1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
16 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
17 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
20 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
21 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
23 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
24 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
25 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
27 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
28 is running in batch mode. For example,
30 (message "%s" (read t))
32 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
35 ** Faces and frame parameters.
37 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
38 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
39 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
40 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
41 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
42 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
43 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
45 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
46 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
47 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
48 `default' face and vice versa.
52 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
53 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
54 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
56 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
58 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
59 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
60 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
61 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
63 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
64 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
65 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
67 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
70 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
72 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
73 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
74 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
75 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
78 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
80 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
81 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
82 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
83 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
86 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
87 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
88 under Lisp changes, below.
90 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
92 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
93 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
96 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
97 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
98 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
99 customizing face `fringe'.
101 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
102 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
106 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
107 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
109 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
111 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
112 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
113 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
114 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
115 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
118 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
119 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
120 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
121 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
122 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
123 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
125 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
126 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
127 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
128 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
129 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
130 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
132 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
133 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
134 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
135 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
136 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
138 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
140 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
141 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
142 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
144 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
146 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
147 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
148 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
149 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
150 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
155 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
156 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
160 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
161 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
162 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
165 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
167 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
168 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
169 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
172 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
173 have to do anything to activate it.
175 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
177 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
178 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
179 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
180 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
182 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
184 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
186 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
188 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
191 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
194 ** Hscrolling in C code.
196 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
200 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
201 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
203 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
205 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
206 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
207 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
208 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
209 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
211 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
213 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
216 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
217 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
219 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
221 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
222 toggles the read-only status.
224 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
226 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
228 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
229 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialogs' is
232 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
234 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
235 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
236 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
237 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
238 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
239 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
243 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
244 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
245 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
246 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
247 to enable sound support.
249 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
250 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
251 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
252 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
253 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
254 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
256 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
258 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
260 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
261 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
262 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
264 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
265 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
267 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
268 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
269 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
271 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
273 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
274 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
275 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
276 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
278 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
279 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
280 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
281 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
283 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
284 notably at the end of lines.
286 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
287 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
289 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
290 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
291 after each match to get the replacement text.
293 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
295 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
296 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
297 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
298 by setting the following variable:
300 - User option: max-mini-window-height
302 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
303 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
304 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
308 ** Changes to TeX mode
310 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
313 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
315 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
316 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
317 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
318 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
319 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
320 can be edited from that buffer.
322 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
323 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
324 `A' to use all marked entries).
326 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
327 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
329 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
330 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
331 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
334 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
335 has the following new features:
337 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
338 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
339 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
340 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
342 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
343 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
344 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
345 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
346 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
351 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
352 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
353 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
355 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
356 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
357 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
358 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
362 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
363 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
364 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
366 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
367 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
370 ** New features in evaluation commands
372 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
373 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
374 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
375 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
376 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
380 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
381 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
382 is, delete only empty directories.
384 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
385 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
386 copy directories recursively.
388 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
389 use the -f option when sending mail.
393 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
394 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
396 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
398 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
399 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
400 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
401 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
402 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
403 `secondary-selection'.
405 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
406 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
407 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
408 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
409 usual snappy response.
411 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
412 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
413 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
414 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
417 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
418 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
419 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
421 ** Shell script mode changes.
423 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
424 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
425 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
429 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
431 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
432 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
433 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
434 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
435 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
437 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
438 declarations when given the --declarations option.
440 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
441 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
443 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
446 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
448 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
450 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
453 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
454 variables are tagged.
456 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
458 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
461 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
462 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
463 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
465 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
466 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
467 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
468 currently no specific input method support for them.
470 ** New modes and packages
472 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
474 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
476 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
478 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
481 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
484 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
486 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
488 *** whitespace.el ???
490 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
491 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
492 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
493 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
494 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
495 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
496 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
498 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
500 Here is an example of columns:
503 dog pineapple car EXTRA
504 porcupine strawberry airplane
506 Doing the following settings:
508 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
509 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
510 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
511 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
514 Selecting the lines above and typing:
516 M-x delimit-columns-region
520 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
521 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
522 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
524 delim-col has the following options:
526 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
529 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
532 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
535 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
538 delim-col has the following commands:
540 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
541 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
543 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
544 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
545 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
547 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
549 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
551 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
552 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
554 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
555 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
557 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
560 ** Withdrawn packages
562 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
563 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
565 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
567 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
568 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
571 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
573 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
574 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
575 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
576 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
578 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
579 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
582 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
584 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
585 TABLE. Point, mark, current buffer, and syntax table are saved, BODY
586 is evaluated, and the saved values are restored, even in case of an
587 abnormal exit. Value is what BODY returns.
589 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
590 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
592 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
593 instead of being optional.
595 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
596 modify read-only text.
598 ** New functions and variables for locales.
600 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
601 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
602 time functions like strftime. The new variables `messages-locale' and
603 `time-locale' give the system locales to be used during the next
604 invocations of these two types of functions; the new variables
605 `previous-messages-locale' and `previous-time-locale' give the locales
608 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
609 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
610 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
611 environment variables. It is normally invoked during startup. It
612 uses the new variables `locale-language-names',
613 `locale-charset-language-names', and `locale-preferred-coding-systems'
614 to make its decisions.
616 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
617 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
618 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
621 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
622 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
624 ** New function `propertize'
626 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
627 strings with text properties.
629 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
631 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
632 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
633 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
634 specified value of that property. Example:
636 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
639 ** push and pop macros.
641 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
642 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
643 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
645 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
646 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
647 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
650 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
651 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
653 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
654 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
655 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
656 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
657 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
659 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
661 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
662 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
663 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
664 [:alpha:] matches letters.
665 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
666 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
667 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
668 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
669 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
670 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
671 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
672 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
673 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
674 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
675 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
678 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
680 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
682 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
684 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
685 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
689 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
690 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
691 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
695 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
696 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
698 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
700 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
701 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
702 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
703 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
704 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
706 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
708 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
709 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
710 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
714 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
715 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
716 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
717 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
719 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
721 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
723 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
725 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
727 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
729 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
732 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
734 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
736 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
738 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
740 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
742 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
744 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
746 Returns the size of TABLE.
748 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
750 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
752 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
754 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
756 - Function: clrhash TABLE
760 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
762 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
765 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
767 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
768 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
770 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
772 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
774 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
776 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
777 arguments KEY and VALUE.
779 - Function: sxhash OBJ
781 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
783 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
785 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
786 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
787 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
788 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
789 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
791 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
793 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
794 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
795 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
797 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
798 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
800 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
801 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
803 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
806 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
807 'case-fold-string-hash))
809 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
812 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
814 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
815 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
816 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
819 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
821 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
822 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
825 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
826 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
827 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
828 is too short to reach that column.
831 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
832 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
833 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
834 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
836 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
837 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
838 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
841 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
842 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
845 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
846 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
849 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
850 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
851 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
852 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
853 temporary-file-directory instead.
856 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
857 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
858 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
859 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
862 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
863 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
866 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
868 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
869 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
870 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
873 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
875 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
876 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
877 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
878 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
879 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
880 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
882 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
883 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
884 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
885 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
888 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
890 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
891 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
892 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
895 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
896 string where arguments appear in the result string.
