1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
12 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
17 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
18 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
19 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
22 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
24 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
27 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
28 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
32 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
33 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
34 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
35 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
36 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
37 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
38 in each user's home directory.
41 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
42 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
46 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
48 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
49 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
50 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
51 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
54 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
57 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
58 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
59 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
60 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
62 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
65 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
68 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
71 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
72 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
75 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
78 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
81 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
84 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
87 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
88 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
89 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
90 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'.
92 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
93 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
95 ** Under XFree86 4, the display table is modified so that `' is
96 displayed as balanced quotes, not the ASCII glyphs whose shape has
97 been changed generally in the XFree86 fonts.
100 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
101 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
102 an interactively callable function.
107 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
108 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
109 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
110 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
111 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
113 The following values are supported:
115 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
129 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
132 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
133 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
134 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
136 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
137 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
138 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
139 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
141 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
142 '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
144 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
145 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
146 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
148 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
149 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
150 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
151 osql flushes it's error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
152 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
155 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
156 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
157 credentials to authenticate the user.
159 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
160 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
163 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
164 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
167 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
168 with special modes such as Tar mode.
170 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
172 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
173 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
174 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
177 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
178 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
179 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
180 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
181 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
185 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
186 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
187 the operating system or your X server.
189 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
190 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
191 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
193 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
194 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
197 ** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
198 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
199 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
201 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
205 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
206 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
207 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
208 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
209 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
210 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
211 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
213 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
214 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
216 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
217 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
219 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
220 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
222 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
223 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
225 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
226 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
228 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
229 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
231 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
232 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
233 at the edges of the window.
235 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
236 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
238 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
239 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
240 or when the frame is resized.
242 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
244 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
245 horisontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
247 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
249 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
250 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
252 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
253 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
255 ** `describe-char' can show data from the Unicode database file. See
256 user option `unicode-data'.
258 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
260 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
261 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
263 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
264 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
266 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
268 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
269 and other common debugger commands.
273 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
274 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
277 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
278 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
279 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
280 recent list with different symbolic links.
282 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
283 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
284 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
285 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
286 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
288 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
293 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
294 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
296 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
298 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
299 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
300 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
301 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
302 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
303 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
307 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
308 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
311 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
312 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
313 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
315 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
318 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
319 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
320 appears between the position information and the major mode.
322 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
323 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
326 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
327 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
328 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
329 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
333 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
334 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
335 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
339 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
340 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
341 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
344 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
345 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
347 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
351 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
353 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
354 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
355 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
358 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
359 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
360 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
362 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
363 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
364 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
365 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
366 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
368 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
369 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
370 t, and the status is shown.
372 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
373 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
376 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
377 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
378 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
381 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
382 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
383 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
384 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
385 automatically according to the locale.)
387 ** Indian support has been updated.
388 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
389 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
390 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
394 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
395 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
396 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
397 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
398 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
402 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
403 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
404 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
407 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
408 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
409 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
410 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
411 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
412 latter is used by GNU locales.
414 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
415 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
416 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
417 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
418 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
419 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
420 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
421 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
422 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
423 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
424 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
426 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
427 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
428 fontset appropriately.
430 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
434 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
435 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
436 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
437 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
438 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
439 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
440 mule-unicode-... ones.
442 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
443 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
444 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
447 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
448 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
449 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
450 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
451 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
453 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
454 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
455 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
456 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
458 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
459 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
460 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
464 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
465 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
466 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
469 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
470 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
473 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
474 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
475 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
479 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
480 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
482 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
483 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
484 program files that include other program files.
486 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
487 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
491 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
492 when Emacs visits them.
495 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
497 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
498 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
499 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
501 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
502 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
503 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
504 and use the more appropriately result.
507 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
508 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
509 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
510 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
512 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
513 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
514 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
515 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
516 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
517 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
519 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
520 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
523 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
525 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
526 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
527 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
528 TeX commands to use at startup.
529 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
530 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
532 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
535 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
536 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
537 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
538 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
539 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
540 feature is not enabled.
543 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
544 description various information about a character, including its
545 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
546 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
547 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
550 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
551 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
552 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
553 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
554 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
557 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
558 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
559 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
560 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
561 also disable mouse highlighting.
564 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
565 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
566 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
567 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
568 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
571 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
572 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
573 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
577 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
578 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
579 the mode line of the currently selected window.
581 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
582 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
585 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
586 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
587 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
588 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
589 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
590 current date and time, current line and column number in the
594 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
597 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
598 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
599 `display-time-mail-directory'.
602 ** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
605 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
608 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
609 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
610 argument it toggles the mode.
612 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
613 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
616 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
617 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
618 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
619 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
620 `inhibit-splash-screen').
622 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
625 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
626 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
627 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
628 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
629 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
630 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
631 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
632 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
633 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
636 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
637 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
638 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
639 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
643 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
646 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
648 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
649 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
650 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
651 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
654 ** Info-index offers completion.
657 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
661 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
662 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
663 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
664 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
667 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
669 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
671 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
674 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
675 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
677 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
678 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
680 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
682 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
683 run by the key sequence.
685 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
686 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
689 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
690 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
692 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
693 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
695 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
696 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
698 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
699 new-kill-line is on C-k
702 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
703 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
704 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
705 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
708 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
709 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
710 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
711 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
714 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
715 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
716 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
717 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
720 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
721 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
722 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
723 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
724 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
725 command lines to be used than was possible before.
728 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
729 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
730 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
731 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
732 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
733 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
734 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
737 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
738 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
739 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
740 under the "[State]" button.
742 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
743 point (no integers are allowed).
746 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
747 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
750 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
752 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
753 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
754 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
755 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
756 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
758 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
759 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
760 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
763 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
766 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
767 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
768 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
770 Added Customization Variables
772 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
774 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
775 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
776 java sources (previous method).
778 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
779 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
784 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
787 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
788 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
789 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
792 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
793 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
794 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
795 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
796 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
797 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
800 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
801 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
802 what external viewers to use and when.
805 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
806 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
807 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
808 is only rarely needed.
811 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
813 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
814 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
815 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
816 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
819 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
820 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
821 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
822 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
823 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
827 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
828 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
829 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
830 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
831 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
834 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
835 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
836 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
839 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
840 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
841 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
845 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
846 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
847 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
850 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
851 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
855 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
856 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
857 affects the initial frame.
860 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
861 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
862 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
865 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
869 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
870 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
871 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
872 directory listing into a buffer.
875 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
876 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
878 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
879 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
880 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
881 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
884 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
885 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
886 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
887 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
888 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
889 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
890 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
891 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
894 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
895 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
896 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
897 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
898 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
901 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
902 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
905 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
906 of the recognized cursor types.
909 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
910 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
911 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
914 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
915 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
916 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
917 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
918 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
919 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
920 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
921 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
922 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
925 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
926 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
927 count backward from the end of the year.
929 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
930 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
931 and `diary-header-line-format'.
935 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
936 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
937 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
938 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
939 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
941 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
943 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
946 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
947 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
948 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
949 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
950 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
953 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
958 *** When comparing directories.
959 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
960 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
961 from one directory to another.
964 *** When comparing files or buffers.
965 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
966 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
967 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
970 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
971 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
972 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
977 *** New regular expressions features
979 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
980 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
981 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
982 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
983 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
984 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
985 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
986 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
987 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
988 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
989 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
991 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
992 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
993 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
996 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
997 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
998 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
999 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1001 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1002 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1003 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1005 *** New language parsing features
1007 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1008 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1010 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1011 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1012 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1015 **** New language PHP.
1016 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1017 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1019 **** New language HTML.
1020 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1021 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1023 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1024 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1027 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1028 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1029 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1031 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1033 *** Honour #line directives.
1034 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1035 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1036 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1037 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1038 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1040 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1041 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1042 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1043 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1049 *** Font lock support.
1050 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1051 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1052 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1053 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1054 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1055 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1057 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1058 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1059 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1060 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1061 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1062 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1063 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1064 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1065 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1067 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1068 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1069 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1070 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1071 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1072 take the better part of a minute.
1074 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1075 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1076 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1077 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1078 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1079 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1081 **** Support for documentation comments.
1082 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1083 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1084 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1085 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1087 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1088 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1089 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1090 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1092 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1093 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1094 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1095 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1098 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1099 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1100 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1101 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1102 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1104 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1105 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1106 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1107 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1108 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1110 *** Support for the AWK language.
1111 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1112 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1113 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1116 **** Indentation Engine
1117 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1119 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1120 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1121 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1122 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1123 definition, or structured statement.
1125 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1126 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1127 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1129 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1130 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1131 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1132 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1135 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1136 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1137 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1138 the AWK language itself.
1140 **** Comment Commands
1141 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1142 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1144 **** Movement Commands
1145 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1146 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1147 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1149 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1150 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1151 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1154 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1155 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1156 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1157 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1159 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1160 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1161 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1162 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1163 composition-close, and incomposition.
1165 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1166 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1167 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1168 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1170 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1171 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1172 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1173 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1174 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1175 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1177 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1178 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1179 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1180 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1181 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1183 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1187 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1189 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1192 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1193 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1194 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1195 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1197 *** API changes for derived modes.
1198 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1199 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1200 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1201 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1202 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1204 **** New language variable system.
1205 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1207 **** New initialization functions.
1208 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1209 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1210 c-init-language-vars.
1212 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1213 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1214 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1215 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1217 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1218 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1219 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1220 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1221 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1223 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1224 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1225 its substatement. E.g:
1231 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1233 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1234 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1235 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1236 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1237 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1240 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1241 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1242 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1243 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1244 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1245 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1246 empty lines within the macro better.
1248 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1249 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1250 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1252 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1253 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1254 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1255 backslashes can be moved.
1257 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1258 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1259 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1260 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1262 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1263 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1264 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1265 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1266 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1267 backslash) in the macro.
1269 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1270 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1271 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1272 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1273 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1274 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1276 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1277 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1279 *** New lineup functions
1281 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1282 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1285 result = prefix + "A message "
1286 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1288 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1289 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1291 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1292 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1293 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1295 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1296 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1299 **** c-lineup-argcont
1300 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1301 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1303 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1304 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1305 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1306 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1307 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1308 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1310 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1311 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1312 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1313 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1316 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1317 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1318 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1319 happen when macros are involved.
1321 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1322 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1323 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1324 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1325 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1326 line is left untouched.
1328 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1329 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1330 syntactic indentation.
1332 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1333 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1336 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1337 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1340 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1341 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1342 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1345 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1346 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1347 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1350 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1351 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1352 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1355 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1356 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1357 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1358 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1359 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1360 from the file name or buffer contents.
1363 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1366 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1367 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1368 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1371 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1374 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1377 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1378 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1379 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1382 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1383 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1386 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1387 to support use of font-lock.
1390 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1391 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1395 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1396 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1397 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1400 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1401 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1402 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1403 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1404 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1405 candidate is a directory.
1408 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1409 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1410 it remains unchanged.
1413 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1414 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1415 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1417 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1419 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1420 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1421 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1422 subprocesses inherit.
1424 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1426 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1428 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1430 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1431 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1432 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1434 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1436 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1437 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1438 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1439 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1440 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1441 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1445 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1448 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1449 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1450 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1453 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1454 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1457 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1458 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1459 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1460 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1461 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1462 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1466 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1467 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1468 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1469 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1470 sound support for those formats.
1473 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1474 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1477 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1478 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1479 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1480 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1483 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1484 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1485 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1486 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1487 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1488 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1489 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1490 wish to use them in other faces.
1493 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1494 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1495 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1496 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1498 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1499 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1501 * New modes and packages in 21.4
1504 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1505 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1507 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1510 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1512 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1513 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1514 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1515 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1518 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1520 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1521 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1522 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1523 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1524 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1525 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1527 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1528 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1529 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1530 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1532 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1533 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1534 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1535 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1536 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1537 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1538 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1540 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1541 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1542 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1544 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1545 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1547 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1548 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1549 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1550 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1552 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1553 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1554 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1555 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1557 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1558 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1559 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1560 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1562 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1563 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1564 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1565 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1566 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1568 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1569 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1570 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1571 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1572 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1573 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1575 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1576 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1577 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1578 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1579 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1580 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1581 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1582 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1583 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1586 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1587 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1589 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1590 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1591 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1592 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1594 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1597 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1598 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1599 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1600 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1601 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1604 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1605 the keyboard macro ring.
1607 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1608 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1610 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1611 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1612 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1613 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1615 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1616 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1617 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1620 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1621 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1622 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1623 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1625 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1627 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1628 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1629 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1630 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1631 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1632 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1635 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1637 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1638 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1639 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1640 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1643 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1645 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1646 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1647 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1648 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1649 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1650 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1651 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1652 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1653 `rsync' to do the copying).
1655 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1659 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1660 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1661 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1662 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1663 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1664 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1667 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1668 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1669 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1673 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1674 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1675 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1676 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1678 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1681 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1682 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1684 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1685 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1686 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1687 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1688 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1689 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1692 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1693 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1694 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1695 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1698 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1699 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1700 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1701 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1704 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1706 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1707 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1709 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1710 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1711 in Indented-Text mode.
1713 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1714 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1715 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1717 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1719 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1720 configuration files.
1722 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1724 ** Mouse event enhancements:
1726 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
1727 events, rather than a text area click event.
