1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 1992.
2 Copyright (C) 1995, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 For older news, see the file ONEWS.4.
7 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
9 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
11 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
12 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
14 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
15 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
16 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
18 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
20 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
21 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
23 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
24 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
25 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
26 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
27 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
30 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
31 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
33 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
34 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
35 as in previous Emacs versions.
37 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
38 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
39 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
42 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
43 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
44 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
45 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
48 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
49 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
50 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
51 line and then executing the macro.
53 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
55 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
56 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
57 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
62 *** Font Lock support modes
64 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
65 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
66 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
67 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
68 Font Lock mode is enabled.
70 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
72 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
78 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
79 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
80 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
81 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
82 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
83 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
84 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
86 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
88 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
90 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
92 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
94 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
97 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
102 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
103 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
104 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
105 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
107 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
108 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
110 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
111 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
114 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
115 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
117 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
119 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
121 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
123 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
126 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
128 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
130 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
132 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
134 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
137 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
139 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
141 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
143 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
145 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
147 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
149 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
151 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
154 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
156 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
159 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
161 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
162 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
164 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
166 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
168 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
170 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
172 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
175 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
177 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
178 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
180 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
181 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
182 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
184 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
185 articles with the `*' command.
187 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
189 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
191 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
193 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
195 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
196 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
198 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
201 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
203 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
205 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
207 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
209 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
211 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
213 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
215 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
217 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
219 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
220 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
222 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
225 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
227 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
228 buffer to allow easier treatment.
230 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
232 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
234 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
236 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
239 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
241 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
243 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
244 cited text to hide is now customizable.
246 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
248 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
250 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
252 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
254 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
256 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
259 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
261 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
262 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
263 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
266 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
269 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
272 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
273 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
276 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
277 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
278 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
279 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
280 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
283 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
285 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
287 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
288 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
289 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
290 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
291 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
293 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
294 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
295 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
297 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
299 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
300 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
301 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
302 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
303 chapter of the manual for details.
305 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
306 customization variables take effect.
308 ** Marking with the mouse.
310 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
311 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
312 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
314 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
316 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
318 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
319 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
321 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
322 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
323 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
324 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
325 applications, these problems are significant.
327 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
328 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
329 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
330 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
331 other DOS application as a subprocess.
333 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
334 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
336 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
337 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
338 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
339 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
340 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
341 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
343 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
345 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
346 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
349 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
351 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
352 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
353 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
354 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
356 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
357 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
358 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
359 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
361 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
362 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
364 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
365 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
366 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
368 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
369 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
370 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
371 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
373 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
375 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
376 to replace the characters it "deletes".
378 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
380 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
381 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
382 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
383 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
384 immediately after the selected one.
386 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
387 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
389 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
391 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
392 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
393 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
394 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
397 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
398 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
401 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
402 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
403 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
404 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
405 now that the bug is fixed.
407 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
409 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
410 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
411 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
412 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
414 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
415 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
416 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
417 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
419 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
420 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
421 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
423 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
424 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
425 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
426 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
429 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
430 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
432 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
433 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
434 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
435 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
437 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
438 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
439 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
440 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
441 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
442 `mail-directory-stream'.)
444 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
445 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
446 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
447 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
449 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
450 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
451 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
453 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
454 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
455 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
456 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
457 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
458 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
459 to a limitation in font-lock).
461 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
463 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
464 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
465 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
468 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
469 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
471 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
473 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
475 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
477 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
479 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
480 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
481 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
482 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
483 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
484 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
486 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
489 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
490 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
492 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
497 *** Global Font Lock mode
499 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
500 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
501 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
502 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
503 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
505 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
507 (global-font-lock-mode t)
511 *** Local Refontification
513 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
514 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
515 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
516 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
518 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
519 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
520 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
521 above and below point.
523 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
527 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
528 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
529 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
530 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
531 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
534 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
536 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
537 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
539 ** hide-show changes.