900 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
902 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
903 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
906 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
909 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
911 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
912 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
915 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
917 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
918 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
924 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
925 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
927 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
928 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
929 to enable sound support.
931 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
932 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
933 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
934 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
935 sound to play, before playing the sound.
937 The following sound properties are supported:
941 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
942 searched relative to `data-directory'.
946 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
947 0..1. This property is optional.
949 Other properties are ignored.
951 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
953 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
955 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
956 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
957 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
958 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
960 ** New face implementation.
962 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
963 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
968 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
970 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
972 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
973 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
975 3. Font height in 1/10pt
977 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
979 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
985 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
987 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
989 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
991 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
993 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
996 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
997 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
999 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1000 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1001 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1002 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1003 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1004 attributes mentioned above.
1006 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1007 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1010 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1011 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1017 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1018 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1019 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1020 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1021 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1022 results in a fully-specified face.
1025 *** Face realization.
1027 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1028 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1029 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1030 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1031 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1032 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1034 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1035 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1036 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1037 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1039 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1040 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1041 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1042 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1043 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1045 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1046 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1047 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1048 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1049 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1052 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1053 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1054 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1055 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1058 **** Clearing face caches.
1060 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1061 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1067 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1068 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1069 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1071 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1072 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1073 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1074 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1075 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1077 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1078 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1079 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1081 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1083 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1084 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1085 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1086 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1087 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1088 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1089 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1091 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1092 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1098 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1099 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1102 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1103 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1104 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1105 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1106 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1109 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1111 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1114 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1116 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1118 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1119 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1120 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1122 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1123 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1124 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1125 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1126 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1127 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1128 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1129 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1130 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1131 of the face font sort order.
1133 - Function: x-font-family-list
1135 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1136 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1137 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1138 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1140 - Variable: font-list-limit
1142 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1143 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1144 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1147 *** Setting face attributes.
1149 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1150 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1151 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1154 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1155 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1157 The following attributes are recognized:
1161 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1162 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1163 and `?' are allowed.
1167 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1168 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1169 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1170 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1174 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1179 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1180 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1181 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1185 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1186 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1189 `:foreground', `:background'
1191 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1195 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1196 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1197 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1202 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1203 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1204 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1209 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1210 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1211 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1212 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1216 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1217 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1218 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1219 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1220 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1221 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1222 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1223 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1224 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1225 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1226 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1227 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1228 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1229 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1230 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1231 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1236 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1237 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1241 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1242 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1243 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1244 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1245 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1246 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1248 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1249 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1253 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1254 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1255 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1258 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1259 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1260 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1262 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1265 *** Face attributes and X resources
1267 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1270 Face attribute X resource class
1271 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1272 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1273 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1274 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1275 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1276 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1277 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1278 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1279 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1280 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1281 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1282 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1283 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1284 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1285 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1286 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1287 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1288 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1289 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1290 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1293 *** Text property `face'.
1295 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1296 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1297 specification can be
1299 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1301 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1302 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1303 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1304 for face attribute names.
1306 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1307 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1308 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1311 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1313 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1314 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1315 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1316 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1317 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1318 used to clear the mapping table.
1321 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1323 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1325 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1326 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1327 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1329 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1331 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1332 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1335 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1336 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1337 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1338 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1339 commands continue into the next field if repeated.
1341 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1342 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1343 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1345 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1347 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1349 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1350 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1351 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1352 constrained position if that is is different.
1354 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1355 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1356 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1357 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1358 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1359 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1362 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1363 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1364 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1365 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1366 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1368 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1370 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1371 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1372 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1374 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1376 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1377 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1378 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1379 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1380 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1382 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1384 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1385 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1386 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1387 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1388 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1390 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1392 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1393 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1394 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1396 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1398 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1399 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1400 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1405 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1406 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1407 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1408 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1410 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1411 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1412 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1413 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1416 IMAGE is an image specification.
1418 *** Image specifications
1420 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1421 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1422 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1423 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1424 described below are ignored.
1426 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1430 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1431 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1435 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1436 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1440 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1445 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1446 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1447 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1448 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1450 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1452 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1453 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1454 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1455 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1456 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1457 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1458 background of the image.
1462 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1463 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1464 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1465 may be present in the image specification.
1467 *** Supported image types
1469 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1471 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1472 properties supported are
1476 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1477 is the frame's foreground.
1481 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1482 the frame's background color.
1484 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1485 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1486 instead of a `:file' property.
1490 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1494 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1500 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1501 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1503 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1505 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1508 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1510 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1511 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1512 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1513 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1515 Additional image properties supported are:
1517 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1519 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1520 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1523 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1524 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1528 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1529 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1531 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1532 to display compressed images.
1534 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1536 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1537 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1540 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1542 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1543 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1546 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1548 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1549 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1552 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1554 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1555 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1557 Additional image properties supported are:
1561 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1562 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1564 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1565 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1566 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1569 (defun show-anim (file max)
1570 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1571 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1573 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1576 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1579 (goto-char (point-min))
1580 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1581 (insert-image img "x"))
1582 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1584 **** PNG, image type `png'
1586 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1587 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1590 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1592 Additional image properties supported are:
1596 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1597 integer. This is a required property.
1601 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1602 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1606 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1607 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1608 files. This is an required property.
1610 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1615 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1616 which are supported in the current configuration.
1618 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1619 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1620 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1623 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1625 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1626 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1627 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1628 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1629 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1635 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1638 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1639 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1640 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1641 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1642 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1643 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1644 of the display margins.
1646 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1647 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1648 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1649 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1655 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1656 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1657 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1658 that have a `help-echo' property.
1660 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1661 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1662 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1663 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1664 tool-bar item is used.
1666 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1667 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1668 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1671 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1673 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1674 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1676 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1677 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1678 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1679 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1682 (global-set-key [A-down]
1685 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1686 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1687 (global-set-key [A-up]
1690 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1691 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1694 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1696 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1697 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1698 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1699 is called with one argument, POS.
1701 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1702 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1703 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1704 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1705 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1708 ** Tool bar support.
1710 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1711 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1712 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1713 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1714 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1715 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1717 *** Tool bar item definitions
1719 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1720 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1721 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1723 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1724 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1725 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1726 property (see below).
1728 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1729 binding are currently ignored.
1731 The following properties are recognized:
1735 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1740 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1744 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1745 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1746 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1748 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1750 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1751 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1755 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1756 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1757 meaning of each of the four elements:
1759 Index Use when item is
1760 ----------------------------------------
1761 0 enabled and selected
1762 1 enabled and deselected
1763 2 disabled and selected
1764 3 disabled and deselected
1766 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1768 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1769 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1771 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1773 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1774 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1775 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1777 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1778 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1780 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1781 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1782 pixels. Default is 1.
1784 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1785 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1787 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1789 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1792 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1793 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1794 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1796 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1798 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1800 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1803 ** Mode line changes.
1806 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1808 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1809 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1810 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1812 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1813 a `local-map' text property.
1815 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1816 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1818 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1819 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1820 `local-map' property.
1822 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1823 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1826 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
1827 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
1830 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1831 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1834 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1836 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1837 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1838 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1839 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1842 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1845 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1846 position in the header-line.