1730 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
1733 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
1735 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
1738 *** Ǹew function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
1742 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
1745 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
1748 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
1751 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
1752 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
1754 *** New functions 'posn-object' and 'posn-object-x-y' return the image
1755 or string object of a mouse click, and the x and y pixel coordinates
1756 relative to the top left corner of that object.
1758 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
1759 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
1760 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
1761 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
1762 forcing an explicit window update.
1764 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
1765 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
1768 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
1769 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
1770 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
1771 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
1772 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
1775 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
1778 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
1779 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
1780 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
1783 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
1784 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
1787 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
1788 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
1792 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
1793 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
1796 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
1797 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
1798 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
1800 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
1801 does that, this value may not be accurate.
1804 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
1805 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
1806 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
1810 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
1811 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
1814 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
1817 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
1821 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
1822 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
1825 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
1826 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
1827 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
1830 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
1834 ** VC changes for backends:
1835 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
1836 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
1837 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
1838 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
1839 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
1842 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
1843 as a dynamic completion table.
1845 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
1847 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
1848 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
1849 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
1850 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
1851 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
1852 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
1855 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
1856 as a lazy completion table.
1858 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
1860 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
1861 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
1862 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
1863 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
1864 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
1865 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
1868 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
1871 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
1872 for all (existing and future) frames.
1875 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
1878 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
1881 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
1884 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
1885 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
1886 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
1887 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
1888 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
1891 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
1892 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
1893 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
1894 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
1897 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
1898 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
1899 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
1900 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
1903 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
1904 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
1907 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
1908 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
1909 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
1910 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
1913 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
1914 of a string given to a process's filter.
1917 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
1918 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
1921 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
1922 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
1923 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
1924 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
1927 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
1928 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
1929 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
1930 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
1931 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
1934 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
1935 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
1938 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
1939 on garbage collection.
1942 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
1943 it is read from a file without decoding.
1946 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
1949 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
1950 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
1951 by calling `select-window'.
1954 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
1955 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
1956 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
1957 need to have a name.
1959 ** Byte compiler changes:
1962 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
1963 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
1964 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
1965 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
1966 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
1970 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
1971 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
1972 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
1973 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
1976 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
1977 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
1979 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
1980 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
1981 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
1982 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
1983 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
1984 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
1987 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
1988 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
1991 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
1992 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
1993 be inserted is translated through it.
1996 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
1997 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
1998 current file redefined it).
2001 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2002 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2003 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2004 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2005 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2006 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2008 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2009 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2010 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2011 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2012 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2014 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2015 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2016 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2017 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2018 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2019 returns differing values.
2022 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2023 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2024 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2027 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2028 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2029 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2030 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2032 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2033 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2036 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2037 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2040 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2041 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2044 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2045 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2046 can start with this line:
2048 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2051 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2052 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2055 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2056 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2059 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2060 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2064 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2065 and `display-warning'.
2068 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2069 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2070 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2074 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2075 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2078 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2079 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2080 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2081 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2084 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2085 of one coding system from another coding system.
2088 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2089 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2090 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2091 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2095 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2096 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2097 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2098 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2099 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2100 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2102 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2103 confirmation as before.
2106 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2108 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2109 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2110 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2111 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2113 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2114 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2115 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2116 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2117 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2118 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2120 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2121 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2122 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2123 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2126 ** Per-window fringes settings
2128 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2131 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2132 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2133 `set-window-fringes'.
2135 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2136 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2137 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2138 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2140 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2141 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2142 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2143 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2144 an update of the display margins.
2147 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2149 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2150 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2152 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2153 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2154 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2155 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2156 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2157 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2158 of the display margins.
2161 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2162 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2163 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2166 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2167 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2168 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2169 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2170 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2171 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2174 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2175 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2176 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2179 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2180 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2181 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2182 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2183 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2186 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2187 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2190 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2191 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2192 will only show directories.
2195 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2196 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2197 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2200 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2201 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2202 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2205 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2206 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2207 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2209 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2211 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2212 declaration specifiers supported are:
2215 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2218 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2219 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2222 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2224 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2225 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2226 binding and lookup functionality.
2228 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2229 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2233 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2234 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2235 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2236 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2239 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2240 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2241 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2242 map using define-key:
2244 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2245 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2247 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2248 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2250 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2251 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2252 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2254 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2256 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2257 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2258 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2259 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2261 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2262 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2264 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2265 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2267 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2268 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2269 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2270 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2271 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2272 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2274 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2275 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2276 command was not remapped.
2279 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2281 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2282 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2286 ** Atomic change groups.
2288 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2289 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2290 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2292 (atomic-change-group
2294 (delete-region x y))
2296 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2297 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2298 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2299 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2301 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2302 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2304 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2305 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2306 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2307 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2309 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2310 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2313 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2314 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2315 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2316 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2318 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2319 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2320 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2321 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2322 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2323 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2326 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2327 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2328 returned values, like this:
2330 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2331 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2333 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2334 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2335 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2337 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2338 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2339 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2340 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2344 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2346 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2347 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2348 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2349 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2352 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2354 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2355 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2356 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2357 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2360 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2362 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2363 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2364 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2367 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2369 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2370 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2371 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2372 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2373 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2376 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2378 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2379 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2382 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2384 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2385 text properties from the inserted substring.
2388 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2389 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2391 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
2392 elements with the following format:
2393 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2395 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2396 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2397 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2398 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2400 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2401 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2402 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2403 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2404 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2406 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2407 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2408 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2409 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2410 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2411 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2412 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2413 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2415 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
2416 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
2419 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2420 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2421 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2422 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2423 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2426 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2427 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2429 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2430 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2431 defined with defface.
2434 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2435 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2436 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2439 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2440 help with handling relative face attributes.
2443 ** Enhancements to process support
2445 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2446 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2448 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2449 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2450 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2452 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2453 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2455 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2456 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2458 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2459 and modify elements on this property list.
2461 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2462 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
2465 ** Enhanced networking support.
2467 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
2468 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
2469 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
2471 - A server is started using :server t arg.
2472 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
2473 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
2474 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
2475 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
2476 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
2477 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
2478 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
2480 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
2481 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
2483 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
2485 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
2487 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
2488 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
2489 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
2490 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
2491 matching "open" or "failed".
2493 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
2495 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
2496 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
2497 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
2498 is called for the new process.
2500 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
2502 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
2503 and set the current address of the remote partner.
2505 *** New function format-network-address.
2507 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
2508 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
2509 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
2510 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
2511 string for other formatting options.
2513 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
2514 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
2515 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
2517 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
2518 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
2519 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
2520 the fifth is the port number.
2522 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
2523 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
2524 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
2525 no input is received in the stopped state.
2527 *** New function network-interface-list.
2529 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
2530 current network addresses.
2532 *** New function network-interface-info.
2534 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
2535 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
2538 ** New function copy-tree.
2541 ** New function substring-no-properties.
2544 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
2547 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
2550 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
2551 are now always lower case. If you specify the
2552 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
2553 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
2555 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
2556 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
2559 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
2560 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
2561 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
2562 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
2565 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
2566 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
2568 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
2569 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
2570 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
2573 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
2574 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
2577 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
2578 (function (lambda ()
2580 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2581 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
2582 (function (lambda ()
2583 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2586 ** File local variables.
2588 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
2589 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
2592 ** New function window-body-height.
2594 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
2598 ** New function format-mode-line.
2600 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
2601 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
2604 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
2606 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
2607 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
2610 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
2612 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
2613 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
2614 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
2615 you specify the map to use as an argument.
2618 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
2620 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
2621 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
2622 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
2625 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
2627 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
2628 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
2629 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
2630 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
2631 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
2634 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
2635 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
2636 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
2637 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
2640 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
2641 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
2644 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
2645 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
2646 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
2649 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
2650 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
2654 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
2655 cl-indent package. The new user options
2656 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
2657 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
2658 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
2661 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
2662 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
2665 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
2667 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
2668 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
2669 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
2672 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
2674 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
2675 the time it takes to convert the format.
2677 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
2681 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
2682 over minor mode keymaps.
2685 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
2686 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
2689 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
2690 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
2691 image or composition property.
2693 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
2694 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
2695 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
2696 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
2697 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
2700 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
2704 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
2705 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
2706 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
2707 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
2711 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
2714 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
2717 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
2718 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
2719 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
2720 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
2721 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
2722 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
2725 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
2726 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
2727 bindings of the parent keymap.
2730 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
2731 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
2732 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
2733 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
2734 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
2735 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
2743 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
2744 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
2745 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
2746 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
2749 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
2750 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
2752 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
2753 (the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
2756 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
2757 it receives a request from emacsclient.
2760 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
2761 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
2762 than 3 levels of nesting.
2765 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
2766 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
2770 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
2771 properties from surrounding text.
2774 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
2776 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
2777 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
2778 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
2781 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
2782 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
2786 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
2787 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
2788 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
2789 other properties than `face'.
2790 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
2791 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
2794 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
2795 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
2796 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
2797 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
2798 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
2801 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
2802 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
2803 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
2806 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
2807 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
2810 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
2811 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
2814 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
2815 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
2816 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
2819 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
2820 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
2821 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
2824 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
2825 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
2826 accepts a float as UID parameter.
2829 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
2832 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
2835 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
2836 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
2837 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
2838 the output of other GNU tools.
2841 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
2844 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
2847 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
2848 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
2851 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
2853 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
2855 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
2856 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
2857 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
2858 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
2860 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
2861 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
2863 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
2865 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
2866 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
2867 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
2869 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
2870 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
2873 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
2874 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
2877 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
2878 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
2881 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
2882 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
2885 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
2886 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
2887 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
2889 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
2890 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
2891 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
2893 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
2898 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2899 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2900 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2901 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
2902 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2903 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
2905 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
2907 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
2908 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
2910 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
2911 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
2914 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
2915 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
2917 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
2918 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
2919 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
2920 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
2921 as help and apropos buffers.
2924 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
2926 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
2930 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
2932 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
2935 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
2936 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
2937 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
2938 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
2939 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
2941 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
2944 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
2945 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
2946 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
2947 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
2948 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
2949 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
2950 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
2951 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
2952 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
2953 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
2955 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
2956 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
2958 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
2959 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
2960 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
2961 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
2962 contrary to the compound text specification.
2965 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
2967 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
2969 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
2972 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
2974 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
2976 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
2977 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
2978 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
2979 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
2980 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
2982 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
2985 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
2986 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
2988 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
2989 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
2990 instead of using default-major-mode.
2992 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
2993 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
2994 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
2995 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
2996 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
2997 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
2998 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3000 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3004 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3006 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3007 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3008 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3010 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3011 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3014 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3016 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3017 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3018 charsets in this release.
3020 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3022 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3024 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3025 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3028 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3029 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3030 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3031 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3032 necessary changes to unexec.
3034 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3035 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3037 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3038 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3040 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3041 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3043 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3044 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3045 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3046 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3047 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3049 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3050 new display features described below.
3053 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3055 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3057 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3058 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3059 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3060 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3063 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3065 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3066 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3067 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3068 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3071 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3072 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3073 under Lisp changes, below.
3075 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3077 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3078 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3079 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3080 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3081 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3082 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3085 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3086 supported on character terminals.
3088 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3089 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3090 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3091 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3093 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3097 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3098 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3099 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3100 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3103 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3105 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3106 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3107 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3108 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3110 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3112 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3113 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3114 specifies a number of lines.
3118 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3120 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3121 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3122 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3125 Default is `grow-only'.
3129 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3130 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3132 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3134 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3135 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3138 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3140 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3141 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3142 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3144 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3146 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3147 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3148 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3149 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3150 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3153 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3154 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3155 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3156 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3157 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3158 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3160 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3161 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3162 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3163 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3164 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3165 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3167 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3168 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3169 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3170 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3171 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3173 ** Tool bar support.
3175 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3176 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3177 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3178 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3179 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3182 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3183 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3187 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3188 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3189 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3191 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3192 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3193 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3194 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3196 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3198 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3199 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3202 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3203 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3204 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3205 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3206 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3208 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3209 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3210 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3211 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3212 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3213 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3215 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3216 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3217 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3218 customizing face `fringe'.
3220 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3221 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3222 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3223 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3224 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3225 the window to be partially obscured.)
3227 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3228 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3229 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3230 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3232 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3234 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3235 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3236 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3237 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3238 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3241 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3243 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3245 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3247 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3248 `*') toggles the status.
3250 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3252 ** Hourglass pointer
3254 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3255 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3259 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3260 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3261 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3264 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3266 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3267 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3268 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3271 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3272 have to do anything to activate it.
3274 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3276 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3277 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3279 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3280 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3281 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3282 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3283 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3284 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3285 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3286 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3288 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3289 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3290 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3291 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3292 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3293 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3295 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3296 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3298 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3299 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3302 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3303 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3304 beginning and end of the buffer.
3306 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3307 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3310 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3311 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3313 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3314 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3317 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3318 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3321 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3323 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3324 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3325 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3327 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3328 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3329 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3331 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3334 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3336 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3337 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3338 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3339 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3340 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3343 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3344 all frames except the selected one.
3346 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3347 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3349 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3350 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3351 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3352 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3353 `Info-use-header-line'.
3355 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3356 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3357 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3359 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3361 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3362 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3365 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3366 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3367 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3368 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3370 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3372 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3373 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3374 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3375 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3377 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3378 point in a pop-up window.