541 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
542 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
545 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
546 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
548 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
549 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
550 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
554 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
555 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
557 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
558 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
560 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
562 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
563 pressing both mouse buttons.
565 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
566 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
569 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
572 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
574 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
575 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
577 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
579 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
581 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
583 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
585 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
587 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
589 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
590 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
591 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
592 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
593 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
595 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
597 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
598 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
599 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
602 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
605 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
607 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
608 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
610 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
611 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
613 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
614 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
615 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
617 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
618 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
621 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
623 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
624 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
625 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
627 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
628 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
629 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
631 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
632 up if too much time passes.
634 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
636 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
637 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
638 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
641 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
642 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
643 call looks like this:
645 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
647 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
648 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
649 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
652 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
653 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
656 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
657 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
658 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
659 each time Emacs becomes idle.
661 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
662 idle for SECS seconds.
664 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
665 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
666 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
669 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
670 there is no answer within a certain time.
672 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
674 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
675 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
676 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
678 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
679 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
680 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
681 arguments in between are ignored.
683 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
684 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
686 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
687 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
688 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
689 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
692 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
693 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
694 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
695 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
696 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
697 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
699 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
700 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
701 systems with limited file name syntax.
703 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
704 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
705 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
708 (defvar save-completions-file-name
709 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
710 "*The filename to save completions to.")
712 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
713 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
714 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
715 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
716 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
718 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
719 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
720 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
722 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
723 marker from its buffer position.
725 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
726 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
727 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
729 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
730 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
731 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
732 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
733 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
734 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
736 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
737 errors that happen often during editing.
739 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
740 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
741 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
743 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
744 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
746 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
747 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
748 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
749 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
750 and not get-buffer-window.
752 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
753 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
754 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
756 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
757 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
758 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
759 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
760 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
761 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
762 over and over for the same text.
764 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
766 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
767 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
772 in addition to the normal
776 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
777 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
778 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
782 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.30.
784 ** Be sure to recompile your byte-compiled Emacs Lisp files
785 if you last compiled them with Emacs 19.28 or earlier.
786 You can use M-x byte-force-recompile to recompile all the .elc files
787 in a specified directory.
789 ** Emacs now provides multiple-frame support on Windows NT
792 ** M-x column-number-mode toggles a minor mode which displays
793 the current column number in the mode line.
795 ** Line Number mode is now enabled by default.
797 ** M-x what-line now displays the line number in the accessible
798 portion of the buffer as well as the line number in the full buffer,
799 when narrowing is in effect.
801 ** If you type a M-x command that has an equivalent key binding,
802 the equivalent is shown in the minibuffer before the command executes.
803 This feature is enabled by default for the sake of beginning users.
804 You can turn the feature off by setting suggest-key-bindings to nil.
806 ** The menu bar is now visible on text-only terminals. To choose a
807 command from the menu bar when you have no mouse, type M-`
808 (Meta-Backquote) or F10. To turn off menu bar display,
809 do (menu-bar-mode -1).
811 ** Whenever you invoke a minibuffer, it appears in the minibuffer
812 window that the current frame uses.
814 Emacs can only use one minibuffer window at a time. If you activate
815 the minibuffer while a minibuffer window is active in some other
816 frame, the outer minibuffer window disappears while the inner one is
819 ** Echo area messages always appear in the minibuffer window that the
820 current frame uses. If a minibuffer is active in some other frame,
821 the echo area message does not hide it even temporarily.
823 ** The minibuffer now has a menu-bar menu. You can use it to exit or
824 abort the minibuffer, or to ask for completion.
826 ** Dead-key and composite character processing is done in the standard
827 X11R6 manner (through the default "input method" using the
828 /usr/lib/X11/locale/*/Compose databases of key combinations). I.e. if
829 it works in xterm, it should also work in emacs now.
833 *** You can now use the mouse when running Emacs in an xterm.