1849 ** Text property `display'
1851 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1852 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1853 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1854 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1856 *** Variable width and height spaces
1858 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1859 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1860 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1861 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1862 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1863 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1864 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1866 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1867 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1868 properties described below.
1870 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1871 characters having the `display' property.
1875 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1876 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1878 - :relative-width FACTOR
1880 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1881 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1882 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1883 width of that character by FACTOR.
1887 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1888 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1890 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1894 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1897 - :relative-height FACTOR
1899 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1900 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1904 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1905 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1906 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1909 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1913 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1914 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1915 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1916 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1917 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1918 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1919 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1920 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1921 as display specification.
1923 *** Other display properties
1925 - :space-width FACTOR
1927 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1928 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1933 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1935 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1936 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1937 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1938 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1939 a font is available counts as a step.
1941 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1942 as tall as the frame's default font.
1944 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
1945 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
1947 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
1948 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
1952 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
1953 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
1954 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
1955 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
1956 `:height' subproperty.
1958 *** Conditional display properties
1960 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
1961 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
1962 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
1963 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
1964 the text having the `display' property.
1966 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
1970 ** New menu separator types.
1972 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
1973 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
1974 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
1975 to specify other menu separator types.
1977 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
1979 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
1982 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
1984 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
1986 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
1988 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
1990 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
1992 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1994 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
1996 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1998 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2000 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2001 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2003 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2005 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2007 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2009 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2011 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2013 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2015 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2017 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2019 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2021 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2023 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2025 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2027 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2029 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2031 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2032 the corresponding single-line separators.
2035 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2037 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2038 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2039 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2040 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2041 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2042 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2043 default foreground is black.
2045 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2046 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2047 `ScrollBarBackground').
2049 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2050 settings for scroll bar colors.
2053 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2054 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2057 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2058 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2059 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2060 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2061 the original window start.
2064 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2065 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2066 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2069 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2071 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2072 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2073 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2074 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2076 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2077 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2079 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2081 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2082 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2083 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2084 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2085 temporarily to nil, for example
2087 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2088 (enlarge-window 10))
2090 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2091 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2093 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2095 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2097 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2098 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2099 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2101 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2102 is the one that is used.
2104 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2105 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2106 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2107 separate from the command's regular output.
2108 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2109 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2110 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2113 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2114 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2115 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2116 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2118 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2119 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2120 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2121 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2123 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2124 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2125 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2126 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2128 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2129 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2130 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2131 they never ignore case.
2133 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2134 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2135 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2136 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2137 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2138 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2139 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2141 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2142 the same format that was used in the file before.
2144 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2145 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2147 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2148 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2149 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2151 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2152 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2153 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2154 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2155 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2156 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2157 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2159 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2160 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2161 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2162 format. You can now customize these variables.
2164 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2165 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2166 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2167 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2169 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2170 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2171 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2173 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2174 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2175 doesn't have any effect.
2177 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2180 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2181 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2182 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2184 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2185 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2186 `auto-show-mode' command.
2188 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2189 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2190 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2191 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2192 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2194 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2195 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2197 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2198 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2199 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2201 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2202 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2203 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2204 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2206 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2208 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2209 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2210 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2211 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2212 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2214 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2215 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2217 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2218 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2219 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2220 `?' on other systems.
2222 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2223 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2226 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2227 current codepage when it starts.
2231 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2232 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2233 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2234 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2235 buffer-file-coding-system.
2237 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2238 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2241 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2242 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2243 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2244 list of possible coding systems.
2248 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2249 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2250 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2251 docstring for details.
2253 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2254 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2255 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2256 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2257 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2259 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2260 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2262 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2263 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2265 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2266 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2267 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2268 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2271 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2272 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2274 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2275 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2276 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2277 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2279 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2280 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2281 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2282 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2283 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2285 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2287 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2289 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2290 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2292 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2294 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2295 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2296 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2297 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2298 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2302 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2303 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2304 Gnus manual for the full story.
2306 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2307 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2308 group, which is created automatically.
2310 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2313 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2315 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2316 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2318 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2321 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2323 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2324 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2326 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2328 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2329 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2331 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2332 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2334 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2335 control over simplification.
2337 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2339 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2342 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2344 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2346 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2347 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2348 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2350 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2351 `a' forces normal posting method.
2353 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2356 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2359 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2360 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2362 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2365 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2367 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2369 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2370 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2372 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2373 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2375 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2377 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2380 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2381 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2383 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2384 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2386 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2388 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2390 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2392 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2394 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2395 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2396 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2398 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2399 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2400 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2401 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2402 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2404 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2405 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2406 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2407 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2409 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2410 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2411 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2414 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2416 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2417 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2419 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2420 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2421 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2422 removed from the label.
2424 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2425 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2427 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2428 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2430 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2431 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2434 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2436 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2438 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2439 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2441 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2442 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2443 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2445 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2446 changes with a special face.
2448 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2449 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2450 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2452 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2454 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2455 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2456 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2457 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2458 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2460 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2461 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2462 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2464 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2465 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2466 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2467 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2468 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2469 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2470 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2471 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2472 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2474 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2475 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2476 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2477 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2478 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2481 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2482 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2483 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2484 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2485 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2486 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2488 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2489 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2490 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2491 was not documented clearly before.
2493 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2494 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2496 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2498 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2499 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2500 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2501 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2503 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2504 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2505 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2507 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2509 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2510 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2512 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2513 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2516 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2517 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2518 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2519 file names and attributes are returned.
2521 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2522 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2523 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2524 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2527 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2528 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2530 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2532 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2533 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2534 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2537 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2538 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2541 The new function process-running-child-p
2542 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2543 terminal to its own child process.
2545 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2546 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2547 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2548 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2550 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2551 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2553 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2554 :included is an alias for :visible.
2556 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2557 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2558 to move or copy menu entries.
2560 ** Multibyte editing changes
2562 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2563 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2564 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2565 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2566 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2567 (setq char (sref str idx)
2568 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2569 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2571 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2572 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2573 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2575 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2576 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2577 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2579 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2581 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2582 across the boundary.
2584 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2585 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2586 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2587 contains 8-bit characters.
2588 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2589 contains invalid characters.
2591 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2592 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2593 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2594 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2597 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2598 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2599 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2600 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2602 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2603 compose Thai characters in a string.
2605 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2606 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2607 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2608 menus should always use the third argument.
2610 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2611 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2612 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2613 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2615 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2616 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2617 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2618 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2620 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2621 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2622 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2625 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2627 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2628 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2629 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2631 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2632 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2633 means to clear out that attribute.
2635 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2636 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2638 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2639 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2640 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2641 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2643 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2644 the gap of the current buffer.
2646 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2647 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2650 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2651 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2652 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2653 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2655 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2657 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2658 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2659 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2660 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2661 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2663 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2664 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2665 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2666 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2667 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2669 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2670 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2671 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2673 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2674 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2675 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2676 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2677 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2680 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2681 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2682 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2683 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2685 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2687 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2688 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2689 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2690 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2692 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2693 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2694 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2695 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2696 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2697 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2698 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2701 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2704 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2705 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2706 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2707 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2708 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2710 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2711 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2712 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2713 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2715 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2716 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2717 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2718 something that most users not do.
