3 If you are ready to start working on any of these TODO items, we
4 appreciate your help; please write to emacs-devel@gnu.org so we can be
5 aware that the problem is being addressed, and talk with you how to do
6 it best. Since Emacs is an FSF-copyrighted package, please be
7 prepared to sign legal papers to transfer the copyright on your work
10 * Small but important fixes needed in existing features:
12 ** Fix the kill/yank treatment of invisible text. At the moment,
13 invisible text is placed in the kill-ring, so that the contents of
14 the ring may not correspond to the text as displayed to the user. It
15 ought to be possible to omit text which is invisible (due to a
16 text-property, overlay, or selective display) from the kill-ring.
20 ** Provide user-friendly ways to list all available font families,
21 display a font as a sample, etc. [fx is looking at multilingual
22 font selection for Emacs 22.]
24 ** Program Enriched mode to read and save in RTF. [Is there actually a
25 decent single definition of RTF? Maybe see info at
26 http://latex2rtf.sourceforge.net/.]
28 ** Implement something better than the current Refill mode. This
29 probably needs some primitive support.
31 ** Implement primitive and higher-level functions to allow filling
32 properly with variable-pitch faces.
34 ** Implement a smoother vertical scroll facility, one that allows
35 C-v to scroll through a tall image.
37 ** Implement other text formatting properties.
38 *** Footnotes that can appear either in place or at the end of the page.
39 *** text property that says "don't break line in middle of this".
40 Don't break the line between two characters that have the
41 same value of this property.
42 *** Discretionary hyphens that are not visible when they are at end of line.
44 ** Make movemail work with IMAP.
46 ** Internationalize Emacs's messages. [Note that this is of limited
47 use until the menus can display multilingual text. It also doesn't
48 address important issues like using the names of symbols essentially
49 as documentation, e.g. in command names and Custom. -- fx]
51 ** Make the Lucid menu widget display multilingual text. [This
52 probably needs to be done from actual Emacs buffers, either directly
53 in the menu or by rendering in an unmapped window and copying the
54 pixels. Note that the relevant Xlib functions assume a specific
55 locale; that isn't good enough even if X can render the arbitrary
56 text, which it often can't as far as I can tell. -- fx] [The gtk
57 port now displays multilingual text in menus, but only insofar as
58 Emacs can encode it as utf-8 and gtk can display the result.]
60 ** Remove the limitation that window and frame widths and heights can
61 be only full columns/lines.
63 * Other features we would like:
65 ** Ability to map a key, including all modified-combinations.
66 E.g map mouse-4 to wheel-up as well as M-mouse-4 -> M-wheel-up
67 M-C-mouse-4 -> M-C-wheel-up, H-S-C-M-s-double-mouse-4 ->
68 H-S-C-M-s-double-wheel-up, ...
70 ** Beefed-up syntax-tables.
71 *** recognize multi-character syntactic entities like `begin' and `end'.
72 *** nested string-delimiters (for Postscript's (foo(bar)baz) strings).
73 *** support for infix operators (with precedence).
74 *** support for the $ (paired delimiter) in parse-partial-sexp.
75 *** support for hook-chars whose effect on the parsing-state is specified
76 by elisp code. Thus a char could both close a string and open a comment
77 at the same time and do it in a context-sensitive way.
78 *** ability to add mode-specific data to the partial-parse-state.
80 ** Have a command suggestion help system that recognizes patterns
81 of commands which could be replaced with a simpler common command.
82 It should not make more than one suggestion per 10 minutes.
84 ** Add a way to define input methods by computing them (when first used)
85 from other input methods. Then redefine C-x 8 to use a
86 user-selected input method, with the default being the union of
87 latin-1-prefix and latin-1-postfix.
89 ** Implement a clean way to use different major modes for
90 different parts of a buffer. This could be useful in editing
91 Bison input files, for instance, or other kinds of text
92 where one language is embedded in another language.
94 ** Give start-process the ability to direct standard-error
95 output to a different filter.
97 ** Make desktop.el save the "frame configuration" of Emacs (in some
100 ** Give desktop.el a feature to switch between different named
103 ** Replace finder.el with something that generates an Info file
104 which gives the same information through a menu structure. [Dave
105 Love started on this.]
107 ** Implement a variant of uncompress.el or jka-compr.el that works with
108 GNU Privacy Guard for encryption. [Code exists but isn't assigned.
109 See the Gnus development sources for assigned code concerning GPG
110 use with mail, which is probably a good start.]