834 Use M-x xterm-mouse-mode to let emacs take control over the mouse.
836 *** C-mouse-1 now once again provides a menu of buffers to select.
837 S-mouse-1 is now the way to select a default font for the frame.
839 *** There is a new mouse-scroll-min-lines variable to control the
840 minimum number of lines scrolled by dragging the mouse outside a
843 *** Dragging mouse-1 on a vertical line that separates windows
844 now moves the line, thus changing the widths of the two windows.
845 (This feature is available only if you don't have vertical scroll bars.
846 If you do use them, a scroll bar separates two side-by-side windows.)
848 *** Double-click mouse-1 on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as
849 underscore, in C mode) selects the entire symbol surrounding that
850 character. (Double-click mouse-1 on a letter selects a whole word.)
852 ** When incremental search wraps around to the beginning (or end) of
853 the buffer, if you keep on searching until you go past the original
854 starting point of the search, the echo area changes from "Wrapped" to
855 "Overwrapped". That tells you that you are revisiting matches that
856 you have already seen.
860 *** If the variable colon-double-space is non-nil, the explicit fill
861 commands put two spaces after a colon.
863 *** Auto-Fill mode now supports Adaptive Fill mode just as the
864 explicit fill commands do. The variable adaptive-fill-regexp
865 specifies a regular expression to match text at the beginning of
866 a line that should be the fill prefix.
868 *** Adaptive Fill mode can take a fill prefix from the first line of a
869 paragraph, *provided* that line is not a paragraph-starter line.
871 Paragraph-starter lines are indented lines that start a new
872 paragraph because they are indented. This indentation shouldn't
873 be copied to additional lines.
875 Whether indented lines are paragraph lines depends on the value of the
876 variable paragraph-start. Some major modes set this; you can set it
877 by hand or in mode hooks as well. For editing text in which paragraph
878 first lines are not indented, and which contains paragraphs in which
879 all lines are indented, you should use Indented Text mode or arrange
880 for paragraph-start not to match these lines.
882 *** You can specify more complex ways of choosing a fill prefix
883 automatically by setting `adaptive-fill-function'. This function
884 is called with point after the left margin of a line, and it should
885 return the appropriate fill prefix based on that line.
886 If it returns nil, that means it sees no fill prefix in that line.
890 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has been rewritten and expanded. Most
891 things that worked with the old version should still work with the new
892 version. Code that relies heavily on Gnus internals is likely to
895 *** Incompatibilities with the old GNUS.
897 **** All interactive commands have kept their names, but many internal
898 functions have changed names.
900 **** The summary mode gnus-uu commands have been moved from the `C-c
901 C-v' keymap to the `X' keymap.
903 **** There can now be several summary buffers active at once.
904 Variables that are relevant to each summary buffer are buffer-local to
907 **** Old hilit code doesn't work at all. Gnus performs its own
908 highlighting based not only on what's visible in the buffer, but on
909 other data structures.
911 **** Old packages like `expire-kill' will no longer work.
913 **** `C-c C-l' in the group buffer no longer switches to a different
914 buffer, but instead lists killed groups in the group buffer.
918 **** The look of all buffers can be changed by setting format-like
921 **** Local spool and several NNTP servers can be used at once.
923 **** Groups can be combined into virtual groups.
925 **** Different mail formats can be read much the same way as one would
926 read newsgroups. All the mail backends implement mail expiry schemes.
928 **** Gnus can use various strategies for gathering threads that have
929 lost their roots (thereby gathering loose sub-threads into one thread)
930 or it can go back and retrieve enough headers to build a complete
933 **** Killed groups can be read.
935 **** Gnus can do partial group updates - you do not have to retrieve
936 the entire active file just to check for new articles in a few groups.
938 **** Gnus implements a sliding scale of subscribedness to groups.
940 **** You can score articles according to any number of criteria. You
941 can get Gnus to score articles for you using adaptive scoring.
