory expansion.
3349 ** GUD working with future versions of GDB will permit TAB for
3350 GDB-style symbol completion. This will work with GDB 4.13.
3352 ** Rmail no longer gets new mail automatically when you visit an Rmail
3353 file specified by name--not even if it is your primary Rmail file. To
3354 get new mail, type `g'. This feature is an advantage because you now
3355 have a choice of whether to get new mail. (This change actually
3356 occurred in an earlier version, but wasn't listed here then, since it
3357 made the code do what the documentation already said.)
3359 ** Rmail now highlights certain fields automatically, when you use X
3360 windows. The variable rmail-highlighted-headers controls which
3363 ** If you set rmail-summary-window-size to an integer, Rmail uses
3364 a window that many lines high for the summary buffer.
3366 ** rmail-input-menu is a new command that visits an Rmail file letting
3367 you choose which file with a mouse menu. rmail-output-menu is
3368 similar; it outputs the current message, using a mouse menu to choose
3369 which Rmail file. These commands use the variables
3370 rmail-secondary-file-directory and rmail-secondary-file-regexp.
3372 ** The mh-e package has been changed substantially.
3373 See the file ./MH-E-NEWS for details.
3375 ** The calendar and diary have new features.
3377 The menu bar for the calendar contains most of the calendar commands,
3378 arranged into logical categories.
3380 Mouse-2 now performs specific-date-related commands when clicked on a
3381 date in the calendar window and common three-month-related commands
3382 when clicked elsewhere in the calendar window.
3384 You can set up colored/shaded highlighting of holidays, diary entry
3385 dates, and today's date, by setting calendar-holiday-marker,
3386 diary-entry-marker, and calendar-today-marker to a face instead of a
3387 character. Using a special face is now the default if you are using a
3390 ** The appt package for displaying appointment reminders has new
3393 *** The appt alarm window stays for the full duration of
3394 appt-display-duration. It no longer disappears when you start typing
3397 *** You can change the way the appointment window is created/deleted by
3398 setting the variables appt-disp-window-function and
3399 appt-delete-window-function.
3401 For instance, these variables can be set to functions that display
3402 appointments in pop-up frames, which are lowered or iconified after
3403 appt-display-duration seconds.
3405 ** desktop.el can now save a list of buffer-local variables,
3406 and saves more global ones.
3408 ** Pascal mode has been completely rewritten. It now features
3409 completing of function names, variables and type definitions around
3410 current point (like M-TAB does with lisp-symbols). There's also an
3411 outline mode (M-x pascal-outline) that hides the bodies of all
3412 functions you're not working with.
3414 ** Edebug has a number of changes:
3416 *** Edebug syntax error reporting is improved.
3418 *** Top-level forms and defining forms other than defun and defmacro may
3419 now be debugged with Edebug.
3421 *** Edebug specifications may now contain body, &define, name, arg or
3422 arglist, def-body, and def-form, to support definitions.
3424 *** edebug-all-defuns is renamed to edebug-all-defs.
3425 def-edebug-form-spec is replaced by def-edebug-form whose arguments
3426 are unevaluated. The old names are still available for now.
3428 *** Frequency counts and coverage data may be displayed for functions being
3431 *** A global break condition is now checked at every stop point.
3433 *** The previous condition at a breakpoint may now be edited.
3435 *** A new "next" mode stops only after expression evaluation.
3437 *** A new command, top-level-nonstop, does not even stop for unwind-protect,
3441 * Changes in CC mode in Emacs 19.23.
3443 `cc-mode' provides ANSI C, K&R C, and ARM C++ language editing. It
3444 represents the merge of c++-mode.el and c-mode.el. cc-mode provides a
3445 new, more flexible indentation engine so that indentation
3446 customization is more intuitive. There are two steps to calculating
3447 indentation: first, CC mode analyzes the line for syntactic content,
3448 then based on this content it applies user defined offsets and adds
3449 this offset to the indentation of some previous line.
3451 The syntactic analysis determines if the line describes a `statement',
3452 `substatement', `class-open', `member-init-intro', etc. These are
3453 described in detail with C-h v c-offsets-alist. You can change the
3454 offsets interactively with C-c C-o (c-set-offsets), or
3455 programmatically in your c-mode-common-hook, which is run both by
3456 c-mode and c++-mode. You can also set up "styles" in the same way
3457 that you could with c-mode.el. The variable c-basic-offset controls
3458 the basic offset given to a level of indentation.
3460 If, for example, you wanted to change this style:
3466 printf ("its a foo\n");
3469 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3480 printf ("its a foo\n");
3483 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3488 you could add the following to your .emacs file:
3490 (defun my-c-mode-common-hook ()
3491 (c-set-offset 'case-label 2)
3492 (c-set-offset 'statement-case-intro 2))
3493 (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'my-c-mode-common-hook)
3497 c-offsets-alist contains an association list of syntactic symbols and
3498 their relative offsets. Do a "C-h v c-offsets-alist" to get a list of
3499 all syntactic symbols currently defined, and their meanings. You
3500 should not change this variable directly; use the supplied interface
3501 commands c-set-offset and c-set-style.
3503 c-mode-common-hook is run by both c-mode and c++-mode during their
3504 common initializations. You should put any customizations that are
3505 the same for both C and C++ into this hook.
3507 The variable c-strict-semantics-p is used mainly for debugging. When
3508 non-nil, CC mode signals an error if it returns a syntactic symbol
3509 that can't be found in c-offsets-alist.
3511 If you want CC mode to echo the syntactic analysis for a particular
3512 line when you hit the TAB key, set c-echo-semantic-information-p to
3515 c-basic-offset controls the standard amount of offset for a level of
3516 indentation. You can set a syntactic symbol's offset to + or - as a
3517 short-hand for positive or negative c-basic-offset.
3519 c-comment-only-line-offset lets you control indentation given to lines
3520 which contain only a comment, in the case of C++ line style comments,
3521 or the introduction to a C block comment. Comment-only lines at
3522 column zero can be anchored there independent of the indentation given
3523 to other comment-only lines.
3525 c-block-comments-indent-p controls the style of C block comment
3526 re-indentation. If you put leading stars in front of comment
3527 continuation lines, you should set this variable to nil.
3529 c-cleanup-list is a list describing certain C and C++ constructs to be
3530 "cleaned up" as they are typed, but only when the auto-newline feature
3531 is turned on. In C++, make sure this variable contains at least
3532 'scope-operator so that double colons will not be separated by a
3535 Colons (`:') and braces (`{` and `}') are special in C and C++. For
3536 certain constructs, you may like them to hang on the right edge of the
3537 code, or you may like them to start a new line of code. You can use
3538 the two variables c-hanging-braces-alist and c-hanging-colons-alist
3539 to control whether newlines are placed before and/or after colons and
3540 braces when certain C and C++ constructs are entered. For example,
3541 you can control whether the colon that introduces a C++ member
3542 initialization list hangs on the right edge, starts a new line, or has
3543 no newlines either before or after it.
3545 c-special-indent-hook is run after a line is indented by CC mode. You
3546 can perform any custom indentations here.
3548 c-delete-function is the function that is called when a single
3549 character is deleted with the c-electric-delete command (DEL).
3551 c-electric-pound-behavior describes what happens when you enter the
3552 `#' that introduces a cpp macro.
3554 If c-tab-always-indent is neither t nor nil, then TAB inserts a tab
3555 when within strings, comments, and cpp directives, but it reindents
3556 the line unconditionally.
3558 c-inhibit-startup-warnings-p inhibits warnings about any old
3559 version of Emacs you might be running, which could be incompatible
3562 ** There are two new minor-mode features in CC mode: auto-newline and
3563 hungry-delete. Auto-newline inserts newlines automatically as you
3564 type certain constructs. Hungry-delete consumes all preceding
3565 whitespace (spaces, tabs, and newlines) when the delete key is hit.
3566 You can toggle auto-newline on and off on a per-buffer basis by
3567 hitting C-c C-a. You can toggle hungry-delete on and off by hitting
3568 C-c C-d. You can toggle them both on and off together with C-c C-t.
3570 ** Slash (`/') and star (`*') are now both electric characters.
3574 The new C-c C-o (c-set-offset) command can be used to interactively change
3575 the offset for a particular syntactic symbol.
3577 The new command C-c : (c-scope-operator) inserts the C++ scope operator in
3580 The new command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) indents the entire enclosing
3581 top-level function or class.
3583 The new command C-c C-s (c-show-semantic-information) echos the current
3584 syntactic analysis without re-indenting the current line.
3586 The new commands M-x c-forward-into-nomenclature and M-x
3587 c-backward-into-nomenclature (currently otherwise unbound to a key
3588 sequence), make movement easier when using the C++ variable naming
3589 convention of VariableNamesWithoutUnderscoresButEachWordCapitalized.
3591 ** Command from c-mode.el that have been renamed in cc-mode.el:
3593 electric-c-brace => c-electric-brace
3594 electric-c-semi => c-electric-semi&comma
3595 electric-c-sharp-sign => c-electric-pound
3596 mark-c-function => c-mark-function
3597 electric-c-terminator => c-electric-colon
3598 indent-c-exp => c-indent-exp
3599 set-c-style => c-set-style
3601 ** Variables from c-mode.el that are obsolete with cc-mode.el:
3604 c-brace-imaginary-offset
3608 c-continued-statement-offset
3609 c-continued-brace-offset
3612 * Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.23.
3614 ** To pop up a dialog box, call x-popup-dialog.
3615 It takes two arguments, POSITION and CONTENTS.
3617 POSITION specifies which frame to place the dialog box over;
3618 the dialog box always goes on the center of the frame.
3619 POSITION may be a mouse event, a window, a frame,
3620 or t meaning use the frame that the mouse is in.
3622 CONTENTS specifies the contents of the dialog box.
3623 It looks like a single pane of a popup menu:
3624 (TITLE ITEM1 ITEM2 ...), where each ITEM has the form (STRING . VALUE).
3625 The return value is VALUE from the chosen item.
3627 An ITEM may also be just a string--that makes a nonselectable item.
3628 An ITEM may also be nil--that means to put all preceding items
3629 on the left of the dialog box and all following items on the right.
3630 (By default, approximately half appear on each side.)
3632 If your Emacs is not using an X toolkit, then it cannot display a
3633 real dialog box; so instead it displays a pop-up menu in the center
3636 ** y-or-n-p, yes-or-no-p and map-y-or-n-p now use menus or dialog boxes
3637 to ask their question(s) if the command that is running was reached by
3640 If you want to control which way these functions work, bind the
3641 variable last-nonmenu-event around the call. These functions use the
3642 keyboard if that variable holds a keyboard event (actually, any
3643 non-list); they use the mouse if that variable holds a mouse event
3644 (actually, any list).
3646 ** The mouse-face property is now implemented, both in overlays and as
3647 a text property. It specifies a face to use when the mouse is in the
3648 range of text for which the property is specified.
3650 ** When text has a non-nil `intangible' property, you cannot move point
3651 within it or right before it. If you try, point actually moves to the
3652 end of the intangible text. Note that this means that backward-char
3653 is a no-op when there is an intangible character to the left of point.
3655 ** minibuffer-exit-hook is a new normal hook that is run when you
3656 exit the minibuffer.
3658 ** The variable x-cross-pointer-shape specifies the cursor shape to use
3659 when the mouse is over text that has a mouse-face property.
3661 ** The new variable interpreter-mode-alist specifies major modes to use
3662 for shell scripts that specify a command interpreter. Its elements
3663 look like (INTERPRETER . MODE); for example, ("perl" . perl-mode) is
3664 one element present by default. This feature applies only when the
3665 file name doesn't indicate which mode to use.
3667 ** If you use a minibuffer-only frame, set the variable
3668 minibuffer-auto-raise to t, and entering the minibuffer will then
3669 raise the minibuffer frame.
3671 ** If pop-up-frames is t, display-buffer now looks for an existing
3672 window in any visible frame, showing the specified buffer, and uses
3673 such a window in preference to making a new frame.
3675 ** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
3676 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
3677 and delete-windows-on, if you specify `visible' for the last argument,
3678 it means to consider all visible frames.
3680 ** Mouse events now give the X and Y coordinates in pixels, rather than
3681 in characters. You can convert these values to characters by dividing by
3682 the values of (frame-char-width) and (frame-char-height).
3684 ** The new functions mouse-pixel-position and set-mouse-pixel-position
3685 read and set the mouse position in units of pixels. The existing
3686 functions mouse-position and set-mouse-position continue to work with
3687 units of characters.
3689 ** The new function compute-motion is useful for computing the width
3690 of certain text when it is displayed.
3692 ** The function vertical-motion now takes an option second argument WINDOW
3693 which says which window to use for the display calculations.
3695 vertical-motion always operates on the current buffer.
3696 It is ok to specify a window displaying some other buffer.
3697 Then vertical-motion uses the width, hscroll and display-table of
3698 the specified window, but still scans the current buffer.
3700 ** An error no longer sets last-command to t; the value of last-command
3701 does reflect the previous command (the one that got an error).
3703 If you do not want a particular command to be recognized as the
3704 previous command in the case where it got an error, you must code that
3705 command to prevent this. Set this-command to t at the beginning of
3706 the command, and set this-command back to its proper value at the end,
3709 (defun foo (args...)
3711 (setq this-command t)
3713 (setq this-command 'foo))
3717 (defun foo (args...)
3719 (let ((old-this-command this-command))
3720 (setq this-command t)
3722 (setq this-command old-this-command)))
3724 The undo and yank commands do this.
3726 ** If you specify an explicit title for a new frame when you create it,
3727 the title is used as the resource name when looking up X resources to
3728 control the shape of that frame. If you don't specify the frame title,
3729 the value of x-resource-name is used, as before.
3731 ** The frame parameter user-position, if non-nil, says that the user
3732 has specified the frame position. Emacs reports this to the window
3733 manager, to tell it not to override the position that the user
3736 ** Major modes can now set change-major-mode-hook to arrange for state
3737 to be cleaned up when the user switches to a new major mode. The function
3738 kill-all-local-variables runs this hook. For best results, make the hook a
3739 buffer-local variable so that it will disappear after doing its job and will
3740 not interfere with the subsequent major mode.
3742 ** The new variable overriding-local-map, if non-nil, specifies a keymap
3743 that overrides the current local map, all minor mode keymaps, and all
3744 text property keymaps. Incremental search uses this feature to override
3745 all other keymaps temporarily.
3747 ** A key definition in a menu keymap can now have additional structure:
3748 in addition to (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] . COMMAND) which was allowed
3749 before, the form (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] (...) . COMMAND) is
3750 allowed. (HELPSTRING is optional, and is not currently used.)
3752 Here (...) represents a sublist containing information about keyboard
3753 key sequences that run the same command COMMAND. Displaying the menu
3754 automatically creates and updates the sublist when appropriate; you
3755 need never set these up yourself.