3380 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3381 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3382 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3384 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3385 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3387 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3388 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3389 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3390 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3392 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3394 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3395 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3397 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3398 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3399 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3401 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3402 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3405 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3406 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3407 file that is already visited under a different name.
3409 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3410 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3412 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3413 and displays information about that.
3415 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3416 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3418 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3419 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3420 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3421 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3422 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3423 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3425 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3426 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3428 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3429 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3430 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3431 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3432 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3433 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3434 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3436 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3437 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3439 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3440 system for keyboard input.
3442 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3443 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3444 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3445 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3446 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3447 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3448 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3449 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3450 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
3452 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
3453 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
3455 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
3456 displays all characters in that character set.
3458 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
3459 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
3461 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
3462 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
3463 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
3465 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
3466 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
3467 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
3468 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
3469 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
3470 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
3473 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
3474 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
3477 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
3478 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
3479 Lisp Coding Convention".
3481 new command old-binding
3482 --- ------- -----------
3483 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
3484 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
3485 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
3487 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
3488 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
3489 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
3491 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
3492 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
3493 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
3494 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
3495 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
3496 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
3498 ** There are new Leim input methods.
3499 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
3500 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
3503 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
3504 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
3505 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
3506 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
3507 "`", you must type "=q".
3509 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
3510 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
3511 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
3512 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
3513 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
3516 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
3517 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
3518 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
3519 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
3521 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
3522 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
3523 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
3524 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
3526 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
3527 on the display using several methods
3529 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
3530 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
3531 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
3533 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
3534 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
3536 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
3538 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
3539 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
3541 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
3542 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
3543 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
3544 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
3546 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
3547 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
3548 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
3550 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
3551 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
3553 ** New X resources recognized
3555 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
3556 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
3557 is useful for debugging X problems.
3561 emacs.synchronous: true
3563 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
3564 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
3565 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
3566 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
3567 visual class names are
3576 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
3577 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
3580 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
3581 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
3582 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
3587 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
3589 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
3590 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
3591 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
3592 resource values are `true' or `on'.
3596 emacs.privateColormap: true
3598 ** Faces and frame parameters.
3600 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
3601 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3602 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
3603 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
3604 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
3605 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
3606 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
3608 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
3609 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
3610 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
3611 `default' face and vice versa.
3615 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
3617 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
3619 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
3620 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
3621 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
3622 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
3624 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
3625 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
3626 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
3628 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
3631 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
3633 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
3634 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
3635 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
3636 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
3638 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
3640 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
3642 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
3644 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
3647 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
3650 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
3652 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
3653 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
3654 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
3656 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
3657 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
3659 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
3660 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
3661 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
3663 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
3665 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
3666 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
3667 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3668 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
3670 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
3671 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
3672 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3673 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
3675 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
3676 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
3677 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
3680 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
3682 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
3683 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
3684 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
3686 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
3687 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
3688 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
3689 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
3690 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
3691 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
3693 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
3695 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
3696 notably at the end of lines.
3698 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
3699 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
3701 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
3703 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
3704 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
3706 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
3707 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
3708 after each match to get the replacement text.
3710 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
3711 you edit the replacement string.
3713 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
3714 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
3715 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
3717 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
3719 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
3720 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
3722 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
3723 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
3724 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
3725 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
3728 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
3729 read mail from the menu etc.
3731 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
3732 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
3733 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
3734 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
3736 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
3737 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3739 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
3740 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
3741 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
3742 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
3743 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
3746 ** Customize changes
3748 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
3749 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
3750 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
3751 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
3752 earlier versions of Emacs.
3754 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
3755 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
3758 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3759 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
3760 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
3761 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
3764 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3765 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
3766 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
3767 already in your init file.
3769 ** New features in evaluation commands
3771 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
3772 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
3773 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
3774 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
3775 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
3777 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
3778 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
3779 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
3780 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
3783 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
3784 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
3786 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
3787 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
3789 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
3790 code when called with a prefix argument.
3794 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
3795 current user setups (although it's believed that these
3796 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
3797 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
3798 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
3799 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
3802 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
3803 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
3804 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
3807 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
3808 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
3809 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
3810 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
3812 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
3813 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
3815 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
3816 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
3818 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
3819 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
3820 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
3821 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
3823 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
3824 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
3825 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
3826 earlier statement. An example:
3828 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
3830 res += a[i]->offset;
3833 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
3834 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
3835 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
3836 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
3839 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
3842 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
3843 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
3844 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
3845 documentation or other natural language text.
3847 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
3848 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
3849 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
3850 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
3851 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
3852 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
3853 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
3855 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
3856 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
3857 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
3858 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
3860 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
3861 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
3862 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
3863 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
3866 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
3867 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
3868 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
3869 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
3870 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
3871 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
3872 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
3873 is reported afterwards.
3875 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
3876 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
3877 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
3879 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
3880 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
3881 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
3882 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
3883 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
3884 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
3887 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
3888 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
3889 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
3890 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
3891 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
3894 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
3895 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
3896 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
3897 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
3898 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
3899 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
3901 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
3902 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
3903 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
3904 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
3905 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
3906 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
3907 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
3908 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
3910 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
3911 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
3912 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
3913 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
3916 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
3917 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
3918 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
3919 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
3920 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
3921 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
3922 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
3923 function documentation for more info.
3925 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
3926 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
3927 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
3928 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
3929 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
3930 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
3931 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
3932 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
3934 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
3936 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
3937 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
3939 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
3940 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
3941 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
3942 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
3943 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
3946 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
3947 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
3948 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
3951 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
3952 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
3953 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
3954 chapter about this in the manual.
3956 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
3957 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
3958 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
3959 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
3960 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
3962 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
3963 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
3964 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
3966 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
3967 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
3969 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
3970 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
3971 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
3974 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
3975 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
3976 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
3977 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
3980 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
3981 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
3982 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
3983 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
3984 they were before the filling.
3986 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
3987 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
3988 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
3991 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
3992 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
3993 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
3994 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
3997 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
3998 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
3999 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4000 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4001 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4003 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4004 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4005 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4007 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4009 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4010 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4011 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4012 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4014 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4015 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4016 the column specified by comment-column.
4018 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4019 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4020 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4021 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4022 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4023 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4025 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4026 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4029 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4031 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4032 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4033 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4034 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4037 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4041 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4042 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4043 is, delete only empty directories.
4045 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4046 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4047 copy directories recursively.
4049 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4050 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4051 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4053 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4054 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4057 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4058 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4059 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4060 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4061 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4063 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4066 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4067 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4068 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4069 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4073 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4074 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4075 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4077 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4078 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4080 If you used procmail like in
4082 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4083 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4084 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4085 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4087 this now has changed to
4090 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4093 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4094 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4096 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4097 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4098 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4099 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4101 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4102 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4103 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4105 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4106 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4107 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4108 now just a compatibility layer.
4110 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4113 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4114 called to position point.
4116 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4117 summary buffers and NOV files.
4119 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4120 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4122 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4123 subtly different manner.
4125 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4126 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4127 ever-changing layouts.
4129 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4131 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4133 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4135 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4139 -------------------------
4143 C-c C-c q @quotation
4145 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4148 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4150 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4152 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4153 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4154 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4156 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4158 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4159 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4160 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4161 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4162 buffers to kill, as before.
4164 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4165 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4168 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4169 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4171 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4173 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4174 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4175 use. Default is 1000.
4177 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4178 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4180 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4182 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4184 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4185 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4186 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4187 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4189 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4190 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4191 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4194 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
4195 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4196 the normal block-hiding function.
4198 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4200 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4201 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4202 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4203 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4205 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4206 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4208 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4210 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4211 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4212 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4214 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4217 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4220 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4221 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4222 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4223 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4224 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4225 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4227 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4229 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4231 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4232 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4234 ** Changes in Font Lock
4236 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4237 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4239 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4240 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4242 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4243 the face used for each string/comment.
4245 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4246 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4248 ** Changes to Shell mode
4250 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4251 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4252 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4253 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4255 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4257 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4258 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4260 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4261 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4262 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4263 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4264 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4265 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4267 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4268 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4269 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4270 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4271 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4272 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4273 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4274 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4276 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4277 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4279 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4280 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4281 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4283 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4284 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4285 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4287 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4288 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4289 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4291 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4292 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4293 argument, it appends to the file.
4295 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4296 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4299 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4302 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4303 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4304 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4306 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4308 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4309 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4310 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4311 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4312 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4315 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4316 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4317 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4319 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4320 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4321 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4322 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4323 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4325 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4328 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4329 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4332 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4333 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4335 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4336 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4337 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4339 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4340 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4342 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4343 use the -f option when sending mail.
4345 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4346 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4347 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4348 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4349 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4350 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4352 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4353 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4354 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4356 ** Changes to TeX mode
4358 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4361 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4363 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4365 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4367 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4369 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4370 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4371 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4372 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4373 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4374 can be edited from that buffer.
4376 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4377 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4378 `A' to use all marked entries).
4380 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4381 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4383 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4384 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4385 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4388 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4389 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4390 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4391 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4393 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4394 has the following new features:
4396 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4397 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4398 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4399 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4401 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4402 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4403 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4404 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4405 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4408 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4413 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4414 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4415 spell-checks the current buffer.
4417 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4420 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4421 correction is made and re-checked.
4423 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4425 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4428 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4431 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4434 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4436 ** Makefile mode changes
4438 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4440 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4441 Fontlock mode is active.
4445 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4446 so that searches can be resumed.
4448 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4449 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4450 that started the search.
4452 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
4453 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
4455 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
4457 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
4458 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
4459 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
4460 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
4461 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
4462 `secondary-selection'.
4464 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
4465 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
4466 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
4467 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
4468 usual snappy response.
4470 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
4471 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
4472 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
4473 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
4477 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
4478 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
4479 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
4480 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
4481 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
4482 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
4483 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
4484 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
4485 file is registered in that backend.
4487 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
4488 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
4489 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
4490 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
4491 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
4492 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
4494 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
4495 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
4496 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
4497 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
4498 where it doesn't make sense.)
4500 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
4501 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
4502 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
4506 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
4507 checks are always done now.
4509 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
4512 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
4513 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
4514 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
4516 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
4517 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
4518 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
4519 the working file (``merge news'').
4521 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4522 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
4525 *** Multiple Backends
4527 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
4528 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
4529 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
4530 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
4533 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
4534 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
4535 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
4536 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
4538 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
4539 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
4540 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
4541 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
4542 current revision number from the more remote backend.
4544 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
4545 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
4546 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
4547 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
4549 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
4550 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
4551 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
4552 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
4556 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
4557 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
4558 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
4559 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
4560 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
4561 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
4562 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
4564 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
4565 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
4566 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
4567 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
4568 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
4569 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
4570 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
4571 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
4572 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
4573 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
4574 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
4577 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
4578 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
4579 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
4580 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
4581 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
4582 entire directory tree.
4584 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
4585 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
4586 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
4587 "watched" by other developers.)
4589 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4590 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
4591 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
4592 starting at the given directory.
4594 *** Lisp Changes in VC
4596 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
4597 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
4598 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
4599 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
4600 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
4601 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
4602 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
4603 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
4604 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
4606 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
4607 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
4608 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
4609 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
4611 ** New modes and packages
4613 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
4614 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
4615 the default is not applicable.
4617 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
4618 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
4619 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
4623 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
4624 drawn, like this: | \ /
4628 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
4629 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
4630 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
4631 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
4632 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
4635 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
4636 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
4638 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
4641 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
4642 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
4643 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
4644 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
4646 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
4647 also do without the mouse.
4649 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
4650 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
4651 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
4652 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
4653 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
4655 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
4657 lines straight-lines
4659 poly-lines straight poly-lines
4661 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
4662 spray-can setting size for spraying
4663 vaporize line vaporize lines
4664 erase characters erase rectangles
4666 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
4667 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
4668 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
4671 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
4672 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
4673 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
4674 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
4676 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
4679 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
4680 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
4681 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
4682 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
4683 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
4684 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
4685 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
4686 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
4687 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
4689 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
4690 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
4691 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
4692 on certain projects.
4694 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
4695 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
4697 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
4699 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
4700 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
4701 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
4702 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
4703 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
4704 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
4705 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
4706 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
4708 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
4711 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
4712 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
4714 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
4715 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
4717 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
4718 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
4719 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
4720 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
4721 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
4723 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
4724 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
4725 separate Texinfo file.
4727 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
4728 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
4729 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
4730 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
4731 enter check-in log messages.
4733 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
4734 without invoking external programs.
4736 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
4737 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
4738 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
4739 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
4740 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
4742 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
4743 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
4745 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
4746 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
4748 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
4749 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
4750 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
4751 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
4752 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
4755 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
4756 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
4757 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
4758 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
4760 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
4761 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
4762 actually modifying content of a buffer.
4764 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
4767 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
4769 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
4771 ; comment (until end of line)
4775 $A default non-terminal
4776 $"C" default terminal
4777 $?C? default special
4778 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
4779 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
4780 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
4781 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
4782 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
4783 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
4784 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
4785 C+ one or more occurrences of C
4786 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
4787 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
4788 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
4789 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
4790 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
4791 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4792 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4794 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
4796 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
4797 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
4798 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
4799 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
4800 equal signs of assignments.
4802 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
4803 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
4805 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
4806 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
4807 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
4809 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
4811 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
4812 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
4813 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
4814 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
4815 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
4816 which answers different needs.