943 **** Gnus maintains a dribble buffer that is auto-saved the normal
944 Emacs manner, so it should be difficult to lose much data on what you
945 have read if your machine should go down.
947 **** Gnus now has its own startup file (`.gnus.el') to avoid
948 cluttering up the `.emacs' file.
950 **** You can set the process mark on both groups and articles and
951 perform operations on all the marked items.
953 **** You can grep through a subset of groups and create a group from
956 **** You can list subsets of groups using matches on group names or
959 **** You can browse foreign servers and subscribe to groups from those
962 **** Gnus can pre-fetch articles asynchronously on a second connection
965 **** You can cache articles locally.
967 **** Gnus can fetch FAQs to and descriptions of groups.
969 **** Digests (and other files) can be used as the basis for groups.
971 **** Articles can be highlighted and customized.
973 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
975 *** General changes (all backends).
977 VC directory listings (C-x v d) are now kept up to date when you do a
978 vc-next-action (C-x v v) on the marked files. The `g' command updates
979 the buffer properly. `=' in a VC dired buffer produces a version
980 control diff, not an ordinary diff.
984 Under CVS, you no longer need to type C-x C-q before you can edit a
985 file. VC doesn't write-protect unmodified buffers anymore; you can
986 freely change them at any time. The mode line keeps track of the
989 If you do want unmodified files to be write-protected, set your
990 CVSREAD environment variable. VC sees this and behaves accordingly;
991 that will give you the behaviour of Emacs 19.29, similar to that under
992 RCS and SCCS. In this mode, if the variable vc-mistrust-permissions
993 is nil, VC learns the modification state from the file permissions.
994 When setting CVSREAD for the first time, you should check out the
995 whole module anew, so that the file permissions are set correctly.
997 VC also works with remote repositories now. When you visit a file, it
998 doesn't run "cvs status" anymore, so there shouldn't be any long delays.
1000 Directory listings under VC/CVS have been enhanced. Type C-x v d, and
1001 you get a list of all files in or below the current directory that are
1002 not up-to-date. The actual status (modified, merge, conflict, ...) is
1003 displayed for each file. If you give a prefix argument (C-u C-x v d),
1004 up-to-date files are also listed. You can mark any number of files,
1005 and execute the next logical version control command on them (C-x v v).
1007 *** Starting a new branch.
1009 If you try to lock a version that is not the latest on its branch,
1010 VC asks for confirmation in the minibuffer. If you say no, it offers
1011 to lock the latest version instead.
1013 *** RCS non-strict locking.
1015 VC can now handle RCS non-strict locking, too. In this mode, working
1016 files are always writable and you needn't lock the file before making
1017 changes, similar to the default mode under CVS. To enable non-strict
1018 locking for a file, use the "rcs -U" command.
1020 *** Sharing RCS master files.
1022 If you share RCS subdirs with other users (through symbolic links),
1023 and you always want to work on the latest version, set
1024 vc-consult-headers to nil and vc-mistrust-permissions to `t'.
1025 Then you see the state of the *latest* version on the mode line, not
1026 that of your working file. When you do a check out, VC overwrites
1027 your working file with the latest version from the master.
1029 *** RCS customization.
1031 There is a new variable vc-consult-headers. If it is t (the default),
1032 VC searches for RCS headers in working files (like `$Id: ONEWS,v 1.5 2001/01/31 15:19:32 gerd Exp $') and
1033 determines the state of the file from them, not from the master file.
1034 This is fast and more reliable when you use branches. (The variable
1035 was already present in Emacs 19.29, but didn't get mentioned in the
1038 ** Calendar changes.