3757 lookup-key, key-binding, and similar functions return just COMMAND,
3758 not the whole binding.
3760 To precompute this information for a given keymap, you can do
3761 (x-popup-menu nil KEYMAP).
3763 ** When you specify coordinates for x-popup-menu as a list ((XOFFSET
3764 YOFFSET) WINDOW), the coordinates are now measured in pixels.
3766 ** where-is-internal now takes just four arguments:
3767 DEFINITION KEYMAP FIRSTONLY NOINDIRECT.
3768 The single argument KEYMAP replaces two arguments KEYMAP and KEYMAP1.
3770 If KEYMAP is non-nil, where-is-internal searches only KEYMAP and the
3773 If KEYMAP is nil, where-is-internal searches all the currently active
3774 keymaps, but finds the active keymaps as if overriding-local-map were
3777 If you pass a list of the form (keymap) as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3778 searches only the global map. (This is not a special case--it follows
3779 from the specifications above.)
3781 If you pass the value of overriding-local-map as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3782 searches in exactly the same was as command execution does.
3784 ** Use the macro define-derived-mode to define a new major mode that
3785 inherits the definition of another major mode. Here's how to define a
3786 command named hypertext-mode that inherits from the command text-mode:
3788 (define-derived-mode hypertext-mode text-mode "Hypertext"
3789 "Major mode for hypertext.\n\n\\{hypertext-mode-map}"
3790 (setq case-fold-search nil))
3792 (define-key hypertext-mode-map [down-mouse-3] 'do-hyper-link)
3794 The new mode has its own keymap, which inherits from that of the
3795 original mode. It also has its own syntax and abbrev tables, which
3796 are initialized by copying those of the original mode. It also has
3797 its own mode hook. All are given names made by appending a suffix
3798 to the name of the new mode.
3800 ** A syntax table can now inherit the data for some characters from
3801 standard-syntax-table, while specifying other characters itself.
3802 Syntax code 13 means "inherit this character from the standard syntax
3803 table." In modify-syntax-entry, the character `@' represents this code.
3805 The function `make-syntax-table' now creates a syntax table which
3806 inherits all letters and control characters (0 to 31 and 128 to 255)
3807 from the standard syntax table, while copying the other characters
3808 from the standard syntax table. Most syntax tables in Emacs are set
3811 This sort of inheritance is useful for people who set up character
3812 sets with additional alphabetic characters in the range 128 to 255.
3813 Just changing the standard syntax for these characters affects all
3816 ** The new function transpose-regions swaps two regions of the buffer.
3817 It preserves the markers in those two regions, so that they stay with
3818 the surrounding text as it is swapped.
3820 ** revert-buffer now runs before-revert-hook at the beginning and
3821 after-revert-hook at the end. These can be used by minor modes
3822 that need to clean up state variables.
3824 ** The new function get-char-property is like get-text-property, but
3825 checks for overlays with properties as well as for text properties.
3826 It checks for overlays first, in order of descending priority, and
3827 text properties last.
3829 get-char-property allows windows as the OBJECT argument, as well
3830 as buffers and strings. If you specify a window, then only overlays
3831 active on that window are considered.
3833 ** Overlays can have the `invisible' property.
3835 ** The function insert-file-contents now takes an optional fifth
3836 argument called REPLACE. If this is t, it means to replace the
3837 contents of the buffer (actually, just the accessible portion)
3838 with the contents of the file.
3840 This is better than simply deleting and inserting the whole thing
3841 because (1) it preserves some marker positions and (2) it puts less
3842 data in the undo list.
3844 ** The variable inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps specifies classes of
3845 file names for which -*- on the first line should not be looked for.
3847 ** The variables before-change-functions and after-change-functions
3848 hold lists of functions to call before and after a change in the
3849 buffer's text. They work much like before-change-function and
3850 after-change-function, except that they hold a list of functions
3851 instead of just one.
3853 These variables will eventually make before-change-function and
3854 after-change-function obsolete.
3856 ** The variable kill-buffer-query-functions holds a list of functions
3857 to be called with no arguments when a buffer is about to be killed.
3858 (That buffer is the current buffer when the function is called.)
3859 If any of the functions returns nil, the buffer is not killed
3860 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3862 ** The variable kill-emacs-query-functions holds a list of functions
3863 to be called with no arguments when you ask to exit Emacs.
3864 If any of the functions returns nil, the exit is canceled
3865 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3867 ** The argument for buffer-disable-undo is now optional,
3868 like the argument for buffer-enable-undo.
3870 ** The new variable system-configuration holds the canonical three-part
3871 GNU configuration name for which Emacs was built.
3873 ** The function system-name now tries harder to return a fully qualified
3876 ** The variable emacs-major-version holds the major version number
3877 of Emacs. (Currently 19.)
3879 ** The variable emacs-minor-version holds the minor version number
3880 of Emacs. (Currently 23.)
3882 ** The default value of comint-input-autoexpand is now nil.
3883 However, Shell mode sets it from the value of shell-input-autoexpand,
3884 whose default value is `history'.
3886 ** The new function set-process-window-size specifies the terminal window
3887 size for a subprocess. On some systems it sends the subprocess a signal
3888 to let it know that the size has changed.
3890 ** %P is a new way to display a percentage in the mode line. It
3891 displays the percentage of the buffer text that is above the *bottom*
3892 of the window (which includes the text visible, in the window as well
3893 as the text above the top). It displays `Top' as well as the
3894 percentage if the top of the buffer is visible on screen.
3896 ** %+ in the mode line specs displays `*' if the buffer is modified,
3897 and otherwise `-'. It never displays `%', as `%*' would do; whether the
3898 buffer is read-only has no effect on %+.
3900 ** The new functions ffloor, fceiling, fround and ftruncate take a
3901 floating point argument and return a floating point result whose value
3902 is a nearby integer. ffloor returns the nearest integer below; fceiling,
3903 the nearest integer above; ftruncate, the nearest integer in the
3904 direction towards zero; fround, the nearest integer.
3906 ** Setting `print-escape-newlines' to a non-nil value now also makes
3907 formfeeds print as ``\f''.
3909 ** auto-mode-alist now has a new feature. If an element has the form
3910 (REGEXP FUNCTION t), and REGEXP matches the file name, then after calling
3911 FUNCTION, Emacs deletes the part of the file name that matched REGEXP
3912 and then searches auto-mode-alist again for a new match.
3914 This is useful for uncompression packages. An entry of this sort for
3915 .gz can uncompress the file and then put the uncompressed file in the
3916 proper mode according to the name sans .gz.
3918 ** The new function emacs-pid returns the process ID number of Emacs.
3920 ** user-login-name now consistently checks the LOGNAME environment
3921 variable before USER. user-original-login-name is obsolete, since it
3922 provides the same functionality. To ignore the environment variables,
3923 use user-real-login-name.
3925 ** There is a more general way of handling the system-specific X
3926 keysyms. Set the variable system-key-alist to an alist containing
3927 elements of the form (CODE . SYMBOL), where CODE is the numeric keysym
3928 code minus the "vendor specific" bit, and symbol is the name for the
3931 ** You can use the variable command-line-functions to set up functions
3932 to process unrecognized command line arguments. The variable's value
3933 should be a list of functions of no arguments. The functions are
3934 called successively until one of them returns non-nil.
3936 Each function should access the free variables argi (the current
3937 argument) and command-line-args-left (the remaining arguments). The
3938 function should return non-nil only if it recognizes and processes the
3939 argument in argi. If it does so, it may consume following arguments
3940 as well by removing them from command-line-args-left.
3942 ** There's a new way for a magic file name handler to run a primitive
3943 and inhibit handling of the file name. Here is how to do it:
3945 (let ((inhibit-file-name-handlers
3946 (cons 'ange-ftp-file-handler
3947 (and (eq inhibit-file-name-operation operation)
3948 inhibit-file-name-handlers)))
3949 (inhibit-file-name-operation operation))
3950 (apply this-operation args))
3952 The function find-file-name-handler now takes two arguments. The
3953 second argument is OPERATION, the operation for which the handler is
3956 People have suggested that the second argument should be optional, for
3957 backward compatibility. It would be nice if that were possible, but
3958 it is not. There is simply no way for find-file-name-handler to do
3959 the right thing without receiving the proper value for its second
3962 ** The variable completion-regexp-list affects the completion
3963 primitives try-completion and all-completions. They consider
3964 only the possible completions that match each regexp in the list.
3966 ** Case conversion in the function replace-match has been changed.
3968 The old behavior was this: if any word in the old text was
3969 capitalized, replace-match capitalized each word of the replacement
3972 The new behavior is this: if the first word in the old text is capitalized,
3973 replace-match capitalizes the first word of the replacement text.
3975 ** You can now specify a case table with CANON non-nil and EQV nil.
3976 Then the EQV part of the case table is deduced from CANON.
3978 ** The new function minibuffer-prompt takes no arguments and returns
3979 the current minibuffer prompt string.
3981 The new function minibuffer-prompt-width takes no arguments and
3982 returns the display width of the minibuffer prompt string.
3984 ** The new function frame-first-window returns the window at the
3985 upper left corner of a given frame.
3987 ** wholenump is a new alias for natnump.
3989 ** The variable installation-directory, if non-@code{nil}, names a
3990 directory within which to look for the `lib-src' and `etc'
3991 subdirectories. This is non-nil when Emacs can't find those
3992 directories in their standard installed locations, but can find them
3993 near where the Emacs executable was found.
3995 ** invocation-name and invocation-directory are now variables as well
3996 as functions. The variable values are the same values that the
3997 functions return: the Emacs program name sans directories, and the
3998 directory it was found in. (invocation-directory may be nil, if Emacs
3999 can't determine which directory it should be.)
4001 ** Installation change regarding version number counting.
4003 The version number of an Emacs executable contains three numbers.
4004 The first two describe the Emacs release and the third increments
4005 each time you build Emacs.
4007 Now the file version.el contains only the first two version numbers.
4008 The third component is now determined on the basis of the names of the
4009 existing executable files. This means that version.el is not altered
4016 ** The mouse click M-mouse-2 now inserts the current secondary
4017 selection (from Emacs or any other X client) where you click.
4018 It does not move point.
4019 This command is called mouse-yank-secondary.
4021 mouse-kill-secondary no longer has a key binding by default.
4022 Clicking M-mouse-3 (mouse-secondary-save-then-kill) twice
4023 may be a convenient enough way of killing the secondary selection.
4024 Or perhaps there should be a keyboard binding for killing the
4025 secondary selection. Any suggestions?
4029 *** `icomplete' provides character-by-character information
4030 about what you could complete if you type TAB.
4032 *** `avoid' moves the mouse away from point so that it doesn't hide
4035 *** `shadowfile' helps you update files that are supposed to be stored
4036 identically in different places (perhaps on different machines).
4038 ** C-h p now knows about four additional keywords: data, faces, mouse,
4041 ** The key for starting an inferior Lisp process, in Lisp mode,
4042 is now C-c C-z instead of C-c C-l.
4044 ** When the VC commands ask whether to save the buffer, if you say no,
4045 they signal an error. This is so that you won't operate on the wrong
4048 ** ISO Accents mode now supports `"s' as a way of typing German sharp s.
4050 ** By default, comint buffers (including Shell mode and debuggers)
4051 no longer try to scroll to keep the cursor on the bottom line.
4052 This feature was added in 19.21 but did not work smoothly enough.
4054 ** Emacs now handles the window manager "delete window" operation.
4056 ** Display of buffers with text properties is much faster now.
4058 ** The feature previously announced whereby `insert' does not inherit
4059 text properties from surrounding text was not fully implemented
4060 before; but now it is. use `insert-and-inherit' if you wish to
4061 inherit sticky properties from the surrounding text.
4063 ** The functions next-property-change, previous-property-change,
4064 next-single-property-change, and previous-single-property-change
4065 now take one additional optional argument LIMIT that is a position at
4066 which to stop scanning. If scan ends without finding the property
4067 change sought, these functions return the specified limit.
4069 The value returned by previous-single-property-change and
4070 previous-property-change, when they do find a change, is now one
4071 greater than what it used to be. It is the position between the two
4072 characters whose properties differ, which is one greater than the
4073 position of the first character found (while scanning back) with
4074 different properties.
4078 * User editing changes in version 19.21.
4080 ** ISO Accents mode supports four additional characters:
4081 A-with-ring (entered as /A), AE ligature (entered as /E),
4082 and their lower-case equivalents.
4086 * User editing changes in version 19.20.
4087 (See following page for Lisp programming changes.)
4089 Note that some of these changes were made subsequent to the Emacs 19.20
4090 editions of the Emacs manual and Emacs Lisp manual; therefore, if you
4091 have those editions, do read this page.
4093 ** Dragging with mouse button 1 now puts the selected region
4094 in the kill ring so you can paste it into other X applications.
4096 ** Double and triple clicks with button 1 now behave as in xterm,
4097 selecting the word or line surrounding where you click. If you drag
4098 after the last click, you can select a range of words or lines.
4100 ** You can use button 3 to extend a mouse-selected region, as in xterm.
4101 This works for regions selected either by dragging Mouse-1 or by
4102 multiple-clicking Mouse-1. Clicking Mouse-3 moves the end of the
4103 region that is (initially) nearer to where you click.
4105 If the selection was first made by multiple-clicking Mouse-1, and thus
4106 consists of entire words or lines, Mouse-3 preserves that state.
4108 As before, clicking Mouse-3 again in the same place kills the region
4111 ** The secondary selection commands, M-Mouse-1 and M-Mouse-3, have been
4114 ** You can now search for strings and regexps using the Edit menu bar menu.
4116 ** You can now access bookmarks using the Bookmark submenu in the File
4117 menu in the menu bar.
4119 ** ISO Accents mode, a buffer-local minor mode, provides a convenient
4120 way to type certain non-ASCII characters. It makes the characters `,
4121 ', ", ^, ~ and / serve as modifiers for the following letter. ` and '
4122 add accents, " adds an umlaut or dieresis, ^ adds a circumflex, ~
4123 adds a tilde, and / adds a slash to the following letter.
4125 If the following character is not a letter, or cannot be modified as
4126 requested, then both characters stand for themselves. If you
4127 duplicate the modifier accent character, that enters the corresponding
4128 ISO non-spacing accent character (thus, '' enters the ISO acute-accent
4129 character). To enter a modifier character itself, type it followed by
4132 This feature can be used whenever a key sequence is expected: for
4133 ordinary insertion, for searching, and for certain command arguments.
4135 A few special combinations:
4137 ~c => c with cedilla
4139 ~< => left guillemot
4140 ~> => right guillemot
4142 ** iso-transl.el is a new library that replaces iso-insert.el.
4143 It defines C-x 8 as an insertion prefix for the ISO characters
4144 between 128 and 255, much like iso-insert, except that iso-transl
4145 works even in searches and help commands--wherever a key sequence
4148 To define case-conversion for these characters for ISO 8859/1,
4149 load the library iso-syntax. (This is not new.)