4818 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
4819 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
4820 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
4821 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
4822 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
4825 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
4826 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
4828 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
4830 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
4831 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
4832 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
4834 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
4836 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
4837 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
4838 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
4839 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
4840 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
4841 and background colors.
4843 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
4846 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
4849 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
4851 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
4853 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
4854 whitespace in a file.
4856 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
4857 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
4858 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
4859 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
4860 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
4861 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
4862 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
4864 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
4866 Here is an example of columns:
4869 dog pineapple car EXTRA
4870 porcupine strawberry airplane
4872 Doing the following settings:
4874 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
4875 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
4876 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
4877 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
4880 Selecting the lines above and typing:
4882 M-x delimit-columns-region
4886 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
4887 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
4888 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
4890 delim-col has the following options:
4892 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
4895 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
4896 between each column.
4898 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
4901 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
4904 delim-col has the following commands:
4906 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
4907 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
4909 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
4910 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
4911 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
4912 recent file list can be displayed:
4914 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
4915 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
4916 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
4918 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
4919 dynamically change the menu appearance.
4921 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
4924 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
4925 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
4926 specific to Message mode.
4928 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
4929 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
4930 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
4932 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
4933 interface to access directory servers using different directory
4934 protocols. It has a separate manual.
4936 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
4937 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
4939 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
4941 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
4942 minibuffer with completion.
4944 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
4945 with the diary features.
4947 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
4948 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
4950 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
4953 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
4954 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
4955 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
4956 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
4958 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
4959 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
4962 ** Changes in sort.el
4964 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
4965 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
4966 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
4969 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
4971 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
4972 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
4973 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
4975 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
4976 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
4978 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
4979 output ^M at the end of lines.
4981 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
4982 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
4984 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
4985 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
4988 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
4991 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
4992 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
4995 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
4996 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
4997 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
4998 nil -- just delete one character.
5000 Default value is `untabify'.
5002 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5004 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5005 symbol, not double-quoted.
5007 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5008 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5009 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5010 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5012 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5013 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5014 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5016 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5017 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5018 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5020 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5021 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5023 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5024 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5026 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5027 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5029 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5030 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5031 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5032 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5033 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5034 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5036 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5037 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5039 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5041 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5042 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5044 ** Shell script mode changes.
5046 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5047 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5048 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5052 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5054 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5055 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5056 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5057 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5058 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5060 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5061 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5063 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5064 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5066 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5067 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5068 `template' keywords.
5070 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5071 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5073 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5076 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5078 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5080 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5083 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5085 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5086 variables are tagged.
5088 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5090 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5093 ** Changes in etags.el
5095 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5096 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5097 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5099 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5100 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5102 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5103 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5104 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5105 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5107 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5109 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5110 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5112 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5114 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5115 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5116 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5118 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5119 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5121 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5122 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5124 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5125 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5126 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5127 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5128 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5130 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5131 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5132 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5134 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5135 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5136 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5138 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5139 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5140 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5142 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5144 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5146 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5147 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5148 expression from that list, are not checked.
5150 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5151 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5152 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5153 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5155 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5157 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5158 displays local abbrevs, only.
5160 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5161 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5163 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5164 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5165 is measured in pixels.
5167 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5168 to be visited as images.
5170 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5171 were added to compile.el.
5173 ** Withdrawn packages
5175 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5176 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5178 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5180 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5183 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5185 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5186 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5187 See the sections below for details.
5189 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5190 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5191 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5192 to remove the properties of the copy.
5194 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
5195 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5196 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5197 these properties are active.
5199 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5200 ranges may affect some code.
5202 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5203 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5204 make a difference to some code.
5206 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5207 operates on the minibuffer.
5209 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5210 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5211 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5212 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5213 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5214 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5215 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5216 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5217 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5218 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5219 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5220 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5222 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5223 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5224 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5226 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5227 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5228 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5230 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5231 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5232 such as `mapconcat'.
5234 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5237 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5238 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5239 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5240 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5241 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5242 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5243 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5244 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5246 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5247 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5248 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5249 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5250 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5251 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5252 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5253 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5254 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5255 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5258 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5259 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5261 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5263 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5264 allows the animated display of strings.
5266 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5267 interactive form of a function.
5269 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5270 between custom options. Example:
5272 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5273 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5274 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5275 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5277 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5278 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5280 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5281 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5282 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5284 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5285 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5286 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5287 (signal or normal termination).
5289 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5290 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5292 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5293 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5295 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5296 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5298 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5300 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5301 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5304 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5306 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5307 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5308 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5309 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5310 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5313 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5314 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5317 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5318 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5320 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5321 with the more general `:mask' property.
5323 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5325 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5328 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5329 is running in batch mode. For example,
5331 (message "%s" (read t))
5333 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5336 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5337 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5339 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5340 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5343 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5346 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5348 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5349 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5351 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5353 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5354 comparison is done with `eq'.
5356 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5358 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5359 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5360 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5362 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5363 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5364 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5366 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5367 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5369 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5370 function was declared obsolete.
5372 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5373 retained as an alias).
5375 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5376 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5377 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5379 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5381 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5383 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5384 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5385 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5386 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5387 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5388 means never include the minibuffer window.
5390 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5392 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5394 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5396 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5397 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5398 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5399 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5402 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5403 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5404 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5405 minibuffer even if it is active.
5407 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5408 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5409 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5410 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5411 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5412 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5414 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5415 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5416 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5417 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5418 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5419 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5420 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5422 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5423 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5424 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5426 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5427 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5428 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5429 Default value is nil.
5431 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5434 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5435 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5436 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5438 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5439 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5440 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5442 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5443 list of a primitive.
5445 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5447 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5448 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5449 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5450 than replacing the local map.
5452 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
5453 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
5454 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
5457 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
5459 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
5460 as promised long ago.
5462 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
5464 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
5465 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
5466 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
5469 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
5471 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
5472 regular expressions.
5474 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
5476 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5480 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5482 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
5486 matches string STRING literally.
5489 matches character CHAR literally.
5492 matches any character except a newline.
5495 matches any character
5498 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
5499 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
5505 matches any character not in SET
5508 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
5509 in the text being matched
5512 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
5515 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5516 string being matched against.
5519 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5520 string being matched against.
5523 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5524 buffer being matched against.
5527 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5528 buffer being matched against.
5531 matches the empty string, but only at point.
5534 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5538 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
5541 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5544 `(not word-boundary)'
5545 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
5549 matches 0 through 9.
5552 matches ASCII control characters.
5555 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5558 matches space and tab only.
5561 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5565 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5569 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5570 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5573 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5574 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5577 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5580 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5583 matches anything lower-case.
5586 matches anything upper-case.
5589 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5590 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5593 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5596 matches anything that has word syntax.
5599 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
5600 of the following symbols.
5602 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
5603 `punctuation' (\\s.)
5606 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
5607 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
5608 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
5609 `string-quote' (\\s\")
5610 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
5612 `character-quote' (\\s/)
5613 `comment-start' (\\s<)
5614 `comment-end' (\\s>)
5616 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
5617 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
5619 `(category CATEGORY)'
5620 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
5621 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
5623 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
5625 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
5626 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
5630 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
5632 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
5633 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
5634 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
5635 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
5636 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
5637 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
5638 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
5639 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
5640 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
5641 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
5642 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
5651 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
5655 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
5662 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
5663 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
5665 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5666 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
5668 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5669 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
5670 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
5672 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5673 another name for `submatch'.
5675 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5676 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
5677 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
5680 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
5681 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
5682 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
5683 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
5684 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
5686 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
5687 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
5689 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
5690 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5693 like `zero-or-more'.
5696 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5699 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5701 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
5702 matches one or more occurrences of A.
5708 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5711 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5713 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
5714 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
5720 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5723 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5726 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5729 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5732 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
5736 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
5738 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
5740 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
5741 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
5742 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
5743 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
5745 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
5746 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
5747 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
5748 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
5750 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
5751 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
5752 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
5754 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
5755 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
5756 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
5757 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
5758 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
5759 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
5760 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
5763 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
5765 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
5766 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
5767 character set as previously.
5769 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
5770 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
5771 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
5773 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
5774 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
5775 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
5776 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
5778 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
5779 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
5781 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
5782 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
5785 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
5786 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
5788 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
5789 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
5790 buffers and strings.
5792 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
5793 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
5794 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
5795 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
5796 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
5797 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
5798 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
5801 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
5802 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
5803 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
5805 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
5806 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
5807 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
5808 may differ between buffer and string text.
5810 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
5811 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
5813 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
5814 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
5815 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
5816 `composition' from STRING.
5818 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
5819 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
5821 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
5824 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
5825 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
5827 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
5828 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
5829 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
5830 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
5832 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
5833 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
5834 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
5835 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
5836 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
5837 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
5839 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
5840 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
5841 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
5843 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
5844 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
5845 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
5847 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
5848 have been introduced.
5850 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5851 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
5852 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
5853 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
5854 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
5855 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
5856 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
5857 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
5858 their multibyte equivalent.
5860 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
5861 that offset in the file before writing.
5863 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
5864 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
5866 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
5867 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
5868 from which the command was issued.
5870 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
5871 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
5872 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
5873 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
5876 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
5877 to `window-buffer-height'.
5879 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
5881 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
5882 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
5883 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
5885 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
5888 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
5889 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
5891 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
5892 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
5893 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
5895 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
5896 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
5897 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
5898 is currently displayed in some window.
5900 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
5901 argument function's results.
5903 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
5904 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
5905 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
5906 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
5909 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
5910 header in the list of headers passed to it.
5912 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
5913 ignores differences in case and text representation.
5915 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
5916 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
5919 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
5920 nil don't display a cursor
5921 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
5922 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
5923 others display a box cursor.
5925 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
5926 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
5927 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
5928 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
5930 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
5931 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
5932 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
5933 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
5937 (string-to-syntax "()")
5940 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
5943 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
5944 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
5951 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
5956 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
5961 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
5968 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
5969 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
5972 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
5973 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
5974 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
5975 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
5977 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
5979 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
5980 for a regexp in a string.
5982 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
5983 `mouse-position-function'.
5985 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
5986 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
5988 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
5989 Keywords are now always considered constants.
5991 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
5994 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
5995 returned by function `recent-keys'.
5997 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
5998 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
5999 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6000 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6003 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6004 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6006 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6007 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6008 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6009 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6012 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6013 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6014 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6015 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6017 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6018 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6019 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6021 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6022 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6025 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6027 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6028 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6029 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6032 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6033 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6034 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6035 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6036 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6038 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6039 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6041 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6042 instead of being optional.
6044 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6045 modify read-only text.
6047 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6049 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6050 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6051 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6052 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6053 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6055 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6056 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6057 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6058 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6059 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6060 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6061 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6063 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6064 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6065 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6068 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6069 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6071 ** New function `propertize'
6073 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6074 strings with text properties.
6076 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6078 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6079 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6080 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6081 specified value of that property. Example:
6083 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6085 ** push and pop macros.
6087 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6088 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6089 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6091 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6092 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6093 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6095 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6097 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6098 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6100 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6101 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6102 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6103 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6105 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6106 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6107 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6108 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6110 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6111 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6112 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6115 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6116 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6117 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6118 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6119 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6121 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6123 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6124 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6125 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6126 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6127 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6128 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6129 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6130 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6131 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6132 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6133 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6134 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6135 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6136 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6137 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6139 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6141 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6143 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6145 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6146 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6150 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6151 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6152 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6156 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6157 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6159 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6161 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6162 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6163 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6164 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6165 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6167 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6169 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6170 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6171 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6175 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6176 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6177 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6178 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6179 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6181 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6183 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6185 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6187 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6189 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6191 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6194 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6196 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6198 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6200 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6202 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6204 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6206 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6208 Returns the size of TABLE.
6210 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6212 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6214 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6216 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6218 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6222 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6224 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6227 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6229 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6230 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6232 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6234 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6236 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6238 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6239 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6241 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6243 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6245 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6247 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6248 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6249 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6250 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6251 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6253 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6255 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6256 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6257 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6259 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6260 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6262 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6263 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6265 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6266 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6268 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6269 'case-fold-string-hash))
6271 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6273 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6275 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6276 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6277 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6279 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6281 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6282 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6284 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6285 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6286 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6287 is too short to reach that column.
6289 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6290 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6291 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6292 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6294 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6295 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6296 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6298 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6299 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6301 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6302 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6304 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6305 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6306 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6307 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6308 temporary-file-directory instead.
6310 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6311 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6312 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6313 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6315 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6316 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6318 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6320 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6321 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6322 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6324 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6326 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6327 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6328 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6329 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6330 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6331 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6333 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6334 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6335 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6336 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6338 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6340 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6341 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6342 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6345 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6346 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6350 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6352 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6353 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6356 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6358 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6360 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6361 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6364 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6366 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6367 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6372 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6373 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6375 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6376 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6377 to enable sound support.
6379 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6380 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6381 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6382 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6383 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6385 The following sound properties are supported:
6389 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6390 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6394 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6395 may be present, but not both.
6399 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6400 0..1. This property is optional.
6404 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6405 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6407 Other properties are ignored.
6409 An alternative interface is called as
6410 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6412 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6414 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6417 ** Changes to garbage collection
6419 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6420 of live and free strings.
6422 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6423 strings that have been consed so far.