112 ** Save undo information in special temporary files, and reload it
113 when needed for undoing. This could extend undo capacity.
115 ** Merge the Emacs regex.c with the Glibc regex.c.
116 They split off a few years ago through negligence.
118 ** Change the Windows NT menu code
119 so that it handles the deep_p argument and avoids
120 regenerating the whole menu bar menu tree except
121 when the user tries to use the menubar.
123 This requires the RIT to forward the WM_INITMENU message to
124 the main thread, and not return from that message until the main
125 thread has processed the MENU_BAR_ACTIVATE_EVENT and regenerated
126 the whole menu bar. In the mean time, it should process other messages.
128 ** Get some major packages installed: W3 (development version needs
129 significant work), PSGML. Check the assignments file for other
130 packages which might go in and have been missed.
132 ** Make keymaps a first-class Lisp object (this means a rewrite of
133 keymap.c). What should it do apart from being opaque ?
134 multiple inheritance ? faster where-is ? no more fix_submap_inheritance ?
137 ** Provide real menus on ttys. The MS-DOS implementation can serve as
138 an example how to do part of this.
140 ** Implement popular parts of the rest of the CL functions as compiler
143 ** Highlight rectangles (`mouse-track-rectangle-p' in XEmacs). Already in CUA,
144 but it's a valuable feature worth making more general.
146 ** Support simultaneous tty and X frames.
148 ** Provide MIME support for Rmail using the Gnus MIME library. [Maybe
149 not now feasible, given Gnus maintenance decisions. fx looked at
150 this and can say where some of the problems are.]
152 ** Eliminate the storm of warnings concerning char/unsigned char
153 mismatches that we get with proprietary compilers on various systems.
154 They make it difficult to spot the important warnings.
156 ** Fix anything necessary to use `long long' EMACS_INTs with GCC.
158 ** Split out parts of lisp.h and generate Makefile dependencies
163 ** Allow auto-compression-mode to use zlib calls if zlib is available.
164 [It's required for PNG, so may be linked anyhow.]
166 ** Add a --pristine startup flag which does -q --no-site-file plus
167 ignoring X resources (Doze equivalents?) and most of the
168 environment. What should not be ignored needs consideration.
170 ** Investigate using the language environment (or locale?) to set up
171 more things, such as the default Ispell dictionary, calendar
172 holidays, quoting characters?,...
174 ** Improve the GC (generational, incremental). (We may be able to use
175 the Boehm collector.) [See the Boehm-GC branch in CVS for work on
178 ** Check what hooks would help Emacspeak -- see the defadvising in W3.
180 ** Add horizontal scroll bars.
182 ** Provide an optional feature which computes a scroll bar slider's
183 size and its position from lines instead of characters.
185 ** Make the Custom themes support do useful things.
187 ** Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering to
190 ** Allow unknown image types to be rendered via an external program
191 converting them to, say, PBM (in the same way as PostScript?).
193 ** Allow displaying an X window from an external program in a buffer,
194 e.g. to render graphics from Java applets. [gerd and/or wmperry
195 thought this was feasible.]
197 ** Allow images (not just text) in the margin to be mouse-sensitive.
198 (Requires recursing through display properties). Provide some way
199 to simulate mouse-clicks on marginal text without a mouse.
201 ** Implement Lisp functions to determine properly whether a character
202 is displayable (particularly needed in XFree 4, sigh). Use it to
203 define useful glyphs that may be displayed as images or unicodes
204 (with ASCIIfied fallback via latin1-disp). Examples include
205 box-drawing graphics in Custom buffers, W3 rules and tables, and
206 tree displays generally, mode-line mail indicator. [See work done
207 already for Emacs 22 and consult fx.]
209 ** Do something to make rms happy with fx's dynamic loading, and use it
210 to implement things like auto-loaded buffer parsers and database
211 access in cases which need more than Lisp.
213 ** Extend ps-print to deal with multiple font sizes, images, and extra
216 ** Provide portable undumping using mmap (per gerd design).
218 ** Use the XIE X extension, if available, for image display.
220 ** Make monochrome images display using the foreground and background
221 colors of the applicable faces.
223 ** Add support for rendering antialiased text, probably using
226 ** Port the conservative stack marking code of Emacs' garbage collector
227 to more systems, so that we can completely get rid of GCPROs.