2720 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2721 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2722 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2725 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2728 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2729 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2730 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2731 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2734 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2735 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2736 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2737 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2738 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2741 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2742 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2743 to be confused by TeX commands.
2745 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2746 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2747 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2748 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2750 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2751 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2752 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2753 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2754 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2756 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2757 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2759 ** Changes in input method usage.
2761 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2762 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2765 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2767 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2768 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2770 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2771 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2773 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2775 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2777 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2778 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2780 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2781 given in the following case:
2782 o When you are using a complex input method.
2783 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2785 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2786 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2787 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2788 setting it to t is helpful.
2790 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2792 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2794 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2795 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2796 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2797 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2800 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2801 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2802 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2805 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2807 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2809 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2810 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2812 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2813 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2814 its owner and group.
2816 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2817 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2819 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2820 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2822 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2823 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2824 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2825 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2827 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2828 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2829 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2830 for writing keyboard macros.
2832 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2833 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2834 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2835 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2836 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2839 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2841 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2842 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2845 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2846 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2847 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2848 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2850 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2851 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2852 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2854 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2855 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2856 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2857 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2859 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2860 failure if the command produces no output.
2862 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2863 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2866 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2867 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2868 function and variable names.
2870 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2871 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2872 file-coding-system-alist.
2874 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2875 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2876 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2877 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2878 according to the current fontset.
2880 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2882 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2883 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2884 nonascii-insert-offset.
2886 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2887 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2888 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2889 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2891 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2892 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2894 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2895 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2897 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2898 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2901 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2902 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2904 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2905 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2906 all variables that have documentation.
2908 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2909 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2910 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2911 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2912 it should show; the default is 20.
2914 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2915 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2918 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2919 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2920 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2921 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2922 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2923 Newly added options are included as well.
2925 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2926 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2927 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2929 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2932 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2933 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2935 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2936 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2939 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
2940 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
2943 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
2944 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
2945 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
2946 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
2949 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
2951 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
2952 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
2953 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
2955 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
2956 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
2957 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
2960 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
2961 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
2963 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
2964 read and post multi-lingual articles.
2966 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
2967 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
2968 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
2969 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
2970 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
2971 made invisible again.
2973 ** Mail reading and sending changes
2975 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
2976 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
2977 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
2980 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
2981 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
2982 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
2983 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
2984 rmail-default-body-file.
2986 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
2987 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
2988 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
2990 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
2991 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
2992 is evaluated to insert the signature.
2994 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
2995 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
2996 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
2997 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
2998 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
2999 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3001 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3002 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3003 provided by feedmail are:
3005 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3006 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3007 there is also a queue for draft messages
3009 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3010 be prompted for confirmation
3012 **** does smart filling of address headers
3014 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3015 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3016 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3018 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3019 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3020 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3021 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3025 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3026 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3028 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3029 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3031 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3032 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3033 for a specified regexp.
3037 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3040 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3041 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3044 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3045 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3046 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3047 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3049 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3050 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3051 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3052 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3053 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3055 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3056 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3057 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3058 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3059 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3061 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3062 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3063 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3064 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3066 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3067 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3068 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3070 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3071 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3072 session to resolve them.
3074 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3075 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3076 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3079 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3080 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3081 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3082 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3083 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3084 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3087 ** Changes in Font Lock
3089 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3090 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3091 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3092 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3093 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3095 ** Frame name display changes
3097 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3098 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3099 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3100 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3102 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3103 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3106 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3108 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3109 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3110 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3112 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3114 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3115 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3116 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3118 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3119 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3122 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3123 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3124 previously sent input.
3126 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3127 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3128 as the search string.
3130 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3131 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3135 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3136 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3137 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3140 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3141 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3142 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3143 style is still the default however.
3145 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3147 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3148 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3149 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3151 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3152 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3154 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3155 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3157 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3158 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3160 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3161 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3163 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3164 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3165 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3166 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3168 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3170 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3171 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3172 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3174 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3175 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3176 expanding dynamically.
3178 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3179 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3181 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3182 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3183 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3184 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3186 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3188 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3190 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3191 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3192 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3193 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3194 against the first word in the title.
3196 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3197 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3198 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3199 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3200 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3201 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3203 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3204 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3205 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3206 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3208 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3210 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3211 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3212 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3213 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3214 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3215 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3217 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3218 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3220 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3221 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3222 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3224 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3225 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3229 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3230 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3231 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3233 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3234 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3235 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3236 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3239 o URLs are automatically skipped
3240 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3242 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3244 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3246 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3247 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3248 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3249 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3251 *** New recursive parser.
3253 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3254 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3255 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3257 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3259 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3260 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3261 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3263 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3265 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3267 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3269 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3271 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3273 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3274 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3276 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3278 *** References to external documents.
3280 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3281 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3282 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3283 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3284 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3285 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3286 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3288 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3290 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3291 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3293 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3294 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3296 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3298 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3299 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3301 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3303 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3304 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3305 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3306 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3307 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3308 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3311 *** Support for the varioref package
3313 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3317 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3318 and citations are created. These hooks are
3319 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3320 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3322 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3324 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3325 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3327 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3329 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3330 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3333 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3335 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3336 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3337 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3338 directories that contain the same file name.
3340 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3341 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3342 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3343 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3344 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3345 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3346 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3349 ** New modes and packages
3351 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3352 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3353 it, but some do not.
3355 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3358 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3359 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3362 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3364 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3365 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3366 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3367 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3369 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3370 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3371 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3373 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3374 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3375 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3376 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3377 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3380 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3381 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3383 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3384 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3385 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3386 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3388 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3390 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3391 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3392 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3393 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3394 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3395 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3396 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3397 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3398 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3399 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3400 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3402 Platform-specific modes:
3404 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3405 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3406 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3407 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3408 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3409 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3410 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3411 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3412 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3414 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3416 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3417 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3418 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3419 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3421 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3422 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3423 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3425 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3426 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3427 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3428 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3430 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3431 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3432 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3435 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3436 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3437 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3438 current input method for reading this one event.
3440 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3441 now control whether to output certain characters as
3442 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3443 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3444 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3445 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3447 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3449 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3450 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3452 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3453 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3454 always increases point by 1.
3456 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3457 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3459 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3461 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3462 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3463 default value changed. For example,
3465 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3470 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3473 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3474 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3475 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3476 `:version' in the top level group.
3478 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3480 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3481 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3483 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3484 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3485 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3488 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3489 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3492 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3493 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3494 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3496 ** Frame-local variables.
3498 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3499 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3500 local bindings for that variable.
3502 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3503 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3504 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3507 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3508 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3509 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3510 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3512 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3513 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3514 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3515 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3517 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3518 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3519 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3520 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3521 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3523 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3524 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3525 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3526 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3528 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3529 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3531 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3532 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3533 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3535 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3536 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3537 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3538 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3540 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3541 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3544 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3545 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3546 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3547 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3548 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3550 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3551 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3552 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3553 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3555 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3556 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3557 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3558 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3559 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3561 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3562 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3563 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3564 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3566 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3567 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3568 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3570 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3571 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3572 was directed to display this buffer.