4151 ** M-TAB in Text mode now runs the command ispell-complete-word
4152 which performs completion using the spelling dictionary.
4154 The spelling correction submenu now includes this command
4155 and another command which completes a word fragment (that is,
4156 it doesn't assume that the text to be completed starts at the
4157 beginning of a word.
4159 ** In incremental search, you can use M-y to yank the most recent kill
4160 into the search string.
4162 ** The new function ispell-message checks the spelling of a message
4163 you are about to send or post. It ignores text cited from other
4166 To automatically check all your outgoing messages, include the
4167 following line in your .emacs file:
4168 (setq news-inews-hook (setq mail-send-hook 'ispell-message))
4170 ** There is now a separate minibuffer history list for the names of
4171 extended commands. This history list is used by M-x when reading
4172 the command name. The motivation for this is to prevent command
4173 names from appearing in the history used for other minibuffer
4176 Note that the history list for entire commands that use the minibuffer
4177 is a separate feature. That history list records a command with all
4178 its arguments, and you must use C-x ESC ESC to access it.
4180 ** You can use the new command C-x v ~ VERSION RET to examine a
4181 specified version of a file that is maintained with version control.
4183 ** In Indented Text mode, only blank lines now separate paragraphs.
4184 Indented lines continue the paragraph that is in progress. This makes
4185 the user option variable adaptive-fill-mode have its intended effect.
4187 ** Local variable specifications in files for variables whose names end
4188 in `-hook' and `-function' are now controlled by the variable
4189 `enable-local-eval', just like the `eval' variable.
4191 ** C-x r j (jump-to-register) when restoring a frame configuration now
4192 makes all unwanted frames (existing frames not mentioned in the
4193 configuration) invisible.
4195 If you want to delete these unwanted frames, use a prefix argument for
4198 ** You can customize the calendar to display weeks beginning on
4199 Monday: set the variable `calendar-week-start-day' to 1.
4203 If you save messages to a file in Unix format while viewing a message
4204 with its whole header, this now copies to the file the entire header
4205 of each message copied.
4207 ** Comint mode changes.
4209 C-c C-e shows as much output as possible in the window.
4210 C-c RET copies an old input (the one at point)
4211 and places the copy after the latest prompt.
4212 C-c C-p and C-c C-n move through the buffer, stopping at places
4213 where the subshell prompted for input.
4214 C-c C-h lists the input history in a `*Help*' buffer.
4216 There are new menu bar items for completion/input/output/signal commands.
4218 Input behavior is configurable. Variables control whether some windows
4219 showing the buffer scroll to the bottom before insertion. These are
4220 `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-input' and `before-change-function'. By default,
4221 insertion causes the selected window to scroll to the bottom before insertion
4224 Subprocess output now keeps point at the end of the buffer in each
4225 window individually if point was already at the end of the buffer in
4228 If `comint-scroll-show-maximum-output' is non-nil (which is the
4229 default), then scrolling due to arrival of output tries to place the
4230 last line of text at the bottom line of the window, so as to show as
4231 much useful text as possible. (This mimics the scrolling behavior of
4234 By setting `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-output', you can opt for having
4235 point jump to the end of the buffer whenever output arrives--no matter
4236 where in the buffer point was before. If the value is `this', point
4237 jumps in the selected window. If the value is `all', point jumps in
4238 each window that shows the comint buffer. If the value is `other',
4239 point jumps in all nonselected windows that show the current buffer.
4240 The default value is nil, which means point does not jump to the end.
4242 Input history insertion is configurable. A variable controls whether only the
4243 first instance of successive identical inputs is stored in the input history.
4244 This is `comint-input-ignoredups'.
4246 Completion (bound to TAB) is now more general. Depending on context,
4247 completion now operates on the input history, on command names, or (as
4248 before) on filenames.
4250 Filename completion is configurable. Variables control whether
4251 file/directory suffix characters are added (`comint-completion-addsuffix'),
4252 whether shortest completion is acceptable when no further unambiguous
4253 completion is possible (`comint-completion-recexact'), and the timing of
4254 completion candidate listing (`comint-completion-autolist').
4256 Comint mode now provides history expansion. Insert input using `!'
4257 and `^', in the same syntax that typical shells use; then type TAB.
4258 This searches the comint input history for a matching element,
4259 performs substitution if necessary, and places the result in the
4260 comint buffer in place of the original input.
4262 History references in the input may be expanded before insertion into
4263 the input ring, or on input to the interpreter (and therefore
4264 visibly). The variable `comint-input-autoexpand' specifies which.
4266 You can make the SPC key perform history expansion by binding
4267 SPC to the command `comint-magic-space'.
4269 The command `comint-dynamic-complete-variable' does variable name
4270 completion using the environment variables as set within Emacs. The
4271 variables controlling filename completion apply to variable name
4272 completion too. This command is normally available through the menu
4277 Paragraph motion and marking commands (default bindings M-{, M-}, M-h) operate
4278 on output groups (i.e., shell prompt plus associated shell output).
4280 TAB now completes commands, as well as file names and expand history.
4281 Commands are searched for along the path that Emacs has on startup.
4283 C-c C-f now moves forward a command (`shell-forward-command') and
4284 C-c C-b now moves backward a command (`shell-backward-command').
4286 Command completion is configurable. The variables controlling
4287 filename completion in comint mode apply, together with a variable
4288 controlling whether to restrict possible completions to only files
4289 that are executable (`shell-command-execonly').
4291 The input history is initialized from the file name given in the
4292 variable `shell-input-ring-file-name'--normally `.history' in your
4295 Directory tracking is more robust. It can cope with command sequences
4296 and forked commands, and can detect the failure of directory changing
4297 commands in most circumstances. It's still not infallible, of course.
4299 You can now configure the behavior of `pushd'. Variables control
4300 whether `pushd' behaves like `cd' if no argument is given
4301 (`shell-pushd-tohome'), pop rather than rotate with a numeric argument
4302 (`shell-pushd-dextract'), and only add directories to the directory
4303 stack if they are not already on it (`shell-pushd-dunique'). The
4304 configuration you choose should match the underlying shell, of course.
4307 * Emacs Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.20.
4309 ** A new function `remove-hook' is now used to remove a hook that you might
4310 have added with `add-hook'.
4312 ** There is now a Lisp pretty-printer in the library `pp'.
4314 ** The partial Common Lisp support has been entirely reimplemented.
4316 ** When you insert text using `insert', `insert-before-markers' or
4317 `insert-buffer-substring', text properties are no longer inherited
4318 from the surrounding text.
4320 When you want to inherit text properties, use the new functions
4321 `insert-and-inherit' or `insert-before-markers-and-inherit'.
4323 The self-inserting character command does do inheritance.
4325 ** Frame creation hooks.
4327 The function make-frame now runs the normal hooks
4328 before-make-frame-hook and after-make-frame-hook.
4330 ** You can now use function-key-map to make a key an alias for other
4331 key sequences that can vary depending on circumstances. To do this,
4332 give the key a definition in function-key-map which is a function
4333 rather than a specific expansion key sequence.
4335 If the function reads input itself, it can have the effect of altering
4336 the event that follows. For example, here's how to define C-c h to
4337 turn the character that follows into a hyper character:
4339 (define-key function-key-map "\C-ch" 'hyperify)
4341 (defun hyperify (prompt)
4342 (let ((e (read-event)))
4343 (vector (if (numberp e)
4344 (logior (lsh 1 20) e)
4345 (if (memq 'hyper (event-modifiers e))
4347 (add-event-modifier "H-" e))))))
4349 (defun add-event-modifier (string e)
4350 (let ((symbol (if (symbolp e) e (car e))))
4351 (setq symbol (intern (concat string (symbol-name symbol))))
4354 (cons symbol (cdr e)))))
4356 The character translation function gets one argument, which is the
4357 prompt that was specified in read-key-sequence--or nil if the key
4358 sequence is being read by the editor command loop. In most cases
4359 you can just ignore the prompt value.
4361 ** Changes for reading and writing text properties.
4363 New low-level Lisp features make it possible to write Lisp programs to
4364 save text properties in files, and read text properties from files.
4365 You can program any file format you like.
4367 The variable `write-region-annotation-functions' should contain a list
4368 of functions to be run by `write-region' to encode text properties in
4369 some fashion as annotations to the text that is written.
4371 Each function in the list is called with two arguments: the start and
4372 end of the region to be written. These functions should not alter the
4373 contents of the buffer. Instead, they should return lists indicating
4374 annotations to write in the file in addition to the text in the
4377 Each function should return a list of elements of the form (POSITION
4378 . STRING), where POSITION is an integer specifying the relative
4379 position in the text to be written, and STRING is the annotation to
4382 Each list returned by one of these functions must be already sorted in
4383 increasing order by POSITION. If there is more than one function,
4384 `write-region' merges the lists destructively into one sorted list.
4386 When `write-region' actually writes the text from the buffer to the
4387 file, it intermixes the specified annotations at the corresponding
4388 positions. All this takes place without modifying the buffer.
4390 The variable `after-insert-file-functions' should contain a list of
4391 functions to be run each time a file's contents have been inserted into
4392 a buffer. Each function receives one argument, the length of the
4393 inserted text; point indicates the start of that text. The function
4394 should make whatever changes it wants to make, then return the updated
4395 length of the inserted text, as it stands after those changes. The
4396 value returned by one function is used as the argument to the next.
4397 These functions should always return with point at the beginning of
4400 The intended use of `after-insert-file-functions' is for converting
4401 some sort of textual annotations into actual text properties. But many
4402 other uses may be possible.
4404 We now invite users to begin implementing Lisp programs to store and
4405 retrieve text properties in files, using these new primitive features,
4406 and thus to experiment with various data formats and find good ones.
4408 We suggest not trying to handle arbitrary Lisp objects as property
4409 names or property values--because a program that general is probably
4410 difficult to write, and slow. Instead, choose a set of possible data
4411 types that are reasonably flexible, and not too hard to encode.
4413 ** Comint completion.
4415 Currently comint-dynamic-complete-command (and associated variable
4416 comint-after-partial-pathname-command) are set by default to complete a
4417 filename. Other comint-mode users should have their own functions to achieve
4418 this. For example, gud-mode could complete debugger commands. A completion
4419 function is provided solely for this reason (comint-dynamic-simple-complete).
4421 Other comint-mode users should bind comint-dynamic-complete (shell-mode does
4424 ** Comint history reference expansion
4426 Currently comint-input-autoexpand is 'history, which means only expand
4427 history on insertion to comint-input-ring. For non-shell modes, this is
4428 a strange default, since non-shells will not understand history references.
4429 Perhaps it would be better for the variable to be 'input, which means expand
4432 The value 'history might possibly be wrong even for shells, since the
4433 expansion will be done both by comint and the underlying shell (except sh, of
4434 course). It would be better for expansion to be done by one or the other,
4435 not both since they may (ahem) disagree. Since it is silly to put a literal
4436 history reference into comint-input-ring, perhaps it would be better for the
4437 variable to be 'input too.
4439 The reason the variable is not 'input by default is that I was attempting to
4440 adhere to The Principle of Least Astonishment. I didn't want to shock users
4441 by having their input change in front of their eyes.
4443 ** Argument delimiters and Comint mode.
4445 Currently comint-delimiter-argument-list is '(), which means no strings are
4446 to be treated as delimiters and arguments. In shell-mode, this variable is
4447 set to shell-delimiter-argument-list, '("|" "&" "<" ">" "(" ")" ";"). Other
4448 comint-mode users should set this variable too. For example, a lisp-type
4449 mode might want to set this to '("." "(" ")") or some such.
4451 ** Comint output hook.
4453 There is now a hook, comint-output-filter-hook, that is run-hooks'ed by the
4454 output filter, comint-output-filter. This is useful for scrolling (see
4455 below), but also things like processing output for specific text, output
4458 So that such output processing may be done efficiently, there is a new
4459 variable, comint-last-output-start, that records the position of the start of
4460 the last output inserted into the buffer (effectively the previous value
4461 of process-mark). Output processing functions should process the text
4462 between comint-last-output-start (or perhaps the beginning of the line that
4463 the position lies on) and process-mark.
4465 ** Comint scrolling.
4467 There is now automatic scrolling of process windows.
4469 Currently comint-scroll-show-maximum-output is t, which means when scrolling
4470 output put process-mark at the bottom of the window. There is a good case
4471 for it to be t, since the user is likely to want to see as much output as
4472 possible. But, then again, there is a comint-show-maximum-output command.
4474 ** Comint history retrieval.
4476 The input following point is not deleted when moving around the input history
4477 (with M-p etc.). Emacs maintainers may not like this. However, I feel this
4478 is a useful feature. The simple remedy is to put end-of-line in before
4479 delete-region in comint-previous-matching-input.
4481 The input history retrieval commands still wrap-around the input ring, unlike
4482 Emacs command history.
4486 * Changes in version 19.19.
4488 ** The new package bookmark.el records named bookmarks: positions that
4489 you can jump to. Bookmarks are saved automatically between Emacs
4492 ** Another simpler package saveplace.el records your position in each
4493 file when you kill its buffer (or kill Emacs), and jumps to the same
4494 position when you visit the file again (even in another Emacs
4495 session). Use `toggle-save-place' to turn on place-saving in a given file;
4496 use (setq-default save-place t) to turn it on for all files.
4498 ** In Outline mode, you can now customize how to compute the level of a
4499 heading line. Set `outline-level' to a function of no arguments which
4500 returns the level, assuming point is at the beginning of a heading
4503 ** You can now specify the prefix key to use for Outline minor mode.
4504 (The default is C-c.) Set the variable outline-minor-mode-prefix to
4505 the key sequence you want to use (as a string or vector).
4507 ** In Bibtex mode, C-c e has been changed to C-c C-b. This is because
4508 C-c followed by a letter is reserved for users.
4510 ** The `mod' function is no longer an alias for `%', but is a separate function
4511 that yields a result with the same sign as the divisor. `floor' now takes an
4512 optional second argument, which divides the first argument before the floor is
4515 ** `%' no longer allows floating point arguments, since the results were often
4516 inconsistent with integer `%'.
4520 * Changes in version 19.18.
4522 ** Typing C-z in an iconified Emacs frame now deiconifies it.
4524 ** hilit19 is a new library for automatic highlighting of parts of the
4525 text in the buffer, based on its meaning and context.
4527 ** Killing no longer sends the killed text to the X clipboard.
4528 And large strings are not put in the cut buffer either.
4529 The variable x-cut-buffer-max specifies the maximum number of characters
4530 to put in the cut buffer.
4532 ** The new command C-x 5 o (other-frame) selects different frames,
4533 successively, in cyclic order. It does for frames what C-x o
4536 ** The command M-ESC (eval-expression) has its own command history.