6426 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6429 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6432 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6433 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6434 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6436 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6438 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6440 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6443 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6445 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6447 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6448 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6449 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6450 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
6451 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
6453 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
6456 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
6458 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
6459 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
6460 or omitted means use the selected frame.
6462 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
6463 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
6465 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
6468 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
6472 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
6474 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
6475 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
6477 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
6478 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
6479 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
6480 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
6481 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
6482 just display it black instead.
6484 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
6487 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
6491 ** New face implementation.
6493 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
6494 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
6498 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
6500 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
6502 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
6503 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
6505 3. Font height in 1/10pt
6507 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
6509 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
6511 6. Foreground color.
6513 7. Background color.
6515 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
6517 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
6519 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
6521 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
6523 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
6526 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
6527 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
6529 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
6530 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
6531 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
6532 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
6533 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
6534 attributes mentioned above.
6536 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
6537 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
6540 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
6541 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
6546 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
6547 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
6548 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
6549 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
6550 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
6551 results in a fully-specified face.
6553 *** Face realization.
6555 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
6556 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
6557 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
6558 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
6559 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
6560 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
6562 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
6563 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
6564 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
6565 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
6567 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
6568 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
6569 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
6570 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
6571 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
6573 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
6574 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
6575 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
6576 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
6577 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
6580 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
6581 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
6582 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
6583 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
6585 **** Clearing face caches.
6587 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
6588 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
6593 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
6594 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
6595 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
6597 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
6598 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
6599 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
6600 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
6601 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
6603 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
6604 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
6605 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
6607 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
6609 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
6610 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
6611 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
6612 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
6613 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
6614 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
6615 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
6617 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6618 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
6621 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6622 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
6625 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
6628 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
6633 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
6634 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
6637 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
6638 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
6639 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
6640 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
6641 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
6644 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
6646 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
6648 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
6650 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
6652 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
6653 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
6654 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
6656 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
6657 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
6658 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
6659 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
6660 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
6661 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
6662 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
6663 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
6664 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
6665 of the face font sort order.
6667 - Function: x-font-family-list
6669 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
6670 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
6671 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
6672 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
6674 - Variable: font-list-limit
6676 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
6677 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
6678 matching font. The default is currently 100.
6680 *** Setting face attributes.
6682 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
6683 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
6684 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
6687 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
6688 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
6690 The following attributes are recognized:
6694 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
6695 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
6696 and `?' are allowed.
6700 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
6701 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
6702 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
6703 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
6707 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
6708 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
6709 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
6710 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
6714 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
6715 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
6716 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
6720 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
6721 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
6724 `:foreground', `:background'
6726 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
6730 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
6731 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
6732 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
6737 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
6738 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
6739 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
6744 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
6745 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
6746 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
6747 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
6751 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
6752 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
6753 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
6754 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
6755 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
6756 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
6757 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
6758 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
6759 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
6760 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
6761 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
6762 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
6763 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
6764 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
6765 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
6766 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
6771 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
6772 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
6776 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
6777 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
6778 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
6779 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
6780 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
6781 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
6783 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
6784 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
6788 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
6789 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
6790 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
6793 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
6794 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
6795 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
6797 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
6802 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
6803 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
6804 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
6806 *** Face attributes and X resources
6808 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
6811 Face attribute X resource class
6812 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
6813 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
6814 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
6815 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
6816 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
6817 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
6818 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
6819 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
6820 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
6821 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
6822 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
6823 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
6824 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
6825 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
6826 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
6827 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
6828 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6829 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
6830 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
6831 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6833 *** Text property `face'.
6835 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
6836 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
6837 specification can be
6839 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
6841 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
6842 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
6843 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
6844 for face attribute names.
6846 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
6847 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
6848 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
6850 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
6852 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
6853 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
6854 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
6855 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
6856 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
6857 used to clear the mapping table.
6859 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
6861 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
6862 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
6863 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
6864 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
6865 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
6866 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
6867 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
6868 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
6869 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
6870 modify their color-related behavior.
6872 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
6875 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
6877 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
6878 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
6879 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
6880 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
6881 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
6882 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
6883 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
6884 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
6885 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
6887 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
6888 display can display image files.
6890 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
6892 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
6893 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
6894 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
6895 `Inviolable' option.
6897 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
6898 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
6899 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
6901 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
6903 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
6904 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
6905 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
6907 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
6908 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
6909 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
6910 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
6911 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
6912 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
6913 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
6916 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
6917 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
6918 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
6920 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
6922 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
6924 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
6926 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6927 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
6928 constrained position if that is different.
6930 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
6931 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
6932 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
6933 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
6934 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6935 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
6936 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
6937 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
6938 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
6940 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
6941 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
6942 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
6943 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
6944 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
6946 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
6947 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
6949 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
6951 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
6953 Delete the field surrounding POS.
6954 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6955 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6957 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6959 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
6960 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6961 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6962 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
6963 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
6965 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
6967 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
6968 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6969 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6970 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
6971 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
6973 - Function: field-string &optional POS
6975 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
6976 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6977 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6979 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
6981 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
6982 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
6983 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
6987 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
6988 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
6989 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
6990 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
6992 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
6993 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
6994 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
6995 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
6998 IMAGE is an image specification.
7000 *** Image specifications
7002 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7003 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7004 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7005 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7006 described below are ignored.
7008 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7012 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7013 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7014 to use for its ascent.
7016 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7017 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7019 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7020 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7021 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7022 overlays that apply to the image.
7026 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7027 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7028 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7032 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7037 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7039 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7040 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7042 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7043 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7044 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7045 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7046 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7047 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7048 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7049 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7052 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7054 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7056 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7057 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7058 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7059 of the factors' absolute values.
7061 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7067 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7073 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7078 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7079 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7080 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7081 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7082 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7083 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7084 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7087 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7088 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7093 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7094 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7095 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7096 may be present in the image specification.
7100 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7101 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7102 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7103 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7105 *** Supported image types
7107 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7109 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7110 properties supported are:
7114 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7115 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7119 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7120 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7122 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7123 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7124 instead of a `:file' property.
7128 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7132 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7138 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7139 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7141 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7143 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7146 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7147 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7150 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7152 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7153 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7154 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7155 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7157 Additional image properties supported are:
7159 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7161 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7162 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7165 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7166 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7168 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7169 to display compressed images.
7171 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7173 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7174 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7179 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7180 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7184 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7185 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7187 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7189 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7190 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7193 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
7195 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7196 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7199 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7201 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7202 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7204 Additional image properties supported are:
7208 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7209 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
7211 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7212 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7213 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7216 (defun show-anim (file max)
7217 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7218 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7220 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7223 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7226 (goto-char (point-min))
7227 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7228 (insert-image img "x"))
7229 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7231 **** PNG, image type `png'
7233 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7234 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7237 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7239 Additional image properties supported are:
7243 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7244 integer. This is a required property.
7248 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7249 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7253 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7254 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7255 files. This is an required property.
7257 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7262 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7263 which are supported in the current configuration.
7265 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7266 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7267 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7268 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7269 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7271 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7273 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7274 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7275 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7276 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7277 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7282 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7285 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7286 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7287 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7288 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7289 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7290 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7291 of the display margins.
7293 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7294 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7295 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7296 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7301 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7302 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7303 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7304 that have a `help-echo' property.
7306 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7307 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7308 the window in which the help was found.
7310 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7311 `help-echo' text property was found.
7313 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7314 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7316 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7317 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7320 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7321 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7323 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7324 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7325 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7326 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7327 used as help string.
7329 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7330 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7331 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7333 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7335 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7336 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7338 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7339 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7340 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7341 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7344 (global-set-key [A-down]
7347 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7348 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7349 (global-set-key [A-up]
7352 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7353 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7355 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7357 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7358 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7359 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7360 is called with one argument, POS.
7362 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7363 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7364 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7365 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7366 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7368 ** Tool bar support.
7370 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7371 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7372 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7373 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7374 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7375 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7377 *** Tool bar item definitions
7379 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7380 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7381 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7383 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7384 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7385 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7386 property (see below).
7388 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7389 binding are currently ignored.
7391 The following properties are recognized:
7395 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7400 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7404 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7405 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7406 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7408 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7410 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7411 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7415 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7416 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7417 meaning of each of the four elements:
7419 Index Use when item is
7420 ----------------------------------------
7421 0 enabled and selected
7422 1 enabled and deselected
7423 2 disabled and selected
7424 3 disabled and deselected
7426 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7427 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7429 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7431 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7432 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7434 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7435 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7436 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7439 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7440 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7441 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7443 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7445 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7446 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7447 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7449 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
7450 raised when the mouse moves over them.
7452 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
7453 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
7454 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
7455 vertical margins . Default is 1.
7457 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
7458 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
7460 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
7462 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
7465 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
7466 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
7467 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
7469 is the original tool bar item definition, then
7471 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
7473 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
7476 ** Mode line changes.
7478 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
7480 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
7481 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
7482 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
7484 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
7485 a `local-map' text property.
7487 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
7488 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
7490 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
7491 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
7492 `local-map' property.
7494 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
7495 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
7498 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
7499 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
7501 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
7502 variable mode-line-format to nil.
7504 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
7506 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
7507 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
7508 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
7509 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
7512 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
7515 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
7516 position in the header-line.
7518 ** Text property `display'
7520 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
7521 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
7522 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
7523 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
7524 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
7526 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
7528 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
7529 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
7531 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
7532 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
7533 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
7534 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7535 simpler form STRING as property value.
7537 *** Variable width and height spaces
7539 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
7540 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
7541 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
7542 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
7543 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
7544 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7545 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
7547 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
7548 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
7549 properties described below.
7551 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
7552 characters having the `display' property.
7556 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
7557 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
7559 - :relative-width FACTOR
7561 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
7562 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
7563 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
7564 width of that character by FACTOR.
7568 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
7569 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
7571 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
7575 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
7578 - :relative-height FACTOR
7580 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
7581 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
7585 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
7586 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
7587 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
7590 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
7594 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
7595 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
7596 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
7597 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
7598 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
7599 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
7600 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
7601 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
7602 as display specification.
7604 *** Other display properties
7606 - (space-width FACTOR)
7608 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
7609 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
7614 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
7616 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
7617 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
7618 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
7619 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
7620 a font is available counts as a step.
7622 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
7623 as tall as the frame's default font.
7625 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
7626 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
7628 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
7629 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
7633 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
7634 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
7635 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
7636 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
7637 `height' subproperty.
7639 *** Conditional display properties
7641 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
7642 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
7643 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
7644 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
7645 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
7646 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
7647 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
7648 different when object is a string.
7650 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
7653 ** New menu separator types.
7655 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
7656 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
7657 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
7658 to specify other menu separator types.
7660 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
7662 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
7665 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
7667 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
7669 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
7671 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
7673 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
7675 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7677 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
7679 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7681 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
7683 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
7684 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
7686 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
7688 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
7690 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
7692 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
7694 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
7696 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
7698 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
7700 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7702 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
7704 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
7706 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
7708 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7710 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
7712 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
7714 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
7715 the corresponding single-line separators.
7717 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
7719 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
7720 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
7721 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
7722 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
7723 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
7724 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
7725 default foreground is black.
7727 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
7728 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
7729 `ScrollBarBackground').
7731 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
7732 settings for scroll bar colors.
7734 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
7735 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
7737 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
7738 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
7739 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
7740 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
7741 the original window start.
7743 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
7744 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
7745 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
7747 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
7749 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
7750 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
7751 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
7752 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
7754 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
7755 fixed-width and fixed-height.
7757 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
7759 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
7760 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
7761 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
7762 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
7763 temporarily to nil, for example
7765 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
7766 (enlarge-window 10))
7768 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
7769 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
7771 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
7772 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
7773 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
7774 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
7775 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
7776 support a vertical-bar cursor).
7780 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
7782 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
7785 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
7787 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
7789 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
7790 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
7791 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
7792 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
7793 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
7795 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
7799 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
7801 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
7805 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7807 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
7808 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
7810 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
7812 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
7814 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
7815 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
7816 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
7818 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
7819 is the one that is used.
7821 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
7822 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
7823 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
7824 separate from the command's regular output.
7825 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
7826 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
7827 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
7830 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
7831 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
7832 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
7833 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
7835 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
7836 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
7837 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
7838 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
7840 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
7841 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
7842 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
7843 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
7845 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
7846 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
7847 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
7848 they never ignore case.
7850 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
7851 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
7852 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
7853 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
7854 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
7855 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
7856 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
7858 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
7859 the same format that was used in the file before.
7861 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
7862 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
7864 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
7865 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
7866 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
7868 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
7869 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
7870 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
7871 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
7872 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
7873 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
7874 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
7876 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
7877 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
7878 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
7879 format. You can now customize these variables.
7881 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
7882 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
7883 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
7884 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
7886 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
7887 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
7888 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
7890 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
7891 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
7892 doesn't have any effect.
7894 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
7897 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
7898 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
7899 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
7901 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
7902 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
7903 `auto-show-mode' command.
7905 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
7906 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
7907 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
7908 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
7909 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
7911 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
7912 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
7914 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
7915 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
7916 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
7918 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
7919 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
7920 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
7921 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
7923 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
7925 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
7926 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
7927 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
7928 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
7929 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
7931 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
7932 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
7934 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
7935 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
7936 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
7937 `?' on other systems.
7939 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
7940 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
7943 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
7944 current codepage when it starts.