3574 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3575 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3576 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3577 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3578 set-window-configuration.
3580 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3581 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3582 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3583 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3585 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3586 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3587 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3589 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3590 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3591 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3593 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3594 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3596 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3597 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3599 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3600 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3601 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3603 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3604 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3605 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3606 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3610 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3611 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3614 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3615 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3616 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3617 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3618 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3620 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3622 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3623 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3624 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3625 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3628 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3629 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3630 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3631 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3632 The supported properties include
3634 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3636 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3637 item should appear in the menu.
3639 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3640 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3641 It should return a binding to use instead.
3643 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3644 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3645 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3646 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3647 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3650 This means that the command normally has no
3651 keyboard equivalent.
3652 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3653 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3654 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3655 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3656 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3658 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3659 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3661 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3665 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3666 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3667 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3668 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3670 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3672 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3673 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3674 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3675 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3676 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3677 forward, away from the user.
3679 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3681 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3682 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3683 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3684 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3685 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3687 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3689 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3690 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3691 that were dragged and dropped.
3693 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3695 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3697 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3698 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3699 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3701 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3702 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3703 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3705 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3706 in Emacs 19 and before.
3708 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3709 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3711 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3712 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3713 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3714 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3716 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3717 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3718 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3719 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3720 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3722 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3723 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3724 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3725 consistent with the new representation.
3727 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3728 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3729 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3730 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3732 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3733 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3734 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3736 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3737 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3738 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3740 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3741 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3742 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3744 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3745 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3747 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3748 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3750 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3751 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3752 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3753 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3755 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3756 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3758 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3759 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3760 buffer or string being searched.
3762 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3763 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3764 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3765 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3766 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3767 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3768 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3770 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3772 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3773 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3774 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3775 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3776 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3777 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3778 define-coding-system-alias.
3780 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3781 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3782 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3783 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3784 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3785 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3786 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3789 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3790 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3791 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3792 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3794 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3795 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3796 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3797 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3799 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3800 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3801 This function requires a user interaction.
3803 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3804 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3805 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3806 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3807 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3808 select-safe-coding-system.
3810 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3811 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3812 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3815 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3816 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3817 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3819 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3820 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3821 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3822 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3824 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3825 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3826 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3829 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3830 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3832 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3833 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3834 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3835 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3836 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3837 range of characters.
3839 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3840 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3842 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3843 in the current buffer at position POS.
3845 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3846 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3847 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3848 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3849 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3850 binding input-method-function to nil.
3852 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3853 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3854 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3855 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3856 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3858 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3859 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3861 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3862 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3864 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3865 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3866 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3867 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3868 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3870 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3872 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3873 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3874 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3877 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3878 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3880 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3881 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3882 in your .emacs file.)
3884 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3885 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3887 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3888 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3890 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3891 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3894 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3895 delete the character before point, as usual.
3897 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3898 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3899 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3901 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3902 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3903 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3904 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3905 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3908 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3909 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3910 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3911 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3912 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3914 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3915 and is an alias for it.
3917 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3918 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3920 ** Scrolling changes
3922 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3923 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3925 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3926 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3929 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3930 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3931 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3932 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3934 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3935 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3936 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3937 recenters the window.
3939 ** International character set support (MULE)
3941 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
3942 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
3943 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
3944 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
3945 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
3946 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
3948 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
3949 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
3950 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
3951 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
3952 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
3954 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
3955 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
3956 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
3957 language, to make it possible to type them.
3959 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
3960 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
3962 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
3963 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
3965 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
3967 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
3969 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
3970 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
3971 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
3972 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
3973 characters for their work until they want to change.
3977 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
3978 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
3979 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
3980 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
3981 support several input methods.
3983 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
3984 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
3987 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
3988 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
3989 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
3990 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
3991 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
3994 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
3995 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
3996 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
3997 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
3998 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4000 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4001 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4002 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4003 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4005 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4006 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4007 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4008 the first guess is wrong.
4010 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4011 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4013 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4014 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4015 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4016 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4018 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4019 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4020 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4021 translate automatically to and from either one.
4023 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4025 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4026 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4027 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4030 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4031 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4032 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4033 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4035 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4036 character conversion as well.
4038 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4040 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4041 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4042 requires using many fonts.
4044 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4045 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4047 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4048 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4049 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4050 you would use a font.
4052 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4053 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4054 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4056 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4057 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4058 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4059 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4060 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4062 *** Defining fontsets.
4064 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4065 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4066 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4068 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4069 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4070 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4071 standard fontset are created automatically.
4073 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4074 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4075 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4076 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4077 name is `fontset-startup'.
4079 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4080 The resource value should have this form:
4081 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4082 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4083 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4084 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4085 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4086 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4087 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4088 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4089 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4091 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4092 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4093 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4095 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4096 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4098 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4099 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4100 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4101 Here is the substitution rule:
4102 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4103 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4104 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4105 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4106 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4108 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4109 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4110 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4112 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4113 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4114 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4115 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4118 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4119 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4121 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4122 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4123 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4124 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4125 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4126 system for new files that you create.
4128 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4129 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4130 whole Emacs session.
4132 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4133 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4134 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4136 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4137 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4138 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4139 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4140 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4142 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4143 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4144 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4145 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4146 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4148 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4149 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4151 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4152 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4154 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4155 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4157 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4158 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4159 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4160 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4163 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4164 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4165 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4166 translated into that character code.
4168 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4169 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4171 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4173 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4174 the coding system for keyboard input.
4176 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4177 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4178 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4180 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4182 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4183 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4184 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4185 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4186 designed to work with terminals.
4188 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4189 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4190 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4191 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4192 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4193 in the corresponding buffer.
4195 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4197 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4198 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4199 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4201 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4202 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4203 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4206 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4207 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4209 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4210 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4211 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4212 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4214 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4215 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4216 related information.
4218 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4219 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4222 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4223 information about the support for a particular language.
4224 You specify the language as an argument.
4226 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4227 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4230 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4231 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4232 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4233 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4235 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4237 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4238 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4239 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4240 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4241 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4242 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4243 K euc-korea (Korean)
4246 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4249 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4250 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4251 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4255 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4256 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4257 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4258 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4260 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4261 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4263 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4264 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4265 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4266 Rmail files themselves.
4268 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4269 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4271 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4274 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4275 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4276 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4277 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4278 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4280 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4281 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4282 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4285 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4286 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4287 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4288 without any conversion.
4290 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4291 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4292 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4293 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4295 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4296 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4298 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4299 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4301 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4302 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4304 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4305 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4306 in the buffer before point.
4308 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4309 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4312 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4313 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4315 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4317 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4318 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4320 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4321 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4322 can become a bottleneck.
4324 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4325 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4326 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4327 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4328 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4329 so useful that the change is worth while.
4331 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4332 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4333 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4334 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4336 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4337 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4340 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4341 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4342 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4344 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4345 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4346 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4348 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4349 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4350 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4352 ** Changes in View mode.
4354 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4355 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4357 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4358 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4360 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4363 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4364 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4366 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4367 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4368 not just the selected window.
4370 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4371 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4372 turns View mode on or off.
4374 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4375 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4376 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4378 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4379 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4381 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4382 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4383 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4384 which version to compare with.