1040 *** New calendars supported: Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic
1042 Here are the commands for converting to and from these calendars:
1044 gC: calendar-goto-chinese-date
1045 gk: calendar-goto-coptic-date
1046 ge: calendar-goto-ethiopic-date
1048 pC: calendar-print-chinese-date
1049 pk: calendar-print-coptic-date
1050 pe: calendar-print-ethiopic-date
1052 *** Printed calendars
1054 Calendar mode now has commands to produce fancy printed calendars via
1055 LaTeX. You can ask for a calendar for one or more days, weeks, months
1056 or years. The commands all start with `t'; see the manual for a list
1059 *** New sexp diary entry type
1061 Reminders that apply in the days leading up to an event.
1063 ** The CC-mode package now provides the default C and C++ modes.
1064 See the manual for documentation of its features.
1066 ** The uniquify package chooses buffer names differently when you
1067 visit multiple files with the same name (in different directories).
1069 ** RMAIL now always uses the movemail program when it renames an
1070 inbox file, so that it can interlock properly with the mailer
1071 no matter where it is delivering mail.
1073 ** tex-start-of-header and tex-end-of-header are now regular expressions,
1076 ** To enable automatic uncompression of compressed files,
1077 type M-x auto-compression-mode. (This command used to be called
1078 toggle-auto-compression, but was not documented before.) In Lisp,
1081 (auto-compression-mode 1)
1083 to turn the mode on.
1085 ** The new pc-select package emulates the key bindings for cutting and
1086 pasting, and selection of regions, found in Windows, Motif, and the
1089 ** Help buffers now use a special major mode, Help mode. This mode
1090 normally turns on View mode; it also provides a hook, help-mode-hook,
1091 which you can use for other customization.
1093 ** Apropos now uses faces for enhanced legibility. It now describes
1094 symbol properties as well as their function definitions and variable
1095 values. You can use Mouse-2 or RET to get more information about a
1096 function definition, variable, or property.
1100 *** Supports Scheme, TCL and Help modes
1102 For example, to automatically turn on Font Lock mode in the *Help*
1105 (add-hook 'help-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
1109 *** Enhanced fontification
1111 The structure of font-lock-keywords is extended to allow "anchored" keywords.
1112 Typically, a keyword item of font-lock-keywords comprises a regexp to search
1113 for and information to specify how the regexp should be highlighted. However,
1114 the highlighting information is extended so that it can be another keyword
1115 item. This keyword item, its regexp and highlighting information, is processed
1116 before resuming with the keyword item of which it is part.
1118 For example, a typical keyword item might be:
1120 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face))
1122 which fontifies each occurrence of the discrete word "anchor" in the value of
1123 the variable anchor-face. However, the highlighting information can be used to
1124 fontify text that is anchored to the word "anchor". For example:
1126 ("\\<anchor\\>" (0 anchor-face) ("\\=[ ,]*\\(item\\)" nil nil (1 item-face)))
1128 which fontifies each occurrence of "anchor" as above, but for each occurrence
1129 of "anchor", each occurrence of "item", in any following comma separated list,
1130 is fontified in the value of the variable item-face. Thus the "item" text is
1131 anchored to the "anchor" text. See the variable documentation for further
1134 This feature is used to extend the level and quality of fontification in a
1135 number of modes. For example, C/C++ modes now have level 3 decoration that
1136 includes the fontification of variable and function names in declaration lists.
1137 In this instance, the "anchor" described in the above example is a type or
1138 class name, and an "item" is a variable or function name.
1140 *** Fontification levels
1142 The variables font-lock-maximum-decoration and font-lock-maximum-size are
1143 extended to specify levels and sizes for specific modes. The variable
1144 font-lock-maximum-decoration specifies the preferred level of fontification for
1145 modes that provide multiple levels (typically from "subdued" to "gaudy"). The
1146 variable font-lock-maximum-size specifies the buffer size for which buffer
1147 fontification is suppressed when Font Lock mode is turned on (typically because
1148 it would take too long).
1150 These variables can now specify values for individual modes, by supplying
1151 lists of mode names and values. For example, to use the above mentioned level
1152 3 decoration for buffers in C/C++ modes, and default decoration otherwise, put:
1154 (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration '((c-mode . 3) (c++-mode . 3)))
1156 in your ~/.emacs. Maximum buffer size values for individual modes are
1157 specified in the same way with the variable font-lock-maximum-size.