7948 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
7949 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
7950 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
7951 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
7952 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
7953 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
7957 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
7958 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
7960 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
7961 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
7962 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
7963 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
7964 buffer-file-coding-system.
7966 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
7967 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
7970 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
7971 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
7972 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
7973 list of possible coding systems.
7977 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
7978 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
7979 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
7980 docstring for details.
7982 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
7983 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
7984 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
7985 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
7986 lineup functions use this feature currently.
7988 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
7989 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
7991 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
7992 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
7994 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
7995 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
7996 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
7997 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8000 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8001 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8003 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8004 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8005 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8006 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8008 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8009 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8010 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8011 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8012 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8014 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8016 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8018 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8019 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8021 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8023 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8024 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8025 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8026 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8027 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8031 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8032 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8033 Gnus manual for the full story.
8035 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8036 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8037 group, which is created automatically.
8039 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8042 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8044 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8045 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8047 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8050 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8052 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8053 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8055 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8057 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8058 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8060 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8061 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8063 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8064 control over simplification.
8066 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8068 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8071 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8073 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8075 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8076 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8077 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8079 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8080 `a' forces normal posting method.
8082 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8085 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8088 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8089 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8091 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8094 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8096 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8098 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8099 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8101 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8102 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8104 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8106 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8109 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8110 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8112 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8113 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8115 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8117 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8119 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8121 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8123 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8124 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8125 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8127 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8128 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8129 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8130 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8131 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8133 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8134 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8135 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8136 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8138 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8139 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8140 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8143 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8145 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8146 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8148 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8149 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8150 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8151 removed from the label.
8153 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8154 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8156 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8157 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8159 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8160 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8163 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8165 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8167 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8168 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8170 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8171 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8172 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8174 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8175 changes with a special face.
8177 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8178 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8179 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8181 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8183 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8184 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8185 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8186 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8187 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8189 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8190 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8191 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8193 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
8194 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
8195 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8196 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8197 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8198 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8199 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8200 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8201 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8203 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8204 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8205 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8206 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8207 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8210 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8211 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8212 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8213 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8214 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8215 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8217 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8218 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8219 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8220 was not documented clearly before.
8222 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8223 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8225 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8227 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8228 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8229 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8230 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8232 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8233 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8234 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8236 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8238 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8239 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8241 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8242 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8245 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8246 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8247 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8248 file names and attributes are returned.
8250 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8251 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8252 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8253 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8256 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8257 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8259 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8261 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8262 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8263 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8266 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8267 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8270 The new function process-running-child-p
8271 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8272 terminal to its own child process.
8274 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8275 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8276 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8277 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8279 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8280 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8282 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8283 :included is an alias for :visible.
8285 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8286 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8287 to move or copy menu entries.
8289 ** Multibyte editing changes
8291 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8292 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8293 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8294 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8295 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8296 (setq char (sref str idx)
8297 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8298 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8300 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8301 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8302 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8304 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8305 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8306 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8308 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8310 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8311 across the boundary.
8313 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8314 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8315 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8316 contains 8-bit characters.
8317 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8318 contains invalid characters.
8320 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8321 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8322 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8323 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8326 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8327 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8328 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8329 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8331 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8332 compose Thai characters in a string.
8334 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8335 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8336 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8337 menus should always use the third argument.
8339 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8340 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8341 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8342 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8344 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8345 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8346 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8347 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8349 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8350 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8351 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8354 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8356 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8357 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8358 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8360 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8361 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8362 means to clear out that attribute.
8364 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8365 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8367 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8368 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8369 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8370 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8372 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8373 the gap of the current buffer.
8375 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8376 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8379 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8380 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8381 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8382 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8384 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8386 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8387 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8388 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8389 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8390 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8392 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8393 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8394 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8395 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8396 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8398 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8399 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8400 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8402 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8403 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8404 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8405 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8406 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8409 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8410 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8411 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8412 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8414 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8416 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8417 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8418 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8419 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8421 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8422 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8423 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8424 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8425 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8426 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8427 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8430 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8433 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8434 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8435 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8436 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8437 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8439 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8440 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8441 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8442 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8444 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8445 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8446 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8447 something that most users not do.
8449 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
8450 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
8451 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
8454 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
8457 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
8458 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
8459 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
8460 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
8463 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
8464 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
8465 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
8466 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
8467 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
8470 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
8471 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
8472 to be confused by TeX commands.
8474 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
8475 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
8476 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
8477 of various alternative replacements and actions.
8479 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
8480 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
8481 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
8482 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
8483 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
8485 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
8486 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
8488 ** Changes in input method usage.
8490 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
8491 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
8494 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
8496 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
8497 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
8499 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
8500 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
8502 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
8504 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
8506 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
8507 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
8509 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
8510 given in the following case:
8511 o When you are using a complex input method.
8512 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
8514 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
8515 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
8516 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
8517 setting it to t is helpful.
8519 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
8521 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
8523 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
8524 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
8525 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
8526 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
8529 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
8530 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
8531 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
8534 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
8536 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
8538 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
8539 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
8541 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
8542 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
8543 its owner and group.
8545 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
8546 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
8548 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
8549 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
8551 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
8552 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
8553 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
8554 by the left edge of the rectangle.
8556 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
8557 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
8558 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
8559 for writing keyboard macros.
8561 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
8562 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
8563 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
8564 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
8565 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
8568 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
8570 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
8571 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
8574 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
8575 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
8576 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
8577 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
8579 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
8580 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
8581 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
8583 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
8584 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
8585 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
8586 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
8588 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
8589 failure if the command produces no output.
8591 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
8592 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
8595 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
8596 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
8597 function and variable names.
8599 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
8600 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
8601 file-coding-system-alist.
8603 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
8604 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
8605 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
8606 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
8607 according to the current fontset.
8609 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
8611 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
8612 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
8613 nonascii-insert-offset.
8615 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
8616 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
8617 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
8618 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
8620 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
8621 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
8623 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
8624 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
8626 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
8627 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
8630 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
8631 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
8633 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
8634 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
8635 all variables that have documentation.
8637 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
8638 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
8639 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
8640 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
8641 it should show; the default is 20.
8643 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
8644 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
8647 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
8648 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
8649 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
8650 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
8651 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
8652 Newly added options are included as well.
8654 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
8655 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
8656 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
8658 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
8661 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
8662 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
8664 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
8665 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
8668 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
8669 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
8672 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
8673 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
8674 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
8675 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
8678 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
8680 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
8681 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
8682 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
8684 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
8685 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
8686 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
8691 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
8692 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
8694 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
8695 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
8697 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
8698 read and post multi-lingual articles.
8700 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
8701 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
8702 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
8703 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
8704 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
8705 made invisible again.
8707 ** Mail reading and sending changes
8709 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
8710 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
8711 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
8714 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
8715 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
8716 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
8717 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
8718 rmail-default-body-file.
8720 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
8721 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
8722 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
8724 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
8725 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
8726 is evaluated to insert the signature.
8728 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
8729 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
8730 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
8731 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
8732 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
8733 especially interested in trying feedmail.
8735 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
8736 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
8737 provided by feedmail are:
8739 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
8740 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
8741 there is also a queue for draft messages
8743 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
8744 be prompted for confirmation
8746 **** does smart filling of address headers
8748 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
8749 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
8750 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
8752 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
8753 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
8754 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
8755 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
8759 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
8760 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
8762 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
8763 run Dired on the directory name at point.
8765 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
8766 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
8767 for a specified regexp.
8771 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
8774 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
8775 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
8778 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
8779 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
8780 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
8781 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
8783 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
8784 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
8785 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
8786 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
8787 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
8789 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
8790 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
8791 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
8792 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
8793 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
8795 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
8796 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
8797 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
8798 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
8800 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
8801 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
8802 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
8804 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
8805 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
8806 session to resolve them.
8808 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
8809 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
8810 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
8813 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
8814 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
8815 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
8816 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
8817 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
8818 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
8821 ** Changes in Font Lock
8823 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
8824 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
8825 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
8826 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
8827 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
8829 ** Frame name display changes
8831 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
8832 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
8833 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
8834 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
8836 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
8837 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
8840 ** Comint (subshell) changes
8842 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
8843 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
8844 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
8846 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
8848 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
8849 that is, the line after the last line you got.
8850 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
8852 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
8853 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
8856 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
8857 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
8858 previously sent input.
8860 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
8861 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
8862 as the search string.
8864 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
8865 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
8869 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
8870 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
8871 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
8874 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
8875 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
8876 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
8877 style is still the default however.
8879 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
8881 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
8882 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
8883 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
8885 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
8886 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
8888 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
8889 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
8891 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
8892 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
8894 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
8895 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
8897 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
8898 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
8899 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
8900 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
8902 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
8904 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
8905 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
8906 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
8908 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
8909 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
8910 expanding dynamically.
8912 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
8913 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
8915 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
8916 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
8917 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
8918 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
8920 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
8922 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8924 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
8925 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
8926 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
8927 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
8928 against the first word in the title.
8930 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
8931 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
8932 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
8933 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
8934 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
8935 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
8937 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
8938 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
8939 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
8940 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
8942 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
8944 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
8945 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
8946 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
8947 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
8948 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
8949 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
8951 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
8952 Editing group once the package is loaded.
8954 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
8955 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
8956 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
8958 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
8959 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
8963 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
8964 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
8965 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
8967 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
8968 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
8969 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
8970 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
8973 o URLs are automatically skipped
8974 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
8976 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
8978 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8980 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
8981 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
8982 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
8983 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
8985 *** New recursive parser.
8987 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
8988 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
8989 recursive parser scans the individual files.
8991 *** Parsing only part of a document.
8993 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
8994 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
8995 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
8997 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
8999 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9001 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9003 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9005 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9007 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9008 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9010 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9012 *** References to external documents.
9014 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9015 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9016 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9017 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9018 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9019 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9020 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9022 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9024 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9025 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9027 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9028 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9030 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9032 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9033 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9035 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9037 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9038 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9039 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9040 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9041 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9042 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9045 *** Support for the varioref package
9047 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9051 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9052 and citations are created. These hooks are
9053 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9054 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9056 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9058 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9059 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9061 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9063 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9064 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9067 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9069 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9070 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9071 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9072 directories that contain the same file name.
9074 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9075 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9076 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9077 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9078 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9079 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9080 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9083 ** New modes and packages
9085 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9086 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9087 it, but some do not.
9089 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9092 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9093 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9096 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9098 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9099 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9100 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9101 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9103 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9104 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9105 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9107 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9108 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9109 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9110 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9111 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9114 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9115 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9117 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9118 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9119 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9120 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9122 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9124 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9125 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9126 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9127 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9128 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9129 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9130 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9131 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9132 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9133 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9134 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9136 Platform-specific modes:
9138 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9139 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9140 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9141 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9142 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9143 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9144 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9145 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9146 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9148 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9150 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9151 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9152 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9153 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9155 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9156 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9157 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9159 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9160 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9161 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9162 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9164 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9165 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9166 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9169 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9170 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9171 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9172 current input method for reading this one event.
9174 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9175 now control whether to output certain characters as
9176 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9177 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9178 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9179 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9181 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9183 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9184 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9186 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9187 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9188 always increases point by 1.
9190 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9191 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9193 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
9195 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9196 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9197 default value changed. For example,
9199 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9204 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9207 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9208 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9209 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9210 `:version' in the top level group.
9212 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9214 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9215 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9217 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9218 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9219 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9222 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9223 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9226 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9227 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9228 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9230 ** Frame-local variables.
9232 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9233 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9234 local bindings for that variable.
9236 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9237 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9238 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9241 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9242 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9243 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9244 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9246 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9247 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9248 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9249 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9251 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9252 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9253 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9254 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9255 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9257 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9258 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9259 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9260 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9262 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9263 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9265 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9266 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9267 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9269 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9270 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9271 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9272 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9274 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9275 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9278 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9279 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9280 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9281 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9282 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9284 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9285 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9286 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9287 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9289 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9290 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9291 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9292 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9293 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9295 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9296 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9297 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9298 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9300 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9301 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9302 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9304 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9305 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9306 was directed to display this buffer.
9308 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9309 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9310 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9311 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9312 set-window-configuration.
9314 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9315 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9316 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9317 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9319 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9320 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9321 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9323 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9324 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9325 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9327 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9328 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9330 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9331 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9333 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9334 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9335 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9337 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9338 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9339 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9340 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9344 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9345 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9348 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9349 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9350 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9351 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9352 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9354 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9356 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9357 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9358 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9359 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9362 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9363 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9364 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9365 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9366 The supported properties include
9368 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9370 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9371 item should appear in the menu.
9373 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9374 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9375 It should return a binding to use instead.
9377 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9378 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9379 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9380 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9381 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9384 This means that the command normally has no
9385 keyboard equivalent.
9386 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9387 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9388 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9389 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9390 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9392 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9393 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9395 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9399 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9400 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9401 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9402 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9404 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9406 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9407 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9408 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9409 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9410 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9411 forward, away from the user.
9413 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9415 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9416 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9417 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9418 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9419 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9421 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9423 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9424 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9425 that were dragged and dropped.
9427 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9429 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9431 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9432 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9433 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9435 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9436 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9437 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9439 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9440 in Emacs 19 and before.
9442 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9443 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9445 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9446 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9447 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9448 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
9450 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
9451 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
9452 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
9453 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
9454 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
9456 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
9457 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
9458 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
9459 consistent with the new representation.