4386 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4387 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4389 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4390 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4391 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4392 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4394 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4395 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4396 blocks, all of them or none.
4398 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4399 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4402 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4403 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4404 However, the mode will not be changed if
4405 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4406 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4407 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4408 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4410 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4412 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4413 these commands do not change the major mode.
4415 ** M-x occur changes.
4417 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4418 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4420 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4421 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4422 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4424 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4425 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4426 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4427 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4428 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4430 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4431 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4432 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4433 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4435 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4436 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4437 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4439 ** Outline mode changes.
4441 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4443 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4445 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4446 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4447 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4450 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4451 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4454 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4455 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4457 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4459 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4460 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4461 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4462 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4464 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4465 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4466 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4468 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4469 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4472 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4473 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4474 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4475 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4477 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4478 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4479 can be. The default value is 30.
4481 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4483 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4484 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4485 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4486 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4487 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4490 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4491 compose-mail-other-frame.
4493 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4494 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4495 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4496 buffer that shows the original message.
4498 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4499 with separator lines around the contents.
4501 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4502 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4503 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4504 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4506 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4508 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4509 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4510 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4511 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4513 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4514 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4517 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4518 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4521 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4522 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4523 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4524 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4526 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4527 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4528 be taken to be magic.
4530 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4531 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4532 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4534 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4535 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4537 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4538 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4540 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4542 new key dired.el binding old key
4543 ------- ---------------- -------
4544 * c dired-change-marks c
4546 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4547 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4548 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4550 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4551 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4552 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4553 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4554 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4555 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4559 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4560 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4561 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4562 each time you run it.
4564 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4565 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4567 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4568 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4569 means to move in the opposite direction.
4571 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4572 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4574 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4575 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4576 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4577 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4582 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4584 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4587 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4588 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4590 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4593 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4595 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4597 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4599 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4600 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4601 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4603 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4605 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4607 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4608 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4610 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4611 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4612 used to pick articles.
4614 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4615 another have been added.
4617 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4619 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4620 generating lines in buffers.
4622 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4625 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4627 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4629 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4631 *** Scores can be decayed.
4633 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4635 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4636 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4638 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4641 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4643 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4644 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4646 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4648 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4649 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4651 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4652 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4654 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4657 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4658 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4660 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4662 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4664 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4666 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4668 Use the `Y c' command.
4670 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4672 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4674 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4676 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4677 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4679 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4681 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4683 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4684 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4686 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4688 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4689 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4690 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4691 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4694 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4695 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4696 particular news group. This can be done by:
4698 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4700 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4701 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4702 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4703 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4704 for reading and posting).
4706 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4707 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4708 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4709 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4712 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4713 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4715 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4716 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4717 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4718 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4719 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4721 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4722 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4726 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4727 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4728 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4729 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4730 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4733 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4734 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4735 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4736 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4737 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4738 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4740 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4741 of the current buffer.
4743 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4744 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4745 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4747 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4748 style that the Python developers like.
4750 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4751 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4752 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4756 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4757 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4758 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4760 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4761 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4764 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4765 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4767 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4768 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4769 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4770 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4772 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4773 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4775 ** Calendar changes.
4777 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4778 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4779 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4783 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4785 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4787 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4788 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4789 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4790 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4791 It defaults to `letter'.
4792 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4794 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4795 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4796 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4798 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4799 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4802 *** Horizontal layout
4804 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4805 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4806 All are measured in points.
4810 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4811 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4812 All are measured in points.
4816 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4817 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4818 margin above the text.
4820 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4821 framing box is printed around the header.
4823 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4824 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4826 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4827 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4828 `ps-header-font-size'.
4832 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4833 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4834 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4835 elements to this alist.
4837 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4838 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4840 ** hideshow changes.
4842 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4845 *** Support for java-mode added.
4847 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4848 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4850 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4851 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4852 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4854 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4855 robust and a lot faster.
4857 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4859 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4860 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4861 documentation for more details.
4863 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4865 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4866 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4867 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4868 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4869 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4871 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4872 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4873 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4874 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4880 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4881 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4882 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4883 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4884 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4885 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4887 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4889 *** Maximum decoration
4891 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4892 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4893 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4894 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4895 to get the old behavior.
4899 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4901 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4902 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4904 *** Configurable support
4906 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4907 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4908 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4909 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4910 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4911 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4912 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4914 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4915 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4916 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4918 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4920 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4921 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4924 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4926 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4932 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4933 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4934 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4935 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4937 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4939 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
4940 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
4941 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
4943 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
4945 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
4946 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
4947 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
4948 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
4949 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
4950 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
4951 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
4953 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
4954 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
4955 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
4956 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
4957 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
4958 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
4960 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
4962 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
4963 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
4964 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
4965 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
4967 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
4970 ** Ada mode changes.
4972 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
4973 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
4974 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
4975 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
4978 *** There are two new commands:
4979 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
4980 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
4982 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
4983 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
4984 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
4986 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
4987 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
4988 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
4990 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
4991 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
4992 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
4993 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
4995 ** Scheme mode changes.
4997 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
4998 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
4999 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5000 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5003 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5004 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5005 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5006 variables as buffer-local variables.
5008 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5011 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5012 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5015 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5016 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5017 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5019 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5020 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5023 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5024 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5026 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5027 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5030 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5031 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5032 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5033 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5034 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5035 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5037 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5038 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5039 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5040 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5042 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5043 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5044 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5045 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5046 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5048 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5049 since it applies only to the current frame.
5051 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5052 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5053 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5055 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5056 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5057 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5058 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5059 instead of just the file you are editing.
5063 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5064 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5065 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5066 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5067 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5070 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5071 knows which kind of label is needed.
5073 C-c ) reftex-reference
5074 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5075 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5077 C-c [ reftex-citation
5078 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5079 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5081 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5082 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5085 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5086 can quickly jump to every section.
5088 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5089 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5090 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5091 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5092 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5094 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5096 *** Info documentation is now available.
5098 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5099 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5101 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5102 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5104 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5105 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5107 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5108 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5109 appropriate functions.
5111 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5112 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5114 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5117 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5118 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5120 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5123 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5124 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5125 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5127 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5128 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5129 prefixed with `ALT'.
5131 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5132 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5133 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5136 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5137 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5138 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5140 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5141 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5143 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5144 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5145 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5147 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5149 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5151 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5154 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5155 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5158 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5161 *** Added support for imenu.
5163 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5164 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5165 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5166 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5168 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5169 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5171 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5173 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5174 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5175 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5178 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5179 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5181 ** browse-url changes
5183 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5184 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5185 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5186 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5187 customization variables.
5189 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5191 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5192 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5193 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5197 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5198 pops up the Info file for this command.
5200 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5201 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5202 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5205 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5206 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5207 files in the same directory.
5209 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5210 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5211 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5215 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5216 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5218 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5219 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5220 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5221 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5222 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5223 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5224 color when Viper is in insert state.
5225 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5226 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5227 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5231 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5232 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5233 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5234 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5235 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5237 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5239 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5240 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5242 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5243 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5244 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5246 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5247 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5248 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5249 methods and protocols.
5251 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5252 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5253 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5256 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5257 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5258 at least M times and as many as N times.