4538 ** The commands M-! and M-| for running shell commands have their own
4541 ** If the directory containing the Emacs executable has a sibling named
4542 `lisp', that `lisp' directory is added to the end of `load-path'
4543 (provided you don't override the normal value with the EMACSLOADPATH
4544 environment variable). This feature may make it easier to move
4545 an installed Emacs from place to place.
4547 ** M-x validate-tex-buffer now records the locations of mismatches
4548 found in the `*Occur*' buffer. You can go to that buffer and type C-c
4549 C-c to visit a particular mismatch.
4551 ** There are new commands in Shell mode.
4553 C-c C-n and C-c C-p move point to the next or previous shell input line.
4555 C-c C-d is now another way to send an end-of-file to the subshell.
4557 ** Changes to calendar/diary.
4559 Time zone data is now determined automatically, including the
4560 start/stop days and times of daylight saving time. The code now
4561 works correctly almost anywhere in the world.
4563 The format of the holiday specifications has changed and IS NO LONGER
4564 COMPATIBLE with the old (version 18) format. See the documentation of
4565 the variable calendar-holidays for details of the new, improved
4568 The hook `diary-display-hook' has been split into two:
4569 diary-display-hook which should be used ONLY for the display and
4570 `diary-hook' which should be used for appointment notification. If
4571 diary-display-hook is nil (the default), simple-diary-display is
4572 used. This allows the diary hooks to be correctly set with add-hook.
4574 The forms used for dates in diary entries and general display are no
4575 longer autoloaded, but set at load time; this means they will be set
4576 correctly based on values you assign to various variables.
4578 ** The functions x-rebind-key and x-rebind-keys have been deleted,
4579 because you can accomplish the same job by binding keys to keyboard
4582 ** Emacs now distinguishes double and triple drag events and double and
4583 triple button-down events. These work analogously to double and
4584 triple click events.
4586 Double drag events, if not defined, convert to ordinary click events.
4587 Double down events, if not defined, convert first to ordinary down
4588 events, which are then discarded if not defined. Triple events that
4589 are not defined convert to the corresponding double event; if that is
4590 also not defined, it may convert further.
4592 ** The new function event-click-count returns the number of clicks,
4593 from an event which is a list. It is 1 for an ordinary click, drag,
4594 or button-down event, 2 for a double event, and 3 or more for a triple
4597 ** The new function previous-frame is like next-frame, but moves
4598 around through the set of existing frames in the opposite order.
4600 ** The post-command-hook now runs even after commands that get an error
4601 and return to top level. As a consequence of the same change, this
4602 hook also runs before Emacs reads the first command. That might sound
4603 paradoxical, as if this hook were the same as the pre-command-hook.
4604 Actually, they are not similar; the latter runs before *execution* of
4605 a command, but after it has been read.
4607 ** You can turn off the text property hooks that run when point moves
4608 to certain places in the buffer, by binding inhibit-point-motion-hooks
4611 ** Inserting a string with no text properties into the buffer normally
4612 inherits the properties of the preceding character. You can now
4613 control this inheritance by setting the front-sticky and
4614 rear-nonsticky properties of a character.
4616 If you make a character's front-sticky property t, then insertion
4617 before the character inherits its properties. If you make the
4618 rear-nonsticky property t, then insertion after the character does not
4619 inherit its properties. You can regard characters as normally being
4620 rear-sticky and not front-sticky, and this is why insertion normally
4621 inherits from the previous character.
4623 If neither side of an insertion is suitably sticky, then the inserted
4624 text gets no properties. If both sides are sticky, then the inserted
4625 text gets the properties of both sides, with the previous character's
4626 properties taking precedence when both sides have a property in
4629 You can also specify stickiness for individual properties. To do so,
4630 use a list of property names as the value of the front-sticky property
4631 or the rear-nonsticky property. For example, if a character has a
4632 rear-nonsticky property whose value is (face read-only), then
4633 insertion after the character will not inherit its face property or
4634 read-only property (if any), but will inherit any other properties.
4636 The merging of properties when both sides of the insertion are sticky
4637 takes place one property at a time. If the preceding character is
4638 rear-sticky for the property, and the property is non-nil, it
4639 dominates. Otherwise, the following character's property value is
4640 used if it is front-sticky for that property.
4642 ** If you give a character a non-nil `invisible' text property, the
4643 character does not appear on the screen. This works much like
4646 The details of this feature are likely to change in future Emacs
4649 ** In Info, when you go to a node, it runs the normal hook
4650 Info-selection-hook.
4652 ** You can use the new function `invocation-directory' to get the name
4653 of the directory containing the Emacs executable that was run.
4655 ** Entry to the minibuffer runs the normal hook minibuffer-setup-hook.
4657 ** The new function minibuffer-window-active-p takes one argument, a
4658 minibuffer window, and returns t if the window is currently active.
4662 * Changes in version 19.17.
4664 ** When Emacs displays a list of completions in a buffer,
4665 you can select a completion by clicking mouse button 2
4668 ** Use the command `list-faces-display' to display a list of
4669 all the currently defined faces, showing what they look like.
4671 ** Menu bar items from local maps now come after the usual items.
4673 ** The Help menu bar item always comes last in the menu bar.
4675 ** If you enable Font-Lock mode on a buffer containing a program
4676 (certain languages such as C and Lisp are supported), everything you
4677 type is automatically given a face property appropriate to its
4678 syntactic role. For example, there are faces for comments, string
4679 constants, names of functions being defined, and so on.
4681 ** Dunnet, an adventure game, is now available.
4683 ** Several major modes now have their own menu bar items,
4684 including Dired, Rmail, and Sendmail. We would like to add
4685 suitable menu bar items to other major modes.
4687 ** The key binding C-x a C-h has been eliminated.
4688 This is because it got in the way of the general feature of typing
4689 C-h after a prefix character. If you want to run
4690 inverse-add-global-abbrev, you can use C-x a - or C-x a i g instead.
4692 ** If you set the variable `rmail-mail-new-frame' to a non-nil value,
4693 all the Rmail commands to send mail make a new frame to do it in.
4694 When you send the message, or use the menu bar command not to send it,
4695 that frame is deleted.
4697 ** In Rmail, the o and C-o commands are now almost interchangeable.
4698 Both commands check the format of the file you specify, and append
4699 the message to it in Rmail format if it is an Rmail file, and in
4700 inbox file format otherwise. C-o and o are different only when you
4703 ** The function `copy-face' now takes an optional fourth argument
4704 NEW-FRAME. If you specify this, it copies the definition of face
4705 OLD-FACE on frame FRAME to face NEW-NAME on frame NEW-FRAME.
4707 ** A local map can now cancel out one of the global map's menu items.
4708 Just define that subcommand of the menu item with `undefined'
4709 as the definition. For example, this cancels out the `Buffers' item
4710 for the current major mode:
4712 (local-set-key [menu-bar buffer] 'undefined)
4714 ** To put global items at the end of the menu bar, use the new variable
4715 `menu-bar-final-items'. It should be a list of symbols--event types
4716 bound in the menu bar. The menu bar items for these symbols are
4719 ** The list returned by `buffer-local-variables' now contains cons-cell
4720 elements of the form (SYMBOL . VALUE) only for buffer-local variables
4721 that have values. For unbound buffer-local variables, the variable
4722 name (symbol) appears directly as an element of the list.
4724 ** The `modification-hooks' property of a character no longer affects
4725 insertion; it runs only for deletion and modification of the character.
4727 To detect insertion, use `insert-in-front-hooks' and
4728 `insert-behind-hooks' properties. The former runs when text is
4729 inserted immediately preceding the character that has the property;
4730 the latter runs when text is inserted immediately following the
4733 ** Buffer modification now runs hooks belonging to overlays as well as
4734 hooks belonging to characters. If an overlay has a
4735 `modification-hooks' property, it applies to any change to text in the
4736 overlay, and any insertion within the overlay. If the overlay has a
4737 `insert-in-front-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the
4738 beginning boundary of the overlay. If the overlay has an
4739 `insert-behind-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the end
4740 boundary of the overlay.
4742 The values of these properties should be lists of functions. Each
4743 function is called, receiving as arguments the overlay in question,
4744 followed by the bounds of the range being modified.
4746 ** The new `-name NAME' option directs Emacs to search for its X
4747 resources using the name `NAME', and sets the title of the initial
4748 frame. This argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4750 ** The new `-xrm DATABASE' option tells Emacs to treat the string
4751 DATABASE as the text of an X resource database. Emacs searches
4752 DATABASE for resource values, in addition to the usual places. This
4753 argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4755 ** Emacs now searches for X resources in the files specified by the
4756 XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment
4757 variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written
4758 using Xt. Because of this change, Emacs will now notice system-wide
4759 application defaults files, as other X clients do.
4761 XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names
4762 separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names
4763 separated by colons.
4765 Emacs searches for X resources
4766 + specified on the command line, with the `-xrm RESOURCESTRING'
4768 + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable,
4769 - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it exists
4770 (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on),
4771 + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties
4772 provided by the server,
4773 - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults
4775 + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
4776 - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4777 (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if
4778 the LANG environment variable is set,
4779 - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4780 - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set),
4782 + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH.
4784 The paths in the variables XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and
4785 XAPPLRESDIR may contain %-escapes (like the control strings passed to
4786 the Emacs lisp `format' function or C printf function), which Emacs expands.
4788 %N is replaced by the string "Emacs" wherever it occurs.
4789 %T is replaced by "app-defaults" wherever it occurs.
4790 %S is replaced by the empty string wherever it occurs.
4791 %L and %l are replaced by the value of the LANG environment variable; if LANG
4792 is not set, Emacs does not use that directory or file name at all.
4793 %C is replaced by the value of the resource named "customization"
4794 (class "Customization"), as retrieved from the server's resource
4795 properties or the user's ~/.Xdefaults file, or the empty string if
4796 that resource doesn't exist.
4799 if XFILESEARCHPATH is set to the value
4800 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N",
4801 and the LANG environment variable is set to
4803 and the customization resource is the string
4805 then, in the last step of the process described above, Emacs checks
4806 for resources in the first of the following files that is present and
4808 /usr/lib/X11/english/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4809 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4810 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
4811 If the LANG environment variable is not set, then Emacs never uses the
4812 first element of the path, "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C", because it
4813 contains the %L escape.
4815 If XFILESEARCHPATH is unset, Emacs uses the default value
4816 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4817 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4818 /usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs:\
4819 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs"
4821 This feature was added for consistency with other X applications.
4823 ** The new function `text-property-any' scans the region of text from
4824 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is `eq' to
4825 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4826 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4828 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4831 ** The new function `text-property-not-all' scans the region of text from
4832 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is not `eq' to
4833 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4834 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4836 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4839 ** The function `delete-windows-on' now takes an optional second
4840 argument FRAME, which specifies which frames it should affect.
4841 + If FRAME is nil or omitted, then `delete-windows-on' deletes windows
4842 showing BUFFER (its first argument) on all frames.
4843 + If FRAME is t, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on the
4844 selected frame; other frames are unaffected.
4845 + If FRAME is a frame, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on
4846 the given frame; other frames are unaffected.
4850 * Changes in version 19.16.
4852 ** When dragging the mouse to select a region, Emacs now highlights the
4853 region as you drag (if Transient Mark mode is enabled). If you
4854 continue the drag beyond the boundaries of the window, Emacs scrolls
4855 the window at a steady rate until you either move the mouse back into
4856 the window or release the button.
4858 ** RET now exits `query-replace' and `query-replace-regexp'; this makes it
4859 more consistent with the incremental search facility, which uses RET
4862 ** In C mode, C-c C-u now runs c-up-conditional.
4863 C-c C-n and C-c C-p now run new commands that move forward
4864 and back over balanced sets of C conditionals (c-forward-conditional
4865 and c-backward-conditional).
4867 ** The Edit entry in the menu bar has a new alternative:
4868 "Choose Next Paste". It gives you a menu showing the various
4869 strings in the kill ring; click on one to select it as the text
4870 to be yanked ("pasted") the next time you yank.
4872 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode and set `mark-even-if-inactive' to
4873 non-nil, then the region is highlighted in a transient fashion just as
4874 normally in Transient Mark mode, but the mark really remains active
4875 all the time; commands that use the region can be used even if the
4876 region highlighting turns off.
4878 ** If you type C-h after a prefix key, it displays the bindings
4879 that start with that prefix.
4881 ** The VC package now searches for version control commands in the
4882 directories named by the variable `vc-path'; its value should be a
4885 ** If you are visiting a file that has locks registered under RCS,
4886 VC now displays each lock's owner and version number in the mode line
4887 after the string `RCS'. If there are no locks, VC displays the head
4890 ** When using X, if you load the `paren' library, Emacs automatically
4891 underlines or highlights the matching paren whenever point is
4892 next to the outside of a paren. When point is before an open-paren,
4893 this shows the matching close; when point is after a close-paren,
4894 this shows the matching open.
4896 ** The new function `define-key-after' is like `define-key',
4897 but takes an extra argument AFTER. It places the newly defined
4898 binding after the binding for the event AFTER.
4900 ** `accessible-keymaps' now takes an optional second argument, PREFIX.
4901 If PREFIX is non-nil, it means the value should include only maps for
4902 keys that start with PREFIX.
4904 `describe-bindings' also accepts an optional argument PREFIX which
4905 means to describe only the keys that start with PREFIX.
4907 ** The variable `prefix-help-command' hold a command to run to display help
4908 whenever the character `help-char' follows a prefix key and does not have
4909 a key binding in that context.
4911 ** Emacs now detects double- and triple-mouse clicks. A single mouse
4912 click produces a pair events of the form:
4913 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4915 Clicking the same mouse button again, soon thereafter and at the same
4916 location, produces another pair of events of the form:
4917 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4918 (double-mouse-N POSITION 2)
4919 Another click will produce an event pair of the form:
4920 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4921 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 3)
4922 All the POSITIONs in such a sequence would be identical, except for
4925 To count as double- and triple-clicks, mouse clicks must be at the
4926 same location as the first click, and the number of milliseconds
4927 between the first release and the second must be less than the value
4928 of the lisp variable `double-click-time'. Setting `double-click-time'
4929 to nil disables multi-click detection. Setting it to t removes the
4930 time limit; Emacs then detects multi-clicks by position only.
4932 If `read-key-sequence' finds no binding for a double-click event, but
4933 the corresponding single-click event would be bound,
4934 `read-key-sequence' demotes it to a single-click. Similarly, it
4935 demotes unbound triple-clicks to double- or single-clicks. This means
4936 you don't have to distinguish between single- and multi-clicks if you
4939 Emacs reports all clicks after the third as `triple-mouse-N' clicks,
4940 but increments the click count after POSITION. For example, a fourth
4941 click, soon after the third and at the same location, produces a pair
4942 of events of the form:
4943 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4944 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 4)
4946 ** The way Emacs reports positions of mouse events has changed
4947 slightly. If a mouse event includes a position list of the form:
4948 (WINDOW (PLACE-SYMBOL) (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4949 this denotes exactly the same position as the list:
4950 (WINDOW PLACE-SYMBOL (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4951 That is, the event occurred over a non-textual area of the frame,
4952 specified by PLACE-SYMBOL, a symbol like `mode-line' or
4953 `vertical-scroll-bar'.