9461 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
9462 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
9463 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
9464 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9466 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
9467 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
9468 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
9470 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
9471 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
9472 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9474 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
9475 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
9476 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
9478 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9479 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
9481 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9482 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
9484 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
9485 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
9486 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
9487 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
9489 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
9490 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
9492 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
9493 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
9494 buffer or string being searched.
9496 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
9497 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
9498 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
9499 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
9500 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
9501 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
9502 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
9504 *** Structure of coding system changed.
9506 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
9507 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
9508 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
9509 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
9510 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
9511 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
9512 define-coding-system-alias.
9514 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
9515 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
9516 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
9517 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
9518 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
9519 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
9520 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
9523 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
9524 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
9525 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
9526 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
9528 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
9529 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
9530 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
9531 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
9533 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
9534 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
9535 This function requires a user interaction.
9537 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
9538 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
9539 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
9540 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
9541 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
9542 select-safe-coding-system.
9544 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
9545 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
9546 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
9549 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
9550 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
9551 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
9553 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
9554 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
9555 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
9556 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
9558 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
9559 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
9560 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
9563 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
9564 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
9566 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
9567 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
9568 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
9569 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
9570 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
9571 range of characters.
9573 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
9574 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
9576 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
9577 in the current buffer at position POS.
9579 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
9580 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
9581 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
9582 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
9583 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
9584 binding input-method-function to nil.
9586 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
9587 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
9588 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
9589 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
9590 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
9592 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
9593 subsequent events of a key sequence.
9595 *** You can customize any language environment by using
9596 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
9598 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
9599 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
9600 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
9601 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
9602 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
9604 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
9606 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
9607 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
9608 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
9611 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
9612 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
9614 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
9615 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
9616 in your .emacs file.)
9618 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
9619 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
9621 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
9622 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
9624 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
9625 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
9628 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
9629 delete the character before point, as usual.
9631 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
9632 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
9633 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
9635 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
9636 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
9637 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
9638 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
9639 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
9642 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
9643 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
9644 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
9645 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
9646 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
9648 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
9649 and is an alias for it.
9651 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
9652 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
9654 ** Scrolling changes
9656 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
9657 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
9659 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
9660 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
9663 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
9664 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
9665 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
9666 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
9668 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
9669 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
9670 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
9671 recenters the window.
9673 ** International character set support (MULE)
9675 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
9676 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
9677 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
9678 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
9679 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
9680 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
9682 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
9683 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
9684 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
9685 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
9686 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
9688 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
9689 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
9690 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
9691 language, to make it possible to type them.
9693 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
9694 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
9696 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
9697 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
9699 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
9701 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
9703 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
9704 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
9705 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
9706 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
9707 characters for their work until they want to change.
9711 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
9712 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
9713 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
9714 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
9715 support several input methods.
9717 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
9718 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
9721 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
9722 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
9723 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
9724 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
9725 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
9728 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
9729 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
9730 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
9731 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
9732 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
9734 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
9735 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
9736 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
9737 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
9739 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
9740 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
9741 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
9742 the first guess is wrong.
9744 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
9745 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
9747 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
9748 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
9749 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
9750 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
9752 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
9753 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
9754 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
9755 translate automatically to and from either one.
9757 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
9759 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
9760 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
9761 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
9764 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
9765 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
9766 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
9767 multibyte characters in that buffer.
9769 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
9770 character conversion as well.
9772 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
9774 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
9775 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
9776 requires using many fonts.
9778 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
9779 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
9781 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
9782 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
9783 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
9784 you would use a font.
9786 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
9787 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
9788 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
9790 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
9791 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
9794 *** Defining fontsets.
9796 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
9797 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
9798 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
9800 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
9801 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
9802 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
9803 standard fontset are created automatically.
9805 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
9806 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
9807 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
9808 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
9809 name is `fontset-startup'.
9811 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
9812 The resource value should have this form:
9813 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
9814 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
9815 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
9816 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
9817 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
9818 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
9819 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
9820 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
9821 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
9823 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
9824 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
9825 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
9827 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
9828 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
9830 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
9831 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
9832 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
9833 Here is the substitution rule:
9834 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
9835 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
9836 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
9837 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
9838 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
9840 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
9841 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
9842 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
9844 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
9845 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
9846 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
9847 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
9850 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
9851 defaults for a particular choice of language.
9853 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
9854 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
9855 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
9856 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
9857 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
9858 system for new files that you create.
9860 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
9861 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
9862 whole Emacs session.
9864 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
9865 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
9866 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
9868 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
9869 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
9870 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
9871 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
9872 coding systems that Emacs supports.
9874 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
9875 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
9876 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
9877 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
9878 is used for *the immediately following command*.
9880 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
9881 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
9883 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
9884 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
9886 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
9887 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
9889 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
9890 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
9891 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
9892 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
9895 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
9896 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
9897 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
9898 translated into that character code.
9900 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
9901 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
9903 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
9905 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
9906 the coding system for keyboard input.
9908 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
9909 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
9910 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
9912 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
9914 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
9915 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
9916 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
9917 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
9918 designed to work with terminals.
9920 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
9921 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
9922 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
9923 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
9924 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
9925 in the corresponding buffer.
9927 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
9929 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
9930 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
9931 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
9933 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
9934 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
9935 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
9938 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
9939 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
9941 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
9942 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
9943 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
9944 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
9946 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
9947 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
9948 related information.
9950 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
9951 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
9954 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
9955 information about the support for a particular language.
9956 You specify the language as an argument.
9958 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
9959 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
9962 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
9963 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
9964 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
9965 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
9967 A alternativnyj (Russian)
9969 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
9970 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
9971 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
9972 E euc-japan (Japanese)
9973 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
9974 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
9975 K euc-korea (Korean)
9978 S shift_jis (Japanese)
9981 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
9982 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
9983 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
9987 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
9988 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
9989 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
9990 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
9992 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
9993 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
9995 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
9996 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
9997 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
9998 Rmail files themselves.
10000 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10001 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10003 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10006 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10007 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10008 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10009 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10010 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10012 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10013 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10014 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10017 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10018 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10019 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10020 without any conversion.
10022 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10023 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10024 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10025 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10027 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10028 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10030 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10031 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10033 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10034 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10036 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10037 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10038 in the buffer before point.
10040 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10041 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10044 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10045 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10047 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10049 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10050 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10052 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10053 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10054 can become a bottleneck.
10056 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10057 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10058 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10059 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10060 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10061 so useful that the change is worth while.
10063 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10064 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10065 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10066 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10068 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10069 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10072 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10073 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10074 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10076 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10077 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10078 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10080 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10081 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10082 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10084 ** Changes in View mode.
10086 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10087 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10089 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10090 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10092 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10095 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10096 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10098 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10099 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10100 not just the selected window.
10102 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10103 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10104 turns View mode on or off.
10106 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10107 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10108 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10110 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10111 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10113 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10114 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10115 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10116 which version to compare with.
10118 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10119 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10121 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10122 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10123 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10124 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10126 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10127 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10128 blocks, all of them or none.
10130 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10131 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10132 confirmation first.
10134 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10135 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10136 However, the mode will not be changed if
10137 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10138 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10139 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10140 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10142 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10144 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10145 these commands do not change the major mode.
10147 ** M-x occur changes.
10149 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10150 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10152 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10153 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10154 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10156 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10157 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10158 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10159 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10160 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10162 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10163 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10164 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10165 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10167 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10168 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10169 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10171 ** Outline mode changes.
10173 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10175 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10177 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10178 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10179 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10180 was already active.
10182 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10183 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10184 get confused by it.
10186 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10187 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10189 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10191 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10192 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10193 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
10194 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10196 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10197 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10198 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10200 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10201 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10204 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10205 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10206 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10207 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10209 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10210 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10211 can be. The default value is 30.
10213 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10215 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10216 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10217 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10218 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10219 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10222 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10223 compose-mail-other-frame.
10225 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10226 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10227 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10228 buffer that shows the original message.
10230 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10231 with separator lines around the contents.
10233 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10234 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10235 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10236 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10238 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10240 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10241 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10242 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10243 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10245 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10246 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10249 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10250 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10253 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10254 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10255 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10256 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10258 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10259 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10260 be taken to be magic.
10262 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10263 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10264 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10266 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10267 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10269 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10270 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10272 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10274 new key dired.el binding old key
10275 ------- ---------------- -------
10276 * c dired-change-marks c
10278 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10279 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10280 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10282 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10283 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10284 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10285 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10286 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10287 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10291 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10292 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10293 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10294 each time you run it.
10296 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10297 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10299 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10300 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10301 means to move in the opposite direction.
10303 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10304 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10306 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10307 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10308 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10309 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10314 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10316 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10319 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10320 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10322 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10325 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10327 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10329 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10331 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10332 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10333 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10335 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10337 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10339 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10340 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10342 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10343 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10344 used to pick articles.
10346 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10347 another have been added.
10349 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10351 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10352 generating lines in buffers.
10354 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10357 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10359 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10361 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10363 *** Scores can be decayed.
10365 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10367 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10368 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10370 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10373 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10375 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10376 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10378 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10380 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10381 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10383 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10384 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10386 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10389 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10390 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10392 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10394 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10396 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10398 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10400 Use the `Y c' command.
10402 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10404 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10406 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10408 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10409 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10411 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10413 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10415 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10416 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10418 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10420 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10421 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10422 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10423 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10426 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10427 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10428 particular news group. This can be done by:
10430 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10432 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10433 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10434 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10435 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10436 for reading and posting).
10438 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10439 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10440 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10441 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10444 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10445 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10447 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10448 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10449 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
10450 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
10451 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
10453 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
10454 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
10456 ** CC mode changes.
10458 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
10459 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
10460 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
10461 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
10462 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
10465 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
10466 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
10467 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
10468 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
10469 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
10470 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
10472 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
10473 of the current buffer.
10475 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
10476 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
10477 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
10479 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
10480 style that the Python developers like.
10482 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
10483 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
10484 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
10486 ** VC Changes [new]
10488 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
10489 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
10490 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
10492 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
10493 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
10496 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
10497 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
10499 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
10500 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
10501 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
10502 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
10504 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
10505 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
10507 ** Calendar changes.
10509 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
10510 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
10511 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
10512 following/previous years.
10514 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
10515 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
10516 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
10517 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
10518 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
10519 supposed attribute of God.
10521 ** ps-print changes
10523 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
10526 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
10528 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
10529 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
10530 printer system has this behavior, set variable
10531 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
10533 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
10534 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
10535 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
10537 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
10538 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
10540 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
10541 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
10542 printing for your printer.
10544 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
10545 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10547 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
10548 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10550 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
10551 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
10552 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
10553 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
10554 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
10555 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
10556 The default value is nil.
10558 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
10559 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
10561 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
10562 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
10563 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
10564 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
10565 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
10566 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
10567 color). The default is 0 ("black").
10569 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
10570 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
10572 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
10573 The default is 0 ("black").
10575 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
10576 The default is 0 ("black").
10578 border-width Specify the border width.
10579 The default is 0.4.
10581 Any other property is ignored.
10583 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
10584 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
10587 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
10588 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
10589 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
10590 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
10591 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
10592 controlling headers.
10594 *** Color management (subgroup)
10596 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
10599 *** Face Management (subgroup)
10601 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
10602 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
10603 background should be used. Valid values are:
10605 t always use face background color.
10606 nil never use face background color.
10607 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
10609 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
10611 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
10614 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
10615 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
10617 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
10620 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
10621 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
10622 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
10624 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
10628 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
10632 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
10636 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
10640 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
10642 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
10644 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
10647 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
10648 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
10649 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
10651 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
10652 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10653 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10654 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10655 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10659 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10660 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10661 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10664 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10665 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10666 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
10667 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
10668 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
10669 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10670 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10671 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10672 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
10673 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
10674 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
10677 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10679 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
10682 *** Printer management (subgroup)
10684 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
10685 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
10686 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
10687 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
10690 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
10691 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
10692 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
10694 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
10695 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
10698 *** Page settings (subgroup)
10700 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
10701 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
10702 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
10703 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
10704 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
10705 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
10708 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
10709 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
10710 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
10712 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
10713 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
10714 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
10715 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
10716 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
10717 its TO, are ignored.
10719 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
10720 pages. Valid values are:
10722 nil print all pages.
10724 `even-page' print only even pages.
10726 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
10728 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
10729 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10730 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
10731 print only the even sheet of paper.
10733 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
10734 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10735 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
10736 only the odd sheet of paper.
10738 Any other value is treated as nil.
10740 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
10741 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
10742 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
10744 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
10746 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
10747 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
10749 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
10750 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10751 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
10752 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10753 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10754 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10755 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10757 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
10758 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10759 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
10760 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
10761 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
10762 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
10763 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
10765 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
10767 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
10768 messages should be sent.
10770 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
10771 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
10772 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
10774 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
10776 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
10777 points for line numbers.
10779 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
10780 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
10782 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
10783 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
10784 to 2, the printing will look like:
10796 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
10797 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
10800 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
10801 zebra stripe is to be printed.
10803 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
10805 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
10806 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
10807 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
10808 3, the output will look like:
10822 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
10823 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
10825 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
10826 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10829 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
10830 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10833 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
10835 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
10836 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
10838 ** hideshow changes.