1159 *** Font Lock configuration
1161 The mechanism to provide default settings for Font Lock mode are the variables
1162 font-lock-defaults and font-lock-maximum-decoration. Typically, you should
1163 only need to change the value of font-lock-maximum-decoration. However, to
1164 support Font Lock mode for buffers in modes that currently do not support Font
1165 Lock mode, you should set a buffer local value of font-lock-defaults for that
1166 mode, typically via its mode hook.
1168 These variables are used by Font Lock mode to set the values of the variables
1169 font-lock-keywords, font-lock-keywords-only, font-lock-syntax-table,
1170 font-lock-beginning-of-syntax-function and font-lock-keywords-case-fold-search.
1172 You need not set these variables directly, and should not set them yourself
1173 since the underlining mechanism may change in future.
1175 ** Archive mode is now the default mode for various sorts of
1176 archive files (files whose names end with .arc, .lzh, .zip, and .zoo).
1178 ** You can automatically update the years in copyright notice by
1179 means of (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'copyright-update).
1180 Optionally it can update the GPL version as well.
1182 ** Scripts of various languages (Shell, AWK, Perl, makefiles ...) can
1183 be automatically provided with a magic number and be made executable
1184 by their respective modes under control of various user variables.
1185 The mode must call (executable-set-magic "perl") or
1186 (executable-set-magic "make" "-f"). The latter for example has no
1187 effect on [Mm]akefile.
1189 ** Shell script mode now supports over 15 different shells. The new
1190 command C-c ! executes the region, and optionally beginning of script
1191 as well, by passing them to the shell.
1193 Cases such as `sh' being a `bash' are now accounted for.
1194 Fontification now also does variables, the magic number and all
1195 builtin commands. Shell script mode no longer mingles `tab-width' and
1196 indentation style. The variable `sh-tab-width' has been renamed to
1197 `sh-indentation'. Empty lines are now indented like previous
1198 non-empty line, rather than just previous line.
1200 The annoying $ variable prompting has been eliminated. Instead, shell
1201 script mode uses `comint-dynamic-completion' for commands, variables
1204 ** Two-column mode now automatically scrolls both buffers together,
1205 which makes it possible to eliminate the special scrolling commands
1208 The commands that operate in two-column mode are no longer bound to
1209 keys outside that mode. f2 o will now position at the same point in
1212 the new command f2 RET inserts a newline in both buffers, at point and
1213 at the corresponding position in the associated buffer.
1215 ** Skeleton commands now work smoothly as abbrev definitions. The
1216 element < no longer exists, ' is a new element.
1218 ** The autoinsert insert facility for prefilling empty files as soon
1219 as they are found has been extended to accommodate skeletons or calling
1220 functions. See the function auto-insert.
1224 Loading tpu-edt no longer turns on tpu-edt mode. In fact, it is no
1225 longer necessary to explicitly load tpu-edt. All you need to do to
1226 turn on tpu-edt is run the tpu-edt function. Here's how to run
1227 tpu-edt instead of loading the file:
1229 Running Emacs: Type emacs -f tpu-edt
1230 not emacs -l tpu-edt
1232 Within Emacs: Type M-x tpu-edt <ret>
1233 not M-x load-library <ret> tpu-edt <ret>
1235 In .emacs: Use (tpu-edt)
1236 not (load "tpu-edt")
1238 The default name of the tpu-edt X key definition file has changed from
1239 ~/.tpu-gnu-keys to ~/.tpu-keys. If you don't rename the file yourself,
1240 tpu-edt will offer to rename it the first time you invoke it under
1243 ** MS-DOS Enhancements:
1245 *** Better mouse control by adding the following functions [in dosfns.c]
1246 msdos-mouse-enable, msdos-mouse-disable, msdos-mouse-init.