4955 Enclosing PLACE-SYMBOL in a singleton list does not change the
4956 position denoted, but the `read-key-sequence' function uses the
4957 presence or absence of the singleton list to tell whether or not it
4958 should prefix the event with its place symbol.
4960 Normally, `read-key-sequence' prefixes mouse events occurring over
4961 non-textual areas with their PLACE-SYMBOLs, to select the sub-keymap
4962 appropriate for the event; for example, clicking on the mode line
4963 produces a sequence like
4964 [mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4965 However, if lisp code elects to unread the resulting key sequence by
4966 placing it in the `unread-command-events' variable, it is important
4967 that `read-key-sequence' not insert the prefix symbol again; that
4968 would produce a malformed key sequence like
4969 [mode-line mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4970 For this reason, `read-key-sequence' encloses the event's PLACE-SYMBOL
4971 in a singleton list when it first inserts the prefix, but doesn't
4972 insert the prefix when processing events whose PLACE-SYMBOLs are
4973 already thus enclosed.
4977 * Changes in version 19.15.
4979 ** `make-frame-visible', which uniconified frames, is now a command,
4980 and thus may be bound to a key. This makes sense because frames
4981 respond to user input while iconified.
4983 ** You can now use Meta mouse clicks to set and use the "secondary
4984 selection". You can drag M-Mouse-1 across the region you want to
4985 select. Or you can press M-Mouse-1 at one end and M-Mouse-3 at the
4986 other (this also copies the text to the kill ring). Repeating M-Mouse-3
4987 again at the same place kills that text.
4989 M-Mouse-2 kills the secondary selection.
4991 Setting the secondary selection does not move point or the mark. It
4992 is possible to make a secondary selection that does not all fit on the
4993 screen, by using M-Mouse-1 at one end, scrolling, then using M-Mouse-3
4996 Emacs has only one secondary selection at any time. Starting to set
4997 a new one cancels any previous one. The secondary selection displays
4998 using a face named `secondary-selection'.
5000 ** There's a new way to request use of Supercite (sc.el). Do this:
5002 (add-hook 'mail-citation-hook 'sc-cite-original)
5004 Currently this works with Rmail. In the future, other Emacs based
5005 mail-readers should be modified to understand this hook also.
5006 In the mean time, you should keep doing what you have done in the past
5007 for those other mail readers.
5009 ** When a regular expression contains `\(...\)' inside a repetition
5010 operator such as `*' or `+', and you ask about the range that was matched
5011 using `match-beginning' and `match-end', the range you get corresponds
5012 to the *last* repetition *only*. In Emacs 18, you would get a range
5013 corresponding to all the repetitions.
5015 If you want to get a range corresponding to all the repetitions,
5016 put a `\(...\)' grouping *outside* the repetition operator. This
5017 is the syntax that corresponds logically to the desired result, and
5018 it works the same in Emacs 18 and Emacs 19.
5020 (This change actually took place earlier, but we didn't know about it
5021 and thus didn't document it.)
5025 * Changes in version 19.14.
5027 ** To modify read-only text, bind the variable `inhibit-read-only'
5028 to a non-nil value. If the value is t, then all reasons that might
5029 make text read-only are inhibited (including `read-only' text properties).
5030 If the value is a list, then a `read-only' property is inhibited
5031 if it is `memq' in the list.
5033 ** If you call `get-buffer-window' passing t as its second argument, it
5034 will only search for windows on visible frames. Previously, passing t
5035 as the second argument caused `get-buffer-window' to search all
5036 frames, visible or not.
5038 ** If you call `other-buffer' with a nil or omitted second argument, it
5039 will ignore buffers displayed windows on any visible frame, not just
5042 ** You can specify a window or a frame for C-x # to use when
5043 selects a server buffer. Set the variable server-window
5044 to the window or frame that you want.
5046 ** The command M-( now inserts spaces outside the open-parentheses in
5047 some cases--depending on the syntax classes of the surrounding
5048 characters. If the variable `parens-dont-require-spaces' is non-nil,
5049 it inhibits insertion of these spaces.
5051 ** The GUD package now supports the debugger known as xdb on HP/UX
5052 systems. Use M-x xdb. The variable `gud-xdb-directories' lets you
5053 specify a list of directories to search for source code.
5055 ** If you are using the mailabbrev package, you should note that its
5056 function for defining an alias is now called `define-mail-abbrev'.
5057 This package no longer contains a definition for `define-mail-alias';
5058 that name is used only in mailaliases.
5060 ** Inserted characters now inherit the properties of the text before
5061 them, by default, rather than those of the following text.
5063 ** The function `insert-file-contents' now takes optional arguments BEG
5064 and END that specify which part of the file to insert. BEG defaults to
5065 0 (the beginning of the file), and END defaults to the end of the file.
5067 If you specify BEG or END, then the argument VISIT must be nil.
5071 * Changes in version 19.13.
5073 ** Magic file names can now handle the `load' operation.
5075 ** Bibtex mode now sets up special entries in the menu bar.
5077 ** The incremental search commands C-w and C-y, which copy text from
5078 the buffer into the search string, now convert it to lower case
5079 if you are in a case-insensitive search. This is to avoid making
5080 the search a case-sensitive one.
5082 ** GNUS now knows your time zone automatically if Emacs does.
5084 ** Hide-ifdef mode no longer defines keys of the form
5085 C-c LETTER, since those keys are reserved for users.
5086 Those commands have been moved to C-c M-LETTER.
5087 We may move them again for greater consistency with other modes.
5091 * Changes in version 19.12.
5093 ** You can now make many of the sort commands ignore case by setting
5094 `sort-fold-case' to a non-nil value.
5098 * Changes in version 19.11.
5100 ** Supercite is installed.
5102 ** `write-file-hooks' functions that return non-nil are responsible
5103 for making a backup file if you want that to be done.
5104 To do so, execute the following code:
5106 (or buffer-backed-up (backup-buffer))
5108 You might wish to save the file modes value returned by
5109 `backup-buffer' and use that to set the mode bits of the file
5110 that you write. This is what `basic-save-buffer' does when
5111 it writes a file in the usual way.
5113 (This is not actually new, but wasn't documented before.)
5117 * Changes in version 19.10.
5119 ** The command `repeat-complex-command' is now on C-x ESC ESC.
5120 It used to be bound to C-x ESC.
5122 The reason for this change is to make function keys work after C-x.
5124 ** The variable `highlight-nonselected-windows' now controls whether
5125 the region is highlighted in windows other than the selected window
5126 (in Transient Mark mode only, of course, and currently only when
5131 * Changes in version 19.8.
5133 ** It is now simpler to tell Emacs to display accented characters under
5134 X windows. M-x standard-display-european toggles the display of
5135 buffer text according to the ISO Latin-1 standard. With a prefix
5136 argument, this command enables European character display if and only
5137 if the argument is positive.
5139 ** The `-i' command-line argument tells Emacs to use a picture of the
5140 GNU gnu as its icon, instead of letting the window manager choose an
5141 icon for it. This option used to insert a file into the current
5142 buffer; use `-insert' to do that now.
5144 ** The `configure' script now supports `--prefix' and `--exec-prefix'
5147 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
5148 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
5149 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
5150 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
5151 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION
5152 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.7').
5153 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5154 PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
5155 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
5156 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
5158 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
5159 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
5160 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
5161 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
5162 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5163 EXECDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
5164 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
5166 ** When running under X, the new lisp function `x-list-fonts'
5167 allows code to find out which fonts are available from the X server.
5168 The first argument PATTERN is a string, perhaps with wildcard characters;
5169 the * character matches any substring, and
5170 the ? character matches any single character.
5171 PATTERN is case-insensitive.
5172 If the optional arguments FACE and FRAME are specified, then
5173 `x-list-fonts' returns only fonts the same size as FACE on FRAME.
5177 * Changes in version 19.
5179 ** When you kill buffers, Emacs now returns memory to the operating system,
5180 thus reducing the size of the Emacs process. All the space that you free
5181 up by killing buffers can now be reused for other buffers no matter what
5182 their sizes, or reused by other processes if Emacs doesn't need it.
5184 ** Emacs now does garbage collection and auto saving while it is waiting
5185 for input, which often avoids the need to do these things while you
5188 The variable `auto-save-timeout' says how many seconds Emacs should
5189 wait, after you stop typing, before it does an auto save and a garbage
5192 ** If auto saving detects that a buffer has shrunk greatly, it refrains
5193 from auto saving that buffer and displays a warning. Now it also turns
5194 off Auto Save mode in that buffer, so that you won't get the same
5197 If you reenable Auto Save mode in that buffer, Emacs will start saving
5198 it again with no further warnings.
5200 ** A new minor mode called Line Number mode displays the current line
5201 number in the mode line, updating it as necessary when you move
5204 However, if the buffer is very large (larger than the value of
5205 `line-number-display-limit'), then the line number doesn't appear.
5206 This is because computing the line number can be painfully slow if the
5207 buffer is very large.
5209 ** You can quit while Emacs is waiting to read or write files.
5211 ** The arrow keys now have default bindings to move in the appropriate
5214 ** You can suppress next-line's habit of inserting a newline when
5215 called at the end of a buffer by setting next-line-add-newlines to nil
5218 ** You can now get back recent minibuffer inputs conveniently. While
5219 in the minibuffer, type M-p to fetch the next earlier minibuffer
5220 input, and use M-n to fetch the next later input.
5222 There are also commands to search forward or backward through the
5223 history for history elements that match a regular expression. M-r
5224 searches older elements in the history, while M-s searches newer
5225 elements. By special dispensation, these commands can always use the
5226 minibuffer to read their arguments even though you are already in the
5227 minibuffer when you issue them.
5229 The history feature is available for all uses of the minibuffer, but
5230 there are separate history lists for different kinds of input. For
5231 example, there is a list for file names, used by all the commands that
5232 read file names. There is a list for arguments of commands like
5233 `query-replace'. There are also very specific history lists, such
5234 as the one that `compile' uses for compilation commands.
5236 ** You can now display text in a mixture of fonts and colors, using the
5237 "face" feature, together with the overlay and text property features.
5238 See the Emacs Lisp manual for details. The Emacs Users Manual describes
5239 how to change the colors and font of standard predefined faces.
5241 ** You can refer to files on other machines using special file name syntax:
5246 When you do this, Emacs uses the FTP program to read and write files on
5247 the specified host. It logs in through FTP using your user name or the
5248 name USER. It may ask you for a password from time to time; this
5249 is used for logging in on HOST.
5251 ** Some C-x key bindings have been moved onto new prefix keys.
5253 C-x r is a prefix for registers and rectangles.
5254 C-x n is a prefix for narrowing.
5255 C-x a is a prefix for abbrev commands.
5258 C-x r SPC point-to-register (Was C-x /)
5259 C-x r j jump-to-register (Was C-x j)
5260 C-x r s copy-to-register (Was C-x x)
5261 C-x r i insert-register (Was C-x g)
5262 C-x r r copy-rectangle-to-register (Was C-x r)
5263 C-x r k kill-rectangle
5264 C-x r y yank-rectangle
5265 C-x r o open-rectangle
5266 C-x r f frame-configuration-to-register
5267 (This saves the state of all windows in all frames.)
5268 C-x r w window-configuration-to-register
5269 (This saves the state of all windows in the selected frame.)
5271 (Use C-x r j to restore a configuration saved with C-x r f or C-x r w.)
5273 C-x n n narrow-to-region (Was C-x n)
5274 C-x n p narrow-to-page (Was C-x p)
5275 C-x n w widen (Was C-x w)
5277 C-x a l add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-a)
5278 C-x a g add-global-abbrev (Was C-x +)
5279 C-x a i l inverse-add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-h)
5280 C-x a i g inverse-add-global-abbrev (Was C-x -)
5281 C-x a e expand-abbrev (Was C-x ')
5283 (The old key bindings C-x /, C-x j, C-x x and C-x g
5284 have not yet been removed.)
5286 ** You can put a file name in a register to be able to visit the file
5289 (set-register ?CHAR '(file . NAME))
5291 where NAME is the file name as a string. Then C-x r j CHAR finds that
5294 This is useful for files that you need to visit frequently,
5295 but that you don't want to keep in buffers all the time.
5297 ** The keys M-g (fill-region) and C-x a (append-to-buffer)
5298 have been eliminated.
5300 ** The new command `string-rectangle' inserts a specified string on
5301 each line of the region-rectangle.
5303 ** C-x 4 r is now `find-file-read-only-other-window'.
5305 ** C-x 4 C-o is now `display-buffer', which displays a specified buffer
5306 in another window without selecting it.
5308 ** Picture mode has been substantially improved. The picture editing commands
5309 now arrange for automatic horizontal scrolling to keep point visible
5310 when editing a wide buffer with truncate-lines on. Picture-mode
5311 initialization now does a better job of rebinding standard commands;
5312 it finds not just their normal keybindings, but any function keys
5315 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode, then the mark becomes "inactive"
5316 after every command that modifies the buffer. While the mark is
5317 active, the region is highlighted (under X, at least). Most commands
5318 that use the mark give an error if the mark is inactive, but you can
5319 use C-x C-x to make it active again. This feature is also sometimes
5320 known as "Zmacs mode".
5322 ** Outline mode is now available as a minor mode. This minor mode can
5323 combine with any major mode; it substitutes the C-c commands of
5324 Outline mode for those of the major mode. Use M-x outline-minor-mode
5325 to enable and disable the new mode.
5327 M-x outline-mode is unchanged; it still switches to Outline mode as a
5330 ** The default setting of `version-control' comes from the environment
5331 variable VERSION_CONTROL.
5333 ** The user option for controlling whether files can set local
5334 variables is now called `enable-local-variables'. A value of t means
5335 local-variables lists are obeyed; nil means they are ignored; anything
5336 else means query the user.
5338 The user option for controlling use of the `eval' local variable is
5339 now called is `enable-local-eval'; its values are interpreted like
5340 those of `enable-local-variables'.
5342 ** X Window System changes:
5344 C-x 5 C-f and C-x 5 b switch to a specified file or buffer in a new
5345 frame. Likewise, C-x 5 m starts outgoing mail in another frame, and
5346 C-x 5 . finds a tag in another frame.
5348 When you are using X, C-z now iconifies the selected frame.
5350 Emacs can now exchange text with other X applications. Killing or
5351 copying text in Emacs now makes that text available for pasting into
5352 other X applications. The Emacs yanking commands now insert the
5353 latest selection set by other applications, and add the text to the
5354 kill ring. The Emacs commands for selecting and inserting text with
5355 the mouse now use the kill ring in the same way the keyboard killing
5356 and yanking commands do.