229 ** Reorder defcustom's in each package so that the more important
230 options come first in the Customize buffers. This could be done by
231 either rearranging the file (since options are shown in the order
232 they appear in the *.el files), or by adding a few :set-after
235 ** Maybe document the features of libraries missing from the manual (or
236 ancillary manuals, including the Lisp manual in some cases).
237 This is not worth doing for all of these packages and we need not
238 aim for completeness, but some may be worth documenting.
240 Here's a list which is probably not complete/correct: align, allout,
241 artist, ansi-color, array, battery, calculator, cdl, cmuscheme,
242 completion, cua, delim-col, dirtrack, double, echistory, elide-head,
243 easymenu, expand, flow-ctrl, format [format-alist],
244 generic/generic-x [various modes], kermit, log-edit, ledit
245 [obsolete?], makesum, midnight [other than in Kill Buffer node],
246 mouse-copy [?], mouse-drag, mouse-sel, net-utils, rcompile,
247 snmp-mode [?], soundex [should be interactive?], strokes [start from
248 the web page], talk, thingatpt [interactive functions?], type-break,
249 vcursor, xscheme, zone-mode [?], mlconvert [?], iso-cvt, iso-swed,
250 swedish, feedmail [?], uce, bruce, gametree, meese, page-ext,
251 refbib, refer, scribe, sgml-mode, spell, texinfo, underline,
252 cmacexp, hideif, mantemp [obsolete?], pcomplete, assoc, xml,
253 cvs-status (should be described in PCL-CVS manual); other progmodes,
254 probably in separate manual.
256 ** Convert the XPM bitmaps to PPM, replace the PBMs with them and scrap
257 the XPMs so that the colour versions work generally. (Requires care
258 with the colour used for the transparent regions.)
260 ** Convenient access to the `values' variable. It would be nice to have an
261 interface that would show you the printed reps of the elements of the
262 list in a menu, let you select one of the values, and put it into some
263 other variable, without changing the value of `values'.
265 ** Fix skip-chars-{for,back}ward to allow character classes.
267 ** (Controlled by a flag) make open and close syntax match exactly,
268 i.e. `(' doesn't match `]'.
270 ** Specify parameter ID-FORMAT in all calls to `file-attributes' and
271 `directory-files-and-attributes' where attributes UID or GID are used.
272 Whenever possible, use value 'string.
273 When done, change meaning of default value from 'integer to 'string.
274 If value 'integer is used nowhere, remove the parameter ID-FORMAT from
275 the definition of `file-attributes' and `directory-files-and-attributes'
278 ** Make language-info-alist customizable. Currently a user can customize
279 only the variable `current-language-environment'.
281 ** Improve language environment handling so that Emacs can fit
282 better to a users locale. Currently Emacs uses utf-8 language
283 environment for all utf-8 locales, thus a user in ja_JP.UTF-8 locale
284 are also put in utf-8 lang. env. In such a case, it is
285 better to use Japanese lang. env. but prefer utf-8 coding system.
287 ** Eliminate the current restriction on header printing by ps-print.
288 Currently, a header can contain only single 1-byte charset in
291 ** In ps-print, provide an user friendly interface to specify fonts.
293 ** OpenType font support for various complex scripts (e.g. Devanagari).
294 As X protocal doesn't provide a way to access OpenType Layout Tables
295 in a OpenType font of a server side, we need a way to utilize local
296 fonts (perhaps by directly using the Freetype library or indirectly
299 ** Enhance word boundary detection for such a script that doesn't use
300 space at word boundary (e.g. Thai).
302 ** Implement interface programs with major Japanese conversion server
303 in lib-src so that they can be used from the input method
304 "japanese". Currently, most Japanese users are using external
305 packages (e.g. tamago, anthy) or an input method via XIM.
309 ** Replace gmalloc.c with the modified Doug Lea code from the current
310 GNU libc so that the special mmapping of buffers can be removed --
311 that apparently loses under Solaris, at least. [fx has mostly done
314 ** Rewrite make-docfile to be clean and maintainable.
316 ** Add an inferior-comint-minor-mode to capture the common set of operations
317 offered by major modes that offer an associated inferior
318 comint-derived mode. I.e. basically make cmuscheme.el generic.
319 For use by sml-mode, python-mode, tex-mode, scheme-mode, ...
321 ;;; arch-tag: b0a3e40b-726a-457d-9999-ba848321b036