5260 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5261 in files has changed slightly.
5263 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5264 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5265 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5266 with old time-stamp-format values.
5268 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5269 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5270 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5273 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5274 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5275 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5276 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5277 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5278 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5280 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5281 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5282 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5284 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5285 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5286 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5287 recommended now will continue to work then.
5289 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5292 ** There are some additional major modes:
5294 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5295 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5296 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5298 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5299 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5302 ** New Lisp packages include:
5304 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5306 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5307 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5309 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5311 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5314 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5315 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5318 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5319 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5320 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5321 strings or comments.
5323 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5324 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5325 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5326 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5329 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5330 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5332 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5333 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5335 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5337 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5338 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5340 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5342 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5344 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5346 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5347 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5349 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5350 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5351 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5352 original place after inserting the copy.
5354 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5357 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5358 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5359 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5361 Enable mouse-drag with:
5362 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5364 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5366 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5367 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5369 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5370 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5374 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5375 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5376 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5377 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5378 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5379 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5380 instance) and vice versa.
5382 To use this package load it using
5383 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5384 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5385 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5386 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5387 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5388 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5390 *** Interface to ph.
5392 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5394 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5395 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5398 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5400 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5401 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5402 while the real cursor does not move.
5404 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5405 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5407 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5408 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5412 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5413 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5414 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5415 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5417 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5419 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5421 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5423 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5424 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5425 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5426 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5427 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5429 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5430 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5431 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5432 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5433 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5434 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5436 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5438 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5439 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5440 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5441 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5443 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5444 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5446 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5447 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5450 ** Basic Lisp changes
5452 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5453 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5455 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5456 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5459 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5461 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5463 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5464 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5466 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5467 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5470 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5472 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5474 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5476 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5477 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5478 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5481 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5482 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5483 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5485 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5486 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5487 adding one of these suffixes.
5489 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5490 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5491 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5493 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5494 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5496 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5498 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5499 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5501 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5502 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5504 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5506 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5507 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5509 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5510 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5511 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5512 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5514 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5515 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5518 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5519 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5520 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5523 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5524 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5527 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5529 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5530 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5531 Then it returns that string.
5533 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5535 (with-output-to-string
5536 (princ "The buffer is ")
5537 (princ (buffer-name)))
5539 returns "The buffer is foo".
5541 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5544 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5545 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5546 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5548 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5549 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5551 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5552 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5553 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5554 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5555 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5556 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5558 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5559 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5560 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5563 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5564 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5565 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5566 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5567 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5569 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5570 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5571 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5572 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5574 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5575 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5577 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5579 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5580 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5581 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5582 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5585 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5586 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5589 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5591 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5592 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5593 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5594 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5595 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5597 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5599 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5600 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5601 more than the number of characters.
5603 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5604 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5605 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5606 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5607 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5608 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5610 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5611 and returns a string containing those characters.
5613 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5614 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5615 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5616 character, sref signals an error.
5618 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5619 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5620 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5622 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5623 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5624 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5626 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5627 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5628 to a vector of the characters in it.
5630 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5631 of a string. You call it as follows:
5633 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5635 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5636 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5637 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5638 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5639 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5641 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5642 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5644 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5645 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5647 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5648 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5649 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5650 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5652 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5654 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5656 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5657 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5658 are not included in the resulting value.
5660 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5661 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5662 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5663 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5665 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5666 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5667 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5668 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5669 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5670 column START-COLUMN.
5672 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5673 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5674 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5675 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5676 changed text, before the change.
5678 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5679 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5680 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5682 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5684 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5686 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5687 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5689 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5690 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5691 which identify the character within that character set.
5693 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5694 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5695 opposite of split-char.
5697 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5698 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5700 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5701 of all the characters in a string.
5703 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5704 and specifying coding systems.
5706 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5707 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5708 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5709 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5710 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5711 as what to do about code conversion.)
5713 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5714 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5716 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5717 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5718 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5720 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5721 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5722 to match against a file name.
5724 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5725 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5726 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5727 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5728 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5729 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5731 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5732 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5734 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5735 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5737 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5738 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5739 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5742 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5743 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5744 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5745 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5746 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5747 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5749 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5750 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5752 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5753 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5754 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5755 start the subprocess.
5757 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5758 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5759 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5760 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5761 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5763 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5764 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5767 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5768 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5769 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5770 connection permanently or until overridden.
5772 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5773 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5774 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5775 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5776 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5777 system for one operation at a time.
5779 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5780 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5782 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5783 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5784 The value is a cons cell,
5785 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5786 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5787 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5788 input to the subprocess.
5790 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5791 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5793 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5794 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5795 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5797 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5798 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5799 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5800 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5803 Thus, instead of writing
5805 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5806 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5808 you would now write this:
5810 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5811 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5815 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5816 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5817 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5818 for a description of them.
5820 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5821 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5823 (defgroup ispell nil
5824 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5827 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5828 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5829 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5830 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5831 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5833 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5834 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5835 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5836 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5837 first-level subgroups.
5839 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5841 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5842 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5846 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5847 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5848 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5849 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5850 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5851 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5853 ** Text property changes
5855 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5858 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5859 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5860 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5861 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5862 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5864 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5865 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5866 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5867 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5869 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5870 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5871 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5873 ** Changes in invisibility features
5875 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5876 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5877 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5878 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5879 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5880 make the overlay visible.
5882 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5883 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5884 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5885 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5886 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5887 t when it should hide it.
5889 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5891 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5892 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5893 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5894 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5895 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5896 Here is an example of how to do this:
5898 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5899 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5900 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5901 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5904 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5907 ;; When done with the overlays:
5908 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5910 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5912 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5914 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5915 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5916 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5917 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5919 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5920 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5921 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5923 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5924 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5926 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5927 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5929 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5930 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5931 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5933 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5934 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5935 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5936 determine the syntax type of the character.
5938 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5939 of the current buffer.
5941 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
5942 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
5943 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
5945 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
5946 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
5947 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
5948 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
5949 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
5951 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
5954 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
5955 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
5956 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
5958 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
5959 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
5960 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
5961 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
5962 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
5964 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
5965 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
5966 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
5968 ** Changes in face features
5970 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
5971 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
5973 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
5974 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
5976 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
5977 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
5979 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
5980 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
5982 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
5983 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
5984 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
5985 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
5988 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
5989 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
5991 ** Changes in file-handling functions
5993 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
5994 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
5995 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
5996 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
5998 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6001 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6002 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6004 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6005 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6007 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6008 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6010 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6011 character code conversion as well as other things.
6013 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6014 (formerly it did not).
6016 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6017 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6019 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6020 instead of constant strings.
6022 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6023 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6024 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6026 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6027 in the same way as before.
6029 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6030 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6031 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6033 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6034 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6035 else, and returns nil.
6037 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6038 directory cannot be listed.
6040 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6042 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6043 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6044 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6045 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6048 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6049 It is available through the history command M-n.
6051 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6052 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6053 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6054 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6055 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6057 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6058 argument in this way.
6060 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6061 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6062 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6064 ** Echo area features
6066 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6067 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6068 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6069 after the echo area is cleared.