5358 The option to specify the title for the initial frame is now `-name NAME'.
5359 There is currently no way to specify an icon title; perhaps we will add
5362 ** Undoing a deletion now puts point back where it was before the
5365 ** The variables that control how much undo information to save have
5366 been renamed to `undo-limit' and `undo-strong-limit'. They used to be
5367 called `undo-threshold' and `undo-high-threshold'.
5369 ** You can now use kill commands in read-only buffers. They don't
5370 actually change the buffer, and Emacs will beep and warn you that the
5371 buffer is read-only, but they do copy the text you tried to kill into
5372 the kill ring, so you can yank it into other buffers.
5374 ** C-o inserts the fill-prefix on the newly created line. The command
5375 M-^ deletes the prefix (if it occurs) after the newline that it
5378 ** C-M-l now runs the command `reposition-window'. It scrolls the
5379 window heuristically in a way designed to get useful information onto
5382 ** C-M-r is now reverse incremental regexp search.
5384 ** M-z now kills through the target character. In version 18, it
5385 killed up to but not including the target character.
5387 ** M-! now runs the specified shell command asynchronously if it
5388 ends in `&' (just as the shell does).
5390 ** C-h C-f and C-h C-k are new help commands that display the Info
5391 node for a given Emacs function name or key sequence, respectively.
5393 ** The C-h p command system lets you find Emacs Lisp packages by
5394 topic keywords. Here is a partial list of package categories:
5396 abbrev abbreviation handling, typing shortcuts, macros
5397 bib code related to the bib bibliography processor
5398 c C and C++ language support
5399 calendar calendar and time management support
5400 comm communications, networking, remote access to files
5401 docs support for Emacs documentation
5402 emulations emulations of other editors
5403 extensions Emacs Lisp language extensions
5404 games games, jokes and amusements
5405 hardware support for interfacing with exotic hardware
5406 help support for on-line help systems
5407 i14n internationalization and alternate character-set support
5408 internal code for Emacs internals, build process, defaults
5409 languages specialized modes for editing programming languages
5410 lisp Lisp support, including Emacs Lisp
5411 local code local to your site
5412 maint maintenance aids for the Emacs development group
5413 mail modes for electronic-mail handling
5414 news support for netnews reading and posting
5415 processes process, subshell, compilation, and job control support
5416 terminals support for terminal types
5417 tex code related to the TeX formatter
5418 tools programming tools
5419 unix front-ends/assistants for, or emulators of, UNIX features
5420 vms support code for vms
5423 More will be added soon.
5425 ** The command to split a window into two side-by-side windows is now
5426 C-x 3. It was C-x 5.
5428 ** M-. (find-tag) no longer has any effect on what M-, will do
5429 subsequently. You can no longer use M-, to find the next similar tag;
5430 you must use M-. with a prefix argument, instead.
5432 The motive for this change is so that you can more reliably use
5433 M-, to resume a suspended `tags-search' or `tags-query-replace'.
5435 ** C-x s (`save-some-buffers') now gives you more options when it asks
5436 whether to save a particular buffer. In addition to `y' or `n', you
5437 can answer `!' to save all the remaining buffers, `.' to save this
5438 buffer but not save any others, ESC to stop saving and exit the
5439 command, and C-h to get help. These options are analogous to those
5442 ** M-x make-symbolic-link does not expand its first argument.
5443 This lets you make a link with a target that is a relative file name.
5445 ** M-x add-change-log-entry and C-x 4 a now automatically insert the
5446 name of the file and often the name of the function that you changed.
5447 They also handle grouping of entries.
5449 There is now a special major mode for editing ChangeLog files. It
5450 makes filling work conveniently. Each bunch of grouped entries is one
5451 paragraph, and each collection of entries from one person on one day
5452 is considered a page.
5454 ** The `comment-region' command adds comment delimiters to the lines that
5455 start in the region, thus commenting them out. With a negative argument,
5456 it deletes comment delimiters from the lines in the region--this cancels
5457 the effect of `comment-region' without an argument.
5459 With a positive argument, `comment-region' adds comment delimiters
5460 but duplicates the last character of the comment start sequence as many
5461 times as the argument specifies. This is a way of calling attention to
5462 the comment. In Lisp, you should use an argument at least two, because
5463 the indentation convention for single semicolon comments does not leave
5464 them at the beginning of a line.
5466 ** If `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil, C-x 2 tries to avoid
5467 shifting any text on the screen by putting point in whichever window
5468 happens to contain the screen line the cursor is already on.
5469 The default is that `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil on slow
5472 ** M-x super-apropos is like M-x apropos except that it searches both
5473 Lisp symbol names and documentation strings for matches. It describes
5474 every symbol that has a match in either the symbol's name or its
5477 Both M-x apropos and M-x super-apropos take an optional second
5478 argument DO-ALL which controls the more expensive part of the job.
5479 This includes looking up and printing the key bindings of all
5480 commands. It also includes checking documentation strings in
5481 super-apropos. DO-ALL is nil by default; use a prefix arg to make it
5484 ** M-x revert-buffer no longer offers to revert from a recent auto-save
5485 file unless you give it a prefix argument. Otherwise it always
5486 reverts from the real file regardless of whether there has been an
5487 auto-save since then. (Reverting from the auto-save file is no longer
5488 very useful now that the undo capacity is larger.)
5490 ** M-x recover-file no longer turns off Auto Save mode when it reads
5491 the last Auto Save file.
5493 ** M-x rename-buffer, if you give it a prefix argument,
5494 avoids errors by modifying the new name to make it unique.
5496 ** M-x rename-uniquely renames the current buffer to a similar name
5497 with a numeric suffix added to make it both different and unique.
5499 One use of this command is for creating multiple shell buffers.
5500 If you rename your shell buffer, and then do M-x shell again, it
5501 makes a new shell buffer. This method is also good for mail buffers,
5502 compilation buffers, and any Emacs feature which creates a special
5503 buffer with a particular name.
5505 ** M-x compare-windows with a prefix argument ignores changes in whitespace.
5506 If `compare-ignore-case' is non-nil, then differences in case are also
5509 ** `backward-paragraph' is now bound to M-{ by default, and `forward-paragraph'
5510 to M-}. Originally, these commands were bound to M-[ and M-], but they were
5511 running into conflicts with the use of function keys. On many terminals,
5512 function keys send a sequence beginning ESC-[, so many users have defined this
5515 ** C-x C-u (upcase-region) and C-x C-l (downcase-region) are now disabled by
5516 default; these commands seem to be often hit by accident, and can be
5517 quite destructive if their effects are not noticed immediately.
5519 ** The function `erase-buffer' is now interactive, but disabled by default.
5521 ** When visiting a new file, Emacs attempts to abbreviate the file's
5522 path using the symlinks listed in `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5524 ** When you visit the same file in under two names that translate into
5525 the same name once symbolic links are handled, Emacs warns you that
5526 you have two buffers for the same file.
5528 ** If you wish to avoid visiting the same file in two buffers under
5529 different names, set the variable `find-file-existing-other-name'
5530 non-nil. Then `find-file' uses the existing buffer visiting the file,
5531 no matter which of the file's names you specify.
5533 ** If you set `find-file-visit-truename' non-nil, then the file name
5534 recorded for a buffer is the file's truename (in which all symbolic
5535 links have been removed), rather than the name you specify. Setting
5536 `find-file-visit-truename' also implies the effect of
5537 `find-file-existing-other-name'.
5539 ** C-x C-v now inserts the entire current file name in the minibuffer.
5540 This is convenient if you made a small mistake in typing it. Point
5541 goes after the last slash, before the last file name component, so if
5542 you want to replace it entirely, you can use C-k right away to delete
5545 ** Commands such as C-M-f in Lisp mode now ignore parentheses within comments.
5547 ** C-x q now uses ESC to terminate all iterations of the keyboard
5548 macro, rather than C-d as before.
5550 ** Use the command `setenv' to set an individual environment variable
5551 for Emacs subprocesses. Specify a variable name and a value, both as
5552 strings. This command applies only to subprocesses yet to be
5555 ** Use `rot13-other-window' to examine a buffer with rot13.
5557 This command does not change the text in the buffer. Instead, it
5558 creates a window with a funny display table that applies the code when
5559 displaying the text.
5561 ** The command `M-x version' now prints the current Emacs version; The
5562 `version' command is an alias for the `emacs-version' command.
5564 ** More complex changes in existing packages.
5566 *** `fill-nonuniform-paragraphs' is a new command, much like
5567 `fill-individual-paragraphs' except that only separator lines separate
5568 paragraphs. Since this means that the lines of one paragraph may have
5569 different amounts of indentation, the fill prefix used is the smallest
5570 amount of indentation of any of the lines of the paragraph.
5572 *** Filling is now partially controlled by a new minor mode, Adaptive
5573 Fill mode. When this mode is enabled (and it is enabled by default),
5574 if you use M-x fill-region-as-paragraph on an indented paragraph and
5575 you don't have a fill prefix, it uses the indentation of the second
5576 line of the paragraph as the fill prefix.
5578 Adaptive Fill mode doesn't have much effect on M-q in most major
5579 modes, because an indented line will probably count as a paragraph
5580 starter and thus each line of an indented paragraph will be considered
5581 a paragraph of its own.
5583 *** M-q in C mode now runs `c-fill-paragraph', which is designed
5584 for filling C comments. (We assume you don't want to fill
5585 the code in a C program.)
5587 *** M-$ now runs the Ispell program instead of the Unix spell program.
5589 M-$ starts an Ispell process the first time you use it. But the process
5590 stays alive, so that subsequent uses of M-$ run very fast.
5591 If you want to get rid of the process, use M-x kill-ispell.
5593 To check the entire current buffer, use M-x ispell-buffer.
5594 Use M-x ispell-region to check just the current region.
5596 Ispell commands often involve interactive replacement of words.
5597 You can interrupt the interactive replacement with C-g.
5598 You can restart it again afterward with C-u M-$.
5600 During interactive replacement, you can type the following characters:
5602 a Accept this word this time.
5603 DIGIT Replace the word (this time) with one of the displayed near-misses.
5604 The digit you use says which near-miss to use.
5605 i Insert this word in your private dictionary
5606 so that Ispell will consider it correct it from now on.
5607 r Replace the word this time with a string typed by you.
5609 When the Ispell process starts, it reads your private dictionary which
5610 is the file `~/ispell.words'. If you "insert" words with the `i' command,
5611 these words are added to that file, but not right away--only at the end
5612 of the interactive replacement process.
5614 Use M-x reload-ispell to reload your private dictionary from
5615 `~/ispell.words' if you edit it outside of Ispell.
5617 ** Changes in existing modes.
5619 *** gdb-mode has been replaced by gud-mode.
5621 The package gud.el (Grand Unified Debugger) replaces gdb.el in Emacs
5622 19. It provides a gdb.el-like interface to any of three debuggers;
5623 gdb itself, the sdb debugger supported on some Unix systems, or the
5624 dbx debugger on Berkeley systems.
5626 You start it up with one of the commands M-x gdb, M-x sdb, or
5627 M-x dbx. Each entry point finishes by executing a hook; gdb-mode-hook,
5628 sdb-mode-hook or dbx-mode-hook respectively.
5630 These bindings have changed:
5631 C-x C-a > gud-down (was M-d)
5632 C-x C-a < gud-up (was M-u)
5633 C-x C-a C-r gud-cont (was M-c)
5634 C-x C-a C-n gud-next (was M-n)
5635 C-x C-a C-s gud-step (was M-s)
5636 C-x C-a C-i gud-stepi (was M-i)
5637 C-x C-a C-l gud-recenter (was C-l)
5638 C-d comint-delchar-or-maybe-eof (was C-c C-d)
5640 These bindings have been removed:
5641 C-c C-r (was comint-show-output; now gud-cont)
5643 Since GUD mode uses comint, it uses comint's input history commands,
5644 superseding C-c C-y (copy-last-shell-input):
5645 M-p comint-next-input
5646 M-n comint-previous-input
5647 M-r comint-previous-similar-input
5648 M-s comint-next-similar-input
5649 M-C-r comint-previous-input-matching
5651 The C-x C-a bindings are also active in source files.
5653 *** The old TeX mode bindings of M-{ and M-} have been moved to C-c {
5654 and C-c }. (These commands are `up-list' and `tex-insert-braces';
5655 they are the TeX equivalents of M-( and M-).) This is because M-{
5656 and M-} are now globally defined commands.
5658 *** Changes in Mail mode.
5660 `%' is now a word-separator character in Mail mode.
5662 `mail-signature', if non-nil, tells M-x mail to insert your
5663 `.signature' file automatically. If you don't want your signature in
5664 a particular message, just delete it before you send the message.
5666 You can specify the text to insert at the beginning of each line when
5667 you use C-c C-y to yank the message you are replying to. Set
5668 `mail-yank-prefix' to the desired string. A value of `nil' (the
5669 default) means to use indentation, as in Emacs 18. If you use just
5670 C-u as the prefix argument to C-c C-y, then it does not insert
5671 anything at the beginning of the lines, regardless of the value of
5674 If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
5675 type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following:
5677 (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)
5679 This can go in your .emacs file.
5681 Word abbrevs don't expand unless you insert a word-separator character
5682 afterward. Any mail aliases that you didn't expand at insertion time
5683 are expanded subsequently when you send the message.
5685 *** Changes in Rmail.
5687 Rmail by default gets new mail only from the system inbox file,
5690 In Rmail, you can retry sending a message that failed
5691 by typing `M-m' on the failure message.
5693 By contrast, another new command M-x rmail-resend is used for
5694 forwarding a message and marking it as "resent from" you
5695 with header fields "Resent-From:" and "Resent-To:".
5697 `e' is now the command to edit a message.
5698 To expunge, type `x'. We know this will surprise people
5699 some of the time, but the surprise will not be disastrous--if
5700 you type `e' meaning to expunge, just turn off editing with C-c C-c
5703 Another new Rmail command is `<', which moves to the first message.
5704 This is for symmetry with `>'.
5706 Use the `b' command to bury the Rmail buffer and its summary buffer,
5707 if any, removing both of them from display on the screen.
5709 The variable `rmail-output-file-alist' now controls the default
5710 for the file to output a message to.
5712 In the Rmail summary buffer, all cursor motion commands select
5713 the message you move to. It's really neat when you use
5716 You can now issue most Rmail commands from an Rmail summary buffer.
5717 The commands do the same thing in that buffer that they do in the
5718 Rmail buffer. They apply to the message that is selected in the Rmail
5719 buffer, which is always the one described by the current summary
5722 Conversely, motion and deletion commands in the Rmail buffer also
5723 update the summary buffer. If you set the variable
5724 `rmail-redisplay-summary' to a non-nil value, then they bring the
5725 summary buffer (if one exists) back onto the screen.