10840 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
10843 *** Support for java-mode added.
10845 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
10846 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
10848 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
10849 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
10850 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
10852 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
10853 robust and a lot faster.
10855 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
10857 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
10858 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
10859 documentation for more details.
10861 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
10863 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
10864 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
10865 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
10866 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
10867 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
10869 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
10870 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
10871 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
10872 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
10878 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
10879 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
10880 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
10881 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
10882 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
10883 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
10885 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
10887 *** Maximum decoration
10889 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
10890 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
10891 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
10892 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
10893 to get the old behavior.
10897 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
10899 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
10900 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
10902 *** Configurable support
10904 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
10905 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
10906 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
10907 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
10908 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
10909 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
10910 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
10912 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
10913 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
10914 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
10916 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
10918 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
10919 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
10922 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
10924 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
10930 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
10931 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
10932 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
10933 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
10935 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
10937 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
10938 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
10939 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
10941 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
10943 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
10944 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
10945 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
10946 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
10947 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
10948 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
10949 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
10951 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
10952 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
10953 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
10954 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
10955 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
10956 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
10958 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
10960 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
10961 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
10962 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
10963 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
10965 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
10968 ** Ada mode changes.
10970 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
10971 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
10972 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
10973 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
10976 *** There are two new commands:
10977 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
10978 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
10980 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
10981 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
10982 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
10984 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
10985 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
10986 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
10988 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
10989 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
10990 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
10991 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
10993 ** Scheme mode changes.
10995 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
10996 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
10997 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
10998 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11001 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11002 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11003 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11004 variables as buffer-local variables.
11006 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11007 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11009 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11011 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11012 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11013 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11014 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11016 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11017 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11020 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11021 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11022 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11023 option takes precedence.
11025 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11026 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11027 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11029 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11030 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11033 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11034 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11036 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11037 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11040 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11041 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11042 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11043 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11044 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11045 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11047 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11048 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11049 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11050 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11052 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11053 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11054 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11055 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11056 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11058 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11059 since it applies only to the current frame.
11061 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11062 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11063 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11065 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11066 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11067 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11068 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11069 instead of just the file you are editing.
11073 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11074 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11075 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11076 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11077 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11080 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11081 knows which kind of label is needed.
11083 C-c ) reftex-reference
11084 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11085 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11087 C-c [ reftex-citation
11088 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11089 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11091 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11092 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11095 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11096 can quickly jump to every section.
11098 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11099 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11100 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11101 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11102 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11104 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11106 *** Info documentation is now available.
11108 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11109 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11111 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11112 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11114 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11115 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11117 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11118 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11119 appropriate functions.
11121 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11122 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11124 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11127 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11128 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11130 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11131 shall be delimited.
11133 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11134 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11135 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11137 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11138 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11139 prefixed with `ALT'.
11141 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11142 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11143 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11146 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11147 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11148 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11150 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11151 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11153 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11154 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11155 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11157 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11159 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11161 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11162 from alien sources.
11164 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11165 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11168 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11171 *** Added support for imenu.
11173 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11174 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11175 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11176 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11178 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11179 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11181 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11183 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11185 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11186 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11187 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11190 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11191 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11193 ** browse-url changes
11195 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11196 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11197 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11198 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11199 customization variables.
11201 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11203 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11204 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11205 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11207 ** Changes in Ediff
11209 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11210 pops up the Info file for this command.
11212 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11213 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11214 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11217 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11218 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11219 files in the same directory.
11221 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11222 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11223 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11225 ** Changes in Viper
11227 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11228 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11230 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11231 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11232 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11233 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11234 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11235 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11236 color when Viper is in insert state.
11237 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11238 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11239 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11243 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11244 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11245 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11246 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11247 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11249 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11251 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11252 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11254 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11255 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11256 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11258 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11259 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11260 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11261 methods and protocols.
11263 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11264 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11265 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11268 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11269 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11270 at least M times and as many as N times.
11272 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11273 in files has changed slightly.
11275 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11276 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11277 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11278 with old time-stamp-format values.
11280 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11281 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11282 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11285 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11286 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11287 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11288 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11289 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11290 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11292 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11293 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11294 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11296 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11297 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11298 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11299 recommended now will continue to work then.
11301 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11304 ** There are some additional major modes:
11306 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11307 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11308 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11310 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11311 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11314 ** New Lisp packages include:
11316 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11318 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11319 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11321 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11323 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11326 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11327 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11330 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11331 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11332 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11333 strings or comments.
11335 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11336 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11337 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11338 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11341 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11342 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11344 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11345 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11347 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11349 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11350 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11352 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11354 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11356 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11358 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11359 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11361 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11362 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11363 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11364 original place after inserting the copy.
11366 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11369 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11370 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11371 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11373 Enable mouse-drag with:
11374 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11376 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11378 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11379 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11381 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11382 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11386 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11387 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11388 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11389 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11390 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11391 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11392 instance) and vice versa.
11394 To use this package load it using
11395 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11396 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11397 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11398 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11399 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11400 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11402 *** Interface to ph.
11404 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11406 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11407 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11410 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11412 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11413 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11414 while the real cursor does not move.
11416 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11417 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11419 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11420 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11424 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11425 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11426 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11427 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11429 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11431 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11433 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11435 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11436 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11437 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11438 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11439 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11441 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11442 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11443 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11444 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11445 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11446 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11448 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
11450 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
11451 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
11452 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
11453 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
11455 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
11456 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
11458 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
11459 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
11462 ** Basic Lisp changes
11464 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
11465 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
11467 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
11468 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
11471 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
11473 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
11475 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
11476 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
11478 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
11479 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
11482 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
11484 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
11486 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
11488 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
11489 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
11490 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
11493 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
11494 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
11495 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
11497 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
11498 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
11499 adding one of these suffixes.
11501 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
11502 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
11503 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
11505 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
11506 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
11508 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
11510 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
11511 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
11513 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
11514 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
11516 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
11518 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
11519 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
11521 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
11522 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
11523 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
11524 works using `save-current-buffer'.
11526 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
11527 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
11530 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
11531 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
11532 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
11535 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
11536 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
11539 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
11541 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
11542 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
11543 Then it returns that string.
11545 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
11547 (with-output-to-string
11548 (princ "The buffer is ")
11549 (princ (buffer-name)))
11551 returns "The buffer is foo".
11553 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
11556 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
11557 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
11558 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
11560 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
11561 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
11563 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
11564 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
11565 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
11566 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
11567 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
11568 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
11570 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
11571 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
11572 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
11575 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
11576 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
11577 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
11578 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
11579 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
11581 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
11582 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
11583 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
11584 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
11586 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
11587 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
11589 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
11591 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
11592 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
11593 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
11594 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
11597 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
11598 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
11601 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
11603 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
11604 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
11605 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
11606 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
11607 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
11609 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
11611 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
11612 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
11613 more than the number of characters.
11615 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
11616 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
11617 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
11618 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
11619 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
11620 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
11622 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
11623 and returns a string containing those characters.
11625 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
11626 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
11627 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
11628 character, sref signals an error.
11630 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
11631 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
11632 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11634 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
11635 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
11636 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11638 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
11639 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
11640 to a vector of the characters in it.
11642 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
11643 of a string. You call it as follows:
11645 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
11647 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
11648 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
11649 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
11650 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
11651 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
11653 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
11654 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11656 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
11657 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11659 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
11660 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
11661 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
11662 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
11664 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
11666 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
11668 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
11669 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
11670 are not included in the resulting value.
11672 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
11673 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
11674 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
11675 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
11677 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
11678 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
11679 character extends across that column), then the padding character
11680 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
11681 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
11682 column START-COLUMN.
11684 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
11685 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
11686 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
11687 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
11688 changed text, before the change.
11690 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
11691 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
11692 one character set for each script, not for each language.
11694 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
11696 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
11698 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
11699 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
11701 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
11702 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
11703 which identify the character within that character set.
11705 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
11706 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
11707 opposite of split-char.
11709 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
11710 of all the characters between BEG and END.
11712 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
11713 of all the characters in a string.
11715 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
11716 and specifying coding systems.
11718 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
11719 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
11720 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
11721 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
11722 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
11723 as what to do about code conversion.)
11725 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
11726 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
11728 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11729 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11730 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
11732 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11733 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
11734 to match against a file name.
11736 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11737 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11738 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11739 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11740 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11741 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11743 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11744 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11746 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
11747 the coding system to use for network sockets.
11749 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11750 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
11751 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
11754 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11755 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11756 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11757 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11758 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11759 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11761 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11762 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11764 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11765 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11766 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
11767 start the subprocess.
11769 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
11770 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
11771 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
11772 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
11773 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
11775 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
11776 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
11779 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
11780 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
11781 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
11782 connection permanently or until overridden.
11784 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
11785 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
11786 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
11787 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
11788 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
11789 system for one operation at a time.
11791 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
11792 files, subprocesses or network connections.
11794 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
11795 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
11796 The value is a cons cell,
11797 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
11798 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
11799 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
11800 input to the subprocess.
11802 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
11803 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
11805 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
11806 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
11807 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
11809 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
11810 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
11811 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
11812 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
11815 Thus, instead of writing
11817 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
11818 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
11820 you would now write this:
11822 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
11823 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
11827 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
11828 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
11829 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
11830 for a description of them.
11832 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
11833 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
11835 (defgroup ispell nil
11836 "Spell checking using Ispell."
11839 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
11840 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
11841 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
11842 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
11843 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
11845 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
11846 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
11847 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
11848 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
11849 first-level subgroups.
11851 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
11853 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
11854 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
11858 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
11859 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
11860 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
11861 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
11862 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
11863 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
11865 ** Text property changes
11867 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
11870 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
11871 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
11872 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
11873 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
11874 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
11876 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
11877 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
11878 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
11879 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
11881 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
11882 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
11883 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
11885 ** Changes in invisibility features
11887 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
11888 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
11889 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
11890 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
11891 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
11892 make the overlay visible.
11894 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
11895 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
11896 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
11897 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
11898 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
11899 t when it should hide it.
11901 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
11903 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
11904 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
11905 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
11906 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
11907 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
11908 Here is an example of how to do this:
11910 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
11911 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11912 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
11913 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11916 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
11919 ;; When done with the overlays:
11920 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11921 ;; Or respectively:
11922 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11924 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
11926 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
11927 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
11928 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
11929 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
11931 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
11932 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
11933 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
11935 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
11936 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
11938 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
11939 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
11941 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
11942 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
11943 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
11945 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
11946 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
11947 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
11948 determine the syntax type of the character.
11950 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
11951 of the current buffer.
11953 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
11954 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
11955 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
11957 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
11958 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
11959 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
11960 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
11961 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
11963 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
11966 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
11967 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
11968 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
11970 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
11971 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
11972 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
11973 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
11974 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
11976 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
11977 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
11978 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
11980 ** Changes in face features
11982 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
11983 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
11985 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
11986 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
11988 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
11989 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
11991 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
11992 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
11994 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
11995 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
11996 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
11997 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12000 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12001 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12003 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12005 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12006 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12007 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12008 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12010 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12013 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12014 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12016 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12017 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12019 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12020 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12022 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12023 character code conversion as well as other things.
12025 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12026 (formerly it did not).
12028 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12029 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12031 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12032 instead of constant strings.
12034 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12035 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12036 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12038 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12039 in the same way as before.
12041 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12042 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12043 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12045 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12046 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12047 else, and returns nil.
12049 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12050 directory cannot be listed.
12052 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12054 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12055 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12056 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12057 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12060 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12061 It is available through the history command M-n.
12063 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12064 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12065 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12066 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12067 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12069 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12070 argument in this way.
12072 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12073 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12074 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12076 ** Echo area features
12078 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12079 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12080 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12081 after the echo area is cleared.
12083 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12084 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12086 ** Keyboard input features
12088 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12089 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12091 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12092 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12093 by keyboard macros.
12095 ** Frame-related changes
12097 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12098 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12099 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12101 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12102 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12103 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12105 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12106 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12107 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12108 in the selected frame.
12110 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12111 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12112 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12114 ** X Windows features
12116 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12117 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12118 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12120 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12121 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12123 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12124 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12125 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12127 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12128 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12130 ** Subprocess features
12132 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12133 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12136 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12137 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12139 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12140 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12142 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12143 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12145 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12146 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12147 goes after the other menu items.
12149 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12150 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12151 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12154 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12155 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12157 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12158 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12161 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12162 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12163 but its hook is still run.
12165 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12166 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12168 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12169 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12170 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12172 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12173 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12174 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12177 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12178 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12180 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12181 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12182 functions like display-time.
12184 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12185 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12187 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12188 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12189 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12191 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12192 if there is an error in compilation.
12194 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
12195 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12196 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12197 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12199 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12200 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12201 the *scratch* buffer.
12203 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12204 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12205 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12206 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12208 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12209 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12210 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12212 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12213 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12214 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12215 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12217 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12218 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12219 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12221 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12222 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12223 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12224 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12225 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12228 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12229 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12230 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12231 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12233 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12234 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12235 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12236 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12238 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12240 ** imenu.el changes.
12242 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12243 item from menu created by imenu.
12245 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12246 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12247 select one of those items.
12249 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12251 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12252 Copyright information:
12254 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12256 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12257 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12258 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12259 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12261 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12262 of this document, or of portions of it,
12263 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12264 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12268 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
12271 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793