6071 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6072 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6074 ** Keyboard input features
6076 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6077 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6079 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6080 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6083 ** Frame-related changes
6085 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6086 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6087 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6089 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6090 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6091 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6093 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6094 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6095 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6096 in the selected frame.
6098 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6099 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6100 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6102 ** X Windows features
6104 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6105 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6106 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6108 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6109 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6111 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6112 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6113 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6115 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6116 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6118 ** Subprocess features
6120 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6121 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6124 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6125 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6127 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6128 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6130 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6131 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6133 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6134 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6135 goes after the other menu items.
6137 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6138 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6139 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6142 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6143 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6145 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6146 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6149 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6150 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6151 but its hook is still run.
6153 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6154 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6156 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6157 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6158 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6160 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6161 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6162 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6165 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6166 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6168 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6169 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6170 functions like display-time.
6172 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6173 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6175 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6176 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6177 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6179 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6180 if there is an error in compilation.
6182 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6183 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6184 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6185 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6187 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6188 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6189 the *scratch* buffer.
6191 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6192 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6193 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6194 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6196 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6197 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6198 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6200 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6201 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6202 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6203 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6205 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6206 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6207 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6209 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6210 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6211 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6212 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6213 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6216 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6217 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6218 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6219 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6221 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6222 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6223 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6224 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6226 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6228 ** imenu.el changes.
6230 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6231 item from menu created by imenu.
6233 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6234 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6235 select one of those items.
6237 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6239 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6241 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6242 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6244 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6245 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6246 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6248 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6250 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6251 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6253 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6254 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6255 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6256 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6257 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6260 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6261 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6263 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6264 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6265 as in previous Emacs versions.
6267 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6268 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6269 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6272 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6273 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6274 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6275 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6278 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6279 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6280 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6281 line and then executing the macro.
6283 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6285 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6286 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6287 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6292 *** Font Lock support modes
6294 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6295 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6296 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6297 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6298 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6300 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6302 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6308 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6309 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6310 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6311 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6312 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6313 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6314 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6316 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6318 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6320 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6322 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6324 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6327 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6332 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6333 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6334 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6335 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6337 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6338 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6340 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6341 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6344 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6345 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6347 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6349 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6351 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6353 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6356 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6358 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6360 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6362 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6364 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6367 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6369 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6371 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6373 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6375 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6377 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6379 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6381 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6384 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6386 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6389 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6391 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6392 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6394 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6396 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6398 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6400 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6402 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6405 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6407 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6408 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6410 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6411 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6412 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6414 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6415 articles with the `*' command.
6417 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6419 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6421 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6423 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6425 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6426 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6428 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6431 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6433 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6435 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6437 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6439 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6441 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6443 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6445 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6447 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6449 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6450 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6452 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6455 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6457 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6458 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6460 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6462 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6464 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6466 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6469 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6471 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6473 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6474 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6476 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6478 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6480 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6482 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6484 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6486 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6489 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6491 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6492 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6493 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6496 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6499 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6502 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6503 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6506 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6507 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6508 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6509 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6510 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6513 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6515 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6517 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6518 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6519 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6520 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6521 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6523 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6524 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6525 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6527 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6529 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6530 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6531 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6532 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6533 chapter of the manual for details.
6535 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6536 customization variables take effect.
6538 ** Marking with the mouse.
6540 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6541 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6542 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6544 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6546 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6548 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6549 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6551 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6552 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6553 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6554 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6555 applications, these problems are significant.
6557 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6558 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6559 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6560 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6561 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6563 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6564 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6566 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6567 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6568 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6569 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6570 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6571 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6573 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6575 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6576 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6577 minibuffer contains.
6579 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6581 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6582 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6583 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6584 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6586 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6587 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6588 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6589 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6591 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6592 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6594 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6595 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6596 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6598 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6599 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6600 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6601 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6603 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6605 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6606 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6608 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6610 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6611 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6612 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6613 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6614 immediately after the selected one.
6616 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6617 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6619 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6621 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6622 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6623 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6624 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6627 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6628 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6631 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6632 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6633 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6634 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6635 now that the bug is fixed.
6637 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6639 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6640 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6641 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6642 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6644 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6645 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6646 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6647 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6649 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6650 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6651 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6653 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6654 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6655 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6656 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6659 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6660 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6662 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6663 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6664 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6665 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6667 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6668 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6669 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6670 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6671 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6672 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6674 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6675 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6676 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6677 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6679 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6680 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6681 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6683 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6684 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6685 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6686 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6687 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6688 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6689 to a limitation in font-lock).
6691 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6693 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6694 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6695 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6698 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6699 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6701 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6703 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6705 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6707 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6709 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6710 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6711 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6712 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6713 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6714 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6716 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6719 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6720 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6722 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6727 *** Global Font Lock mode
6729 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6730 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6731 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6732 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6733 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6735 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6737 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6741 *** Local Refontification
6743 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6744 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6745 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6746 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6748 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6749 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6750 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6751 above and below point.
6753 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6757 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6758 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6759 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6760 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6761 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6764 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6766 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6767 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6769 ** hide-show changes.
6771 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6772 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6775 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6776 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6778 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6779 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6780 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6784 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6785 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6787 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6788 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6790 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6792 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6793 pressing both mouse buttons.
6795 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6796 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6799 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6802 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6804 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6805 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6807 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6809 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6811 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6813 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6815 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6817 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6819 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6820 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6821 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6822 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6823 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6825 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6827 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6828 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6829 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6832 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6835 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6837 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6838 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6840 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6841 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6843 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6844 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6845 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6847 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6848 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6851 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6853 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6854 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6855 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6857 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6858 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6859 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6861 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6862 up if too much time passes.
6864 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6866 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6867 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6868 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6871 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6872 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6873 call looks like this:
6875 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6877 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6878 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6879 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6882 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6883 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6886 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6887 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6888 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6889 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6891 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6892 idle for SECS seconds.
6894 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6895 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6896 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6899 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6900 there is no answer within a certain time.
6902 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6904 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6905 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6906 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6908 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6909 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6910 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6911 arguments in between are ignored.
6913 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6914 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6916 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6917 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6918 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6919 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6922 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6923 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6924 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6925 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6926 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6927 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6929 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6930 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6931 systems with limited file name syntax.
6933 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6934 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6935 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6938 (defvar save-completions-file-name
6939 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
6940 "*The filename to save completions to.")
6942 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
6943 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
6944 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
6945 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
6946 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
6948 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
6949 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
6950 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
6952 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
6953 marker from its buffer position.
6955 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
6956 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
6957 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
6959 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
6960 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
6961 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
6962 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
6963 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
6964 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
6966 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
6967 errors that happen often during editing.
6969 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
6970 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
6971 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
6973 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
6974 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
6976 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
6977 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
6978 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
6979 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
6980 and not get-buffer-window.
6982 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
6983 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
6984 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
6986 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
6987 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
6988 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
6989 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
6990 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
6991 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
6992 over and over for the same text.
6994 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
6996 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
6997 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
6999 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7002 in addition to the normal
7006 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7007 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7008 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7010 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7012 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7013 Copyright information:
7015 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7017 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7018 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7019 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7020 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7022 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7023 of this document, or of portions of it,
7024 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7025 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7029 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"