5727 C-M-t is a new command to make a summary by topic. It uses regexp
5728 matching against just the subjects of the messages to decide which
5729 messages to show in the summary.
5731 You can easily convert an Rmail file to system mailbox format with the
5732 command `unrmail'. This command reads two arguments, the name of
5733 the Rmail file to convert, and the name of the new mailbox file.
5734 (This command does not change the Rmail file itself.)
5736 Rmail now handles Content Length fields in messages.
5738 *** `mail-extract-address-components' unpacks mail addresses.
5739 It takes an address as a string (the contents of the From field, for
5740 example) and returns a list of the form (FULL-NAME
5743 *** Changes in C mode and C-related commands.
5745 **** M-x c-up-conditional
5747 In C mode, `c-up-conditional' moves back to the containing
5748 preprocessor conditional, setting the mark where point was
5751 A prefix argument acts as a repeat count. With a negative argument,
5752 this command moves forward to the end of the containing preprocessor
5753 conditional. When going backwards, `#elif' acts like `#else' followed
5754 by `#if'. When going forwards, `#elif' is ignored.
5756 **** In C mode, M-a and M-e are now defined as
5757 `c-beginning-of-statement' and `c-end-of-statement'.
5759 **** In C mode, M-x c-backslash-region is a new command to insert or
5760 align `\' characters at the ends of the lines of the region, except
5761 for the last such line. This is useful after writing or editing a C
5764 If a line already ends in `\', this command adjusts the amount of
5765 whitespace before it. Otherwise, it inserts a new `\'.
5767 *** New features in info.
5769 When Info looks for an Info file, it searches the directories
5770 in `Info-directory-list'. This makes it easy to install the Info files
5771 that come with various packages. You can specify the path with
5772 the environment variable INFOPATH.
5774 There are new commands in Info mode.
5776 `]' now moves forward a node, going up and down levels as needed.
5777 `[' is similar but moves backward. These two commands try to traverse
5778 the entire Info tree, node by node. They are the equivalent of reading
5779 a printed manual sequentially.
5781 `<' moves to the top node of the current Info file.
5782 `>' moves to the last node of the file.
5784 SPC scrolls through the current node; at the end, it advances to the
5785 next node in depth-first order (like `]').
5787 DEL scrolls backwards in the current node; at the end, it moves to the
5788 previous node in depth-first order (like `[').
5790 After a menu select, the info `up' command now restores point in the
5791 menu. The combination of this and the previous two changes means that
5792 repeated SPC keystrokes do the right (depth-first traverse forward) thing.
5794 `i STRING RET' moves to the node associated with STRING in the index
5795 or indices of this manual. If there is more than one match for
5796 STRING, the `i' command finds the first match.
5798 `,' finds the next match for the string in the previous `i' command
5800 If you click the middle mouse button near a cross-reference,
5801 menu item or node pointer while in Info, you will go to the node
5802 which is referenced.
5804 *** Changes in M-x compile.
5806 You can repeat any previous compilation command conveniently using the
5807 minibuffer history commands, while in the minibuffer entering the
5808 compilation command.
5810 While a compilation is going on, the string `Compiling' appears in
5811 the mode line. When this string disappears, that tells you the
5812 compilation is finished.
5814 The buffer of compiler messages is in Compilation mode. This mode
5815 provides the keys SPC and DEL to scroll by screenfuls, and M-n and M-p
5816 to move to the next or previous error message. You can also use C-c
5817 C-c on any error message to find the corresponding source code.
5819 Emacs 19 has a more general parser for compiler messages. For example, it
5820 can understand messages from lint, and from certain C compilers whose error
5821 message format is unusual. Also, it only parses until it sees the error
5822 message you want; you never have to wait a long time to see the first
5823 error, no matter how big the buffer is.
5825 *** M-x diff and M-x diff-backup.
5827 This new command compares two files, displaying the differences in an
5828 Emacs buffer. The options for the `diff' program come from the
5829 variable `diff-switches', whose value should be a string.
5831 The buffer of differences has Compilation mode as its major mode, so you
5832 can use C-x ` to visit successive changed locations in the two
5833 source files, or you can move to a particular hunk of changes and type
5834 C-c C-c to move to the corresponding source. You can also use the
5835 other special commands of Compilation mode: SPC and DEL for
5836 scrolling, and M-n and M-p for cursor motion.
5838 M-x diff-backup compares a file with its most recent backup.
5839 If you specify the name of a backup file, `diff-backup' compares it
5840 with the source file that it is a backup of.
5842 *** The View commands (such as M-x view-buffer and M-x view-file) no
5843 longer use recursive edits; instead, they switch temporarily to a
5844 different major mode (View mode) specifically designed for moving
5845 around through a buffer without editing it.
5847 *** Changes in incremental search.
5849 **** The character to terminate an incremental search is now RET.
5850 This is for compatibility with the way most other arguments are read.
5852 To search for a newline in an incremental search, type LFD (also known
5855 **** Incremental search now maintains a ring of previous search
5856 strings. Use M-p and M-n to move through the ring to pick a search
5857 string to reuse. These commands leave the selected search ring
5858 element in the minibuffer, where you can edit it. Type C-s or C-r to
5859 finish editing and search for the chosen string.
5861 **** If you type an upper case letter in incremental search, that turns
5862 off case-folding, so that you get a case-sensitive search.
5864 **** If you type a space during regexp incremental search, it matches
5865 any sequence of whitespace characters. If you want to match just a space,
5868 **** Incremental search is now implemented as a major mode. When you
5869 type C-s, it switches temporarily to a different keymap which defines
5870 each key to do what it ought to do for incremental search. This has
5871 next to no effect on the user-visible behavior of searching, but makes
5872 it easier to customize that behavior.
5874 Emacs 19 eliminates the old variables `search-...-char' that used to
5875 be the way to specify the characters to use for various special
5876 purposes in incremental search. Instead, you can define the meaning
5877 of a character in incremental search by modifying `isearch-mode-map'.
5879 *** New commands in Buffer Menu mode.
5881 The command C-o now displays the current line's buffer in another
5882 window but does not select it. This is like the existing command `o'
5883 which selects the current line's buffer in another window.
5885 The command % toggles the read-only flag of the current line's buffer.
5887 The way to switch to a set of several buffers, including those marked
5888 with m, is now v. The q command simply quits, replacing the buffer
5889 menu buffer with the buffer that was displayed previously.
5891 ** New major modes and packages.
5893 *** The news reader GNUS is now installed.
5895 *** There is a new interface for version control systems, called VC.
5896 It works with both RCS and SCCS; in fact, you don't really have to
5897 know which one of them is being used, because it automatically deals
5900 Most of the time, the only command you have to know about is C-x C-q.
5901 This command normally toggles the read-only flag of the current
5902 buffer. If the buffer is visiting a file that is maintained with a
5903 version control system, the command still toggles read-only, but does
5904 so by checking the file in or checking it out.
5906 When you check a file in, VC asks you for a log entry by popping up a
5907 buffer. Edit the entry there, then type C-c C-c when it is ready.
5908 That's when the actual checkin happens. If you change your mind about
5909 the checkin, simply switch buffers and don't ever go back to the log
5912 To start using version control for a file, use the command C-x v v.
5913 This works like C-x C-q (performing the next logical version-control
5914 operation needed to change the file's writability) but it will also
5915 perform initial checkin on an unregistered file.
5917 By default, VC uses RCS if RCS is installed on your machine;
5918 otherwise, SCCS. If you want to make the choice explicitly, you can do
5919 it by setting `vc-default-back-end' to the symbol `RCS' or the symbol
5922 You can tell when a file you visit is maintained with version control
5923 because either `RCS' or `SCCS' appears in the mode line.
5925 *** A new Calendar mode has been added, the work of Edward M. Reingold.
5926 The mode can display the Gregorian calendar and a variety of other
5927 calendars at any date, and interacts with a diary facility similar to
5928 the UNIX `calendar' utility.
5930 *** There is a new major mode for editing binary files: Hexl mode.
5931 To use it, use M-x hexl-find-file instead of C-x C-f to visit the file.
5932 This command converts the file's contents to hexadecimal and lets you
5933 edit the translation. When you save the file, it is converted
5934 automatically back to binary.
5936 You can also use M-x hexl-mode to translate an existing buffer into hex.
5937 Do this if you have already visited a binary file.
5939 Hexl mode has a few other commands:
5941 C-M-d insert a byte with a code typed in decimal.
5942 C-M-o insert a byte with a code typed in octal.
5943 C-M-x insert a byte with a code typed in hex.
5945 C-x [ move to the beginning of a 1k-byte "page".
5946 C-x ] move to the end of a 1k-byte "page".
5948 M-g go to an address specified in hex.
5949 M-j go to an address specified in decimal.
5951 C-c C-c leave hexl mode and go back to the previous major mode.
5953 *** Miscellaneous new major modes include Awk mode, Icon mode, Makefile
5954 mode, Perl mode and SGML mode.
5956 *** Edebug, a new source-level debugger for Emacs Lisp functions.
5958 To use Edebug, use the command M-x edebug-defun to "evaluate" a
5959 function definition in an Emacs Lisp file. We put "evaluate" in
5960 quotation marks because it doesn't just evaluate the function, it also
5961 inserts additional information to support source-level debugging.
5965 (setq debugger 'edebug-debug)
5967 to cause errors and single-stepping to use Edebug instead of the usual
5968 Emacs Lisp debugger.
5970 For more information, see the Edebug manual, which should be included
5971 in the Emacs distribution.
5973 *** C++ mode is like C mode, except that it understands C++ comment syntax
5974 and certain other differences between C and C++. It also has a command
5975 `fill-c++-comment' which fills a paragraph made of comment lines.
5977 The command `comment-region' is useful in C++ mode for commenting out
5978 several consecutive lines, or removing the commenting out of such lines.
5980 *** A new package for merging two variants of the same text.
5982 It's not unusual for programmers to get their signals crossed and
5983 modify the same program in two different directions. Then somebody
5984 has to merge the two versions. The command `emerge-files' makes this
5987 `emerge-files' reads two file names and compares them. Then it
5988 displays three buffers: one for each file, and one for the
5991 If the original version of the file is available, you can make things
5992 even easier using `emerge-files-with-ancestor'. It reads three file
5993 names--variant 1, variant 2, and the common ancestor--and uses diff3
5996 You control the merging interactively. The main loop of Emerge
5997 consists of showing you one set of differences, asking you what to do
5998 about them, and doing it. You have a choice of two modes for giving
5999 directions to Emerge: "fast" mode and "edit" mode.
6001 In Fast mode, Emerge commands are single characters, and ordinary
6002 Emacs commands are disabled. This makes Emerge operations fast, but
6003 prevents you from doing more than selecting the A or the B version of
6004 differences. In Edit mode, all emerge commands use the C-c prefix,
6005 and the usual Emacs commands are available. This allows editing the
6006 merge buffer, but slows down Emerge operations. Edit and fast modes
6007 are indicated by `F' and `E' in the minor modes in the mode line.
6009 The Emerge commands are:
6011 p go to the previous difference
6012 n go to the next difference
6013 a select the A version of this difference
6014 b select the B version of this difference
6015 j go to a particular difference (prefix argument
6016 specifies which difference) (0j suppresses display of
6018 q quit - finish the merge*
6021 l recenter (C-l) all three windows*
6023 prefix numeric arguments
6024 d a select the A version as the default from here down in
6026 d b select the B version as the default from here down in
6028 c a copy the A version of the difference into the kill
6030 c b copy the B version of the difference into the kill
6032 i a insert the A version of the difference at the point
6033 i b insert the B version of the difference at the point
6034 m put the point and mark around the difference region
6035 ^ scroll-down (like M-v) the three windows*
6036 v scroll-up (like C-v) the three windows*
6037 < scroll-left (like C-x <) the three windows*
6038 > scroll-right (like C-x >) the three windows*
6039 | reset horizontal scroll on the three windows*
6040 x 1 shrink the merge window to one line (use C-u l to restore it
6042 x a find the difference containing a location in the A buffer*
6043 x b find the difference containing a location in the B buffer*
6044 x c combine the two versions of this difference*
6045 x C combine the two versions of this difference, using a
6046 register's value as the template*
6047 x d find the difference containing a location in the merge buffer*
6048 x f show the files/buffers Emerge is operating on in Help window
6049 (use C-u l to restore windows)
6050 x j join this difference with the following one
6051 (C-u x j joins this difference with the previous one)
6052 x l show line numbers of points in A, B, and merge buffers
6053 x m change major mode of merge buffer*
6054 x s split this difference into two differences
6055 (first position the point in all three buffers to the places
6056 to split the difference)
6057 x t trim identical lines off top and bottom of difference
6058 (such lines occur when the A and B versions are
6059 identical but differ from the ancestor version)
6060 x x set the template for the x c command*
6062 Normally, the merged output goes back in the first file specified.
6063 If you use a prefix argument, Emerge reads another file name to use
6064 for the output file.
6066 Once Emerge has prepared the buffer of differences, it runs the hooks
6067 in `emerge-startup-hooks'.
6069 *** Asm mode is a new major mode for editing files of assembler code.
6070 It defines these commands:
6072 TAB tab-to-tab-stop.
6073 LFD Insert a newline and then indent using tab-to-tab-stop.
6074 : Insert a colon and then remove the indentation
6075 from before the label preceding colon. Then tab-to-tab-stop.
6076 ; Insert or align a comment.
6078 *** Two-column mode lets you conveniently edit two side-by-side columns
6079 of text. It works using two side-by-side windows, each showing its
6082 Here are three ways to enter two-column mode:
6084 C-x 6 2 makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer. In the
6085 right-hand window it puts a buffer whose name is based on the current
6088 C-x 6 b BUFFER RET makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer,
6089 and uses buffer BUFFER as the right-hand buffer.
6091 C-x 6 s splits the current buffer, which contains two-column text,
6092 into two side-by-side buffers. The old current buffer becomes the
6093 left-hand buffer, but the text in the right column is moved into the
6094 right-hand buffer. The current column specifies the split point.
6095 Splitting starts with the current line and continues to the end of the
6098 C-x 6 s takes a prefix argument which specifies how many characters
6099 before point constitute the column separator. (The default argument
6100 is 1, as usual, so by default the column separator is the character
6101 before point.) Lines that don't have the column separator at the
6102 proper place remain unsplit; they stay in the left-hand buffer, and
6103 the right-hand buffer gets an empty line to correspond.
6105 You can scroll both buffers together using C-x 6 SPC (scroll up), C-x
6106 6 DEL (scroll down), and C-x 6 RET (scroll up one line). C-x 6 C-l
6107 recenters both buffers together.
6109 If you want to make a line which will span both columns, put it in
6110 the left-hand buffer, with an empty line in the corresponding place in
6111 the right-hand buffer.
6113 When you have edited both buffers as you wish, merge them with C-x 6
6114 1. This copies the text from the right-hand buffer as a second column
6115 in the other buffer. To go back to two-column editing, use C-x 6 s.
6117 Use C-x 6 d to dissociate the two buffers, leaving each as it
6118 stands. (If the other buffer, the one that was not current when you
6119 type C-x 6 d, is empty, C-x 6 d kills it.)
6121 *** You can supply command arguments such as files to visit to an Emacs
6122 that is already running. To do this, you must do this in your .emacs
6124 (add-hook 'suspend-hook 'resume-suspend-hook)
6125 Also you must use the shellscript emacs.csh or emacs.sh, found in the
6128 *** Shell mode has been completely replaced.
6129 The basic idea is the same, but there are new commands available in
6132 TAB now completes the file name before point in the shell buffer.
6133 To get a list of all possible completions, type M-?.
6135 There is a new convenient history mechanism for repeating previous
6136 commands. Use the command M-p to recall the last command; it copies
6137 the text of that command to the place where you are editing. If you
6138 repeat M-p, it replaces the copied command with the previous command.
6139 M-n is similar but goes in the opposite direction towards the present.
6140 When you find the command you wanted, you can edit it, or just
6141 resubmit it by typing RET.
6143 You can also use M-r and M-s to search for (respectively) earlier or
6144 later inputs starting with a given string. First type the string,
6145 then type M-r to yank a previous input from the history which starts
6146 with that string. You can repeat M-r to find successively earlier
6147 inputs starting with the same string. You can start moving in the
6148 opposite direction (toward more recent inputs) by typing M-s instead
6149 of M-r. As long as you don't use any commands except M-r and M-s,
6150 they keep using the same string that you had entered initially.
6152 C-c C-o kills the last batch of output from a shell command. This is
6153 useful if a shell command spews out lots of output that just gets in
6156 C-c C-r scrolls to display the beginning of the last batch of output
6157 at the top of the window; it also moves the cursor there.
6159 C-a on a line that starts with a shell prompt moves to the end of the
6160 prompt, not to the very beginning of the line.
6162 C-d typed at the end of the shell buffer sends EOF to the subshell.
6163 At any other position in the buffer, it deletes a character as usual.
6165 If Emacs gets confused while trying to track changes in the shell's
6166 current directory, type M-x dirs to re-synchronize.
6168 M-x send-invisible reads a line of text without echoing it, and
6169 sends it to the shell.
6171 If you accidentally suspend your process, use M-x comint-continue-subjob
6174 *** There is now a convenient way to enable flow control on terminals
6175 where you can't win without it. Suppose you want to do this on
6176 VT-100 and H19 terminals; put the following in your `.emacs' file:
6178 (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")
6180 When flow control is enabled, you must type C-\ to get the effect of a
6181 C-s, and type C-^ to get the effect of a C-q.
6183 The function `enable-flow-control' enables flow control unconditionally.
6187 Dired has many new features which allow you to do these things:
6189 - Rename, copy, or make links to many files at once.
6191 - Make distinguishable types of marks for different operations.
6193 - Display contents of subdirectories in the same Dired buffer as the
6196 *** Setting and Clearing Marks
6198 There are now two kinds of marker that you can put on a file in Dired:
6199 `D' for deletion, and `*' for any other kind of operation.
6200 The `x' command deletes only files marked with `D', and most
6201 other Dired commands operate only on the files marked with `*'.
6203 To mark files with `D' (also called "flagging" the files), you
6204 can use `d' as usual. Here are some commands for marking with
6205 `*' (and also for unmarking):
6207 **** `m' marks the current file with `*', for an operation other than
6210 **** `*' marks all executable files. With a prefix argument, it
6211 unmarks all those files.
6213 **** `@' marks all symbolic links. With a prefix argument, it unmarks
6216 **** `/' marks all directory files except `.' and `..'. With a prefix
6217 argument, it unmarks all those files.
6219 **** M-DEL removes a specific or all marks from every file. With an
6220 argument, queries for each marked file. Type your help character,
6221 usually C-h, at that time for help.
6223 **** `c' replaces all marks that use the character OLD with marks that
6224 use the character NEW. You can use almost any character as a mark
6225 character by means of this command, to distinguish various classes of
6226 files. If OLD is ` ', then the command operates on all unmarked
6227 files; if NEW is ` ', then the command unmarks the files it acts on.
6229 *** Operating on Multiple Files
6231 The Dired commands to operate directly on files (rename them, copy
6232 them, and so on) have been generalized to work on multiple files.
6233 There are also some additional commands in this series.
6235 All of these commands use the same convention to decide which files to
6238 - If you give the command a numeric prefix argument @var{n}, it operates
6239 on the next @var{n} files, starting with the current file.
6241 - Otherwise, if there are marked files, the commands operate on all the
6244 - Otherwise, the command operates on the current file only.
6246 These are the commands:
6248 **** `C' copies the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6249 copy into, or (if copying a single file) a new name.
6251 If `dired-copy-preserve-time' is non-`nil', then copying sets
6252 the modification time of the new file to be the same as that of the old
6255 **** `R' renames the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6256 rename into, or (if renaming a single file) a new name.
6258 Dired automatically changes the visited file name of buffers associated
6259 with renamed files so that they refer to the new names.
6261 **** `H' makes hard links to the specified files. You must specify a
6262 directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name
6265 **** `S' makes symbolic links to the specified files. You must specify
6266 a directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the
6267 name to give the link.
6269 **** `M' changes the mode of the specified files. This calls the
6270 `chmod' program, so you can describe the desired mode change with any
6271 argument that `chmod' would handle.
6273 **** `G' changes the group of the specified files.
6275 **** `O' changes the owner of the specified files. (On normal systems,
6276 only the superuser can do this.)
6278 The variable `dired-chown-program' specifies the name of the
6279 program to use to do the work (different systems put `chown' in
6282 **** `Z' compresses or uncompresses the specified files.
6284 **** `L' loads the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6286 **** `B' byte compiles the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6288 **** `P' prints the specified files. It uses the variables
6289 `lpr-command' and `lpr-switches' just as `lpr-file' does.
6291 *** Shell Commands in Dired
6293 `!' reads a shell command string in the minibuffer and runs the shell
6294 command on all the specified files. There are two ways of applying a
6295 shell command to multiple files:
6297 - If you use `*' in the command, then the shell command runs just
6298 once, with the list of file names substituted for the `*'.
6300 Thus, `! tar cf foo.tar * RET' runs `tar' on the entire list of file
6301 names, putting them into one tar file `foo.tar'. The file names are
6302 inserted in the order that they appear in the Dired buffer.
6304 - If the command string doesn't contain `*', then it runs once for
6305 each file, with the file name attached at the end. For example, `!
6306 uudecode RET' runs `uudecode' on each file.
6308 To run the shell command once for each file but without being limited
6309 to putting the file name inserted in the middle, use a shell loop.
6310 For example, this shell command would run `uuencode' on each of the
6311 specified files, writing the output into a corresponding `.uu' file:
6313 for file in *; uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
6315 The working directory for the shell command is the top level directory
6316 of the Dired buffer.
6318 *** Regular Expression File Name Substitution
6320 **** `% m REGEXP RET' marks all files whose names match the regular
6323 Only the non-directory part of the file name is used in matching. Use
6324 `^' and `$' to anchor matches. Exclude subdirs by hiding them.
6326 **** `% d REGEXP RET' flags for deletion all files whose names match
6327 the regular expression REGEXP.
6329 **** `% R', `% C', `% H', `% S'
6331 These four commands rename, copy, make hard links and make soft links,
6332 in each case computing the new name by regular expression substitution
6333 from the name of the old file. They effectively perform
6334 `query-replace-regexp' on the selected file names in the Dired buffer.
6336 The commands read two arguments: a regular expression, and a
6337 substitution pattern. Each selected file name is matched against the
6338 regular expression, and then the part which matched is replaced with
6339 the substitution pattern. You can use `\&' and `\DIGIT' in the
6340 substitution pattern to refer to all or part of the old file name.
6342 If the regular expression matches more than once in a file name,
6343 only the first match is replaced.
6345 Normally, the replacement process does not consider the directory names;
6346 it operates on the file name within the directory. If you specify a
6347 prefix argument of zero, then replacement affects entire file name.
6349 To apply the command to all files matching the same regexp that you
6350 use in the command, mark those files with `% m REGEXP RET', then use
6351 the same regular expression in `% R'. To make this easier, `% R' uses
6352 as a default the last regular expression specified in a `%' command.
6354 *** Dired Case Conversion
6356 **** `% u' renames each of the selected files to an upper case name.
6358 **** `% l' renames each of the selected files to a lower case name.
6360 *** File Comparison with Dired
6362 **** `=' compares the current file with another file (the file at the
6363 mark), by running the `diff' program. The file at the mark is given
6366 **** `M-=' compares the current file with its backup file. If there
6367 are several numerical backups, it uses the most recent one. If this
6368 file is a backup, it is compared with its original.
6370 The backup file is the first file given to `diff'.
6372 *** Subdirectories in Dired
6374 You can display more than one directory in one Dired buffer.
6375 The simplest way to do this is to specify the options `-lR' for
6376 running `ls'. That produces a recursive directory listing showing
6377 all subdirectories, all within the same Dired buffer.
6379 You can also insert the contents of a particular subdirectory with the
6380 `i' command. Use this command on the line that describes a file which
6381 is a directory. Inserted subdirectory contents follow the top-level
6382 directory of the Dired buffer, just as they do in `ls -lR' output.
6384 If the subdirectory's contents are already present in the buffer, the
6385 `i' command just moves to it (type `l' to refresh it). It sets the
6386 Emacs mark before moving, so C-x C-x takes you back to the old
6387 position in the buffer.
6389 When you have subdirectories in the Dired buffer, you can use the page
6390 motion commands C-x [ and C-x ] to move by entire directories.
6392 The following commands move up and down in the tree of directories
6393 in one Dired buffer:
6395 **** C-M-u Go up to the parent directory's headerline.
6397 **** C-M-d Go down in the tree, to the first subdirectory's
6400 **** C-M-n Go to next subdirectory headerline, regardless of level.
6402 **** C-M-p Go to previous subdirectory headerline, regardless of
6405 *** Hiding Subdirectories
6407 "Hiding" a subdirectory means to make it invisible, except for its
6408 headerline. Files inside a hidden subdirectory are never considered
6409 by Dired. For example, the commands to operate on marked files ignore
6410 files in hidden directories even if they are marked.
6412 **** `$' hides or unhides the current subdirectory and move to next
6413 subdirectory. A prefix argument serves as a repeat count.
6415 **** `M-$' hides all subdirectories, leaving only their header lines.
6416 Or, if at least one subdirectory is currently hidden, it makes
6417 everything visible again. You can use this command to get an overview
6418 in very deep directory trees or to move quickly to subdirectories far
6421 *** Editing the Dired Buffer
6423 **** `l' updates the specified files in a Dired buffer. This means
6424 reading their current status from the file system and changing the
6425 buffer to reflect it properly.
6427 If you use this command on a subdirectory header line, it updates the
6428 contents of the subdirectory.
6430 **** `g' updates the entire contents of the Dired buffer. It preserves
6431 all marks except for those on files that have vanished. Hidden
6432 subdirectories are updated but remain hidden.
6434 **** `k' kills all marked lines (not the files). With a prefix
6435 argument, it kills that many lines starting with the current line.
6437 This command does not delete files; it just deletes text from the Dired
6440 If you kill the line for a file that is a directory, then its contents
6441 are also deleted from the buffer. Typing `C-u k' on the header line
6442 for a subdirectory is another way to delete a subdirectory from the
6445 *** `find' and Dired.
6447 To search for files with names matching a wildcard pattern use
6448 `find-name-dired'. Its arguments are DIRECTORY and
6449 PATTERN. It selects all the files in DIRECTORY or its
6450 subdirectories whose own names match PATTERN.
6452 The files thus selected are displayed in a Dired buffer in which the
6453 ordinary Dired commands are available.
6455 If you want to test the contents of files, rather than their names, use
6456 `find-grep-dired'. This command takes two minibuffer arguments,
6457 DIRECTORY and REGEXP; it selects all the files in
6458 DIRECTORY or its subdirectories that contain a match for
6459 REGEXP. It works by running `find' and `grep'.
6461 The most general command in this series is `find-dired', which lets
6462 you specify any condition that `find' can test. It takes two
6463 minibuffer arguments, DIRECTORY and FIND-ARGS; it runs `find' in
6464 DIRECTORY with using FIND-ARGS as the arguments to `find' specifying
6465 which files to accept. To use this command, you need to know how to
6468 ** New amusements and novelties.
6470 *** `M-x mpuz' displays a multiplication puzzle, in which each letter
6471 stands for a digit, and you must determine which digit. The puzzles
6472 are determined randomly, so they are always different.
6474 *** `M-x gomoku' plays the game Gomoku with you. It needs more work.
6476 *** `M-x spook' adds a line of randomly chosen keywords to an outgoing
6477 mail message. The keywords are chosen from a list of words that
6478 suggest you are discussing something subversive.
6480 The idea is that the NSA reads all messages that contain keywords
6481 suggesting they might be interested, and that adding these lines could
6482 help to overload them. I would guess that they have modified their
6483 program by now to ignore these lines of keywords; perhaps the program
6484 can be updated if some clever hacker can determine what criterion they
6487 ** Installation changes
6489 *** The configure script has been provided to help with the
6490 installation process. It takes the place of editing the Makefiles and
6491 src/config.h, and can often guess the appropriate operating system to
6492 use for a particular machine type. See INSTALL for a more detailed
6493 description of the steps required for installation.
6495 *** If you create a Lisp file named `site-start.el', Emacs loads the file
6496 whenever it starts up.
6498 *** A new Lisp variable, `data-directory', indicates the directory
6499 containing the DOC file, tutorial, copying agreement, and other
6500 familiar `etc' files. The value of `data-directory' is a simple string.
6501 The default should be set at build time, and the person installing
6502 Emacs should place all the data files in this directory. The `help.el'
6503 functions that look for docstrings and information files check this
6504 variable. All Emacs Lisp packages should also be coded so that they
6505 refer to `data-directory' to find data files.
6507 *** The PURESIZE definition has been moved from config.h to its own
6508 file, puresize.h. Since almost every file of C source in the
6509 distribution depends on config.h, but only alloc.c and data.c depend
6510 on puresize.h, this means that changing the value of PURESIZE causes
6511 only those two files to be recompiled.
6513 *** The makefile at the top of the Emacs source tree now supports a
6514 `dist' target, which creates a compressed tar file suitable for
6515 distribution, using the contents of the source tree. Object files,
6516 old file versions, executables, DOC files, and other
6517 architecture-specific or easy-to-recreate files are not included in
6522 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6523 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
6525 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
6526 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
6527 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
6528 (at your option) any later version.
6530 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
6531 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
6532 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
6533 GNU General Public License for more details.
6535 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
6536 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
6541 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"