1248 *** If another foreground/background color than the default is setup in
1249 your ~/_emacs, then the screen briefly flickers with the default
1250 colors before changing to the colors you have specified. To avoid
1251 this, the EMACSCOLORS environment variable exists. It shall be
1252 defined as a string with the following elements:
1254 set EMACSCOLORS=fb;fb
1256 The first set of "fb" defines the initial foreground and background
1257 colors using standard dos color numbers (0=black,.., 7=white).
1258 If specified, the second set of "fb" defines the colors which are
1259 restored when you leave emacs.
1261 *** The new SUSPEND environment variable can now be set as the shell to
1262 use when suspending emacs. This can be used to override the stupid
1263 limitation on the environment of sub-shells in MS-DOS (they are just
1264 large enough to hold the currently defined variables, not leaving
1265 room for more); to overcome this limitation, add this to autoexec.bat:
1267 set SUSPEND=%COMSPEC% /E:2000
1269 ** The escape character can now be displayed on X frames. Try
1271 (aset standard-display-table 27 (vector 27))
1272 after first creating a display table (you can do that by loading
1273 the disp-table library).
1275 ** The new command-line option --eval specifies an expression to evaluate
1276 from the command line.
1278 ** etags has now the ability to tag Perl files. They are recognised
1279 either by the .pm and .pl suffixes or by a first line which starts
1280 with `#!' and specifies a Perl interpreter. The tagged lines are
1281 those beginning with the `sub' keyword.
1283 New suffixes recognised are .hpp for C++; .f90 for Fortran; .bib,
1284 .ltx, .TeX for TeX (.bbl, .dtx removed); .ml for Lisp; .prolog for
1285 prolog (.pl is now Perl).
1287 ** The files etc/termcap.dat and etc/termcap.ucb have been replaced
1288 with a new, merged, and much more comprehensive termcap file. The
1289 new file should include all the special entries from the old one.
1290 This new file is under active development as part of the ncurses
1291 project. If you have any questions about this file, or problems with
1292 an entry in it, email terminfo@ccil.org.
1294 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.30.
1298 *** There is a new data type called a char-table which is an array
1299 indexed by a character. Currently this is mostly equivalent to a
1300 vector of length 256, but in the future, when a wider character set is
1301 in use, it will be different. To create one, call
1302 (make-char-table SUBTYPE INITIAL-VALUE)
1304 SUBTYPE is a symbol that identifies the specific use of this
1305 character table. It can be any of these values:
1309 keyboard-translate-table
1312 The function `char-table-subtype' returns the subtype of a char-table.
1313 You cannot alter the subtype of an existing char-table.
1315 A char-table has an element for each character code. It also has some
1316 "extra slots". The number of extra slots depends on the subtype and
1317 their use depends on the subtype. (Each subtype symbol has a
1318 `char-table-extra-slots' property that says how many extra slots to
1319 make.) Use (char-table-extra-slot TABLE N) to access extra slot N and
1320 (set-char-table-extra-slot TABLE N VALUE) to store VALUE in slot N.
1322 A char-table T can have a parent, which should be another char-table
1323 P. If you look for the value in T for character C, and the table T
1324 actually holds nil, P's element for character C is used instead.
1325 The functions `char-table-parent' and `set-char-table-parent'
1326 let you read or set the parent of a char-table.
1328 To scan all the values in a char-table, do not try to loop through all
1329 possible character codes. That would work for now, but will not work
1330 in the future. Instead, call map-char-table. (map-char-table
1331 FUNCTION TABLE) calls FUNCTION once for each character or character
1332 set that has a distinct value in TABLE. FUNCTION gets two arguments,
1333 RANGE and VALUE. RANGE specifies a range of TABLE that has one
1334 uniform value, and VALUE is the value in TABLE for that range.
1336 Currently, RANGE is always a vector containing a single character
1337 and it refers to that character alone. In the future, other kinds
1338 of ranges will occur. You can set the value for a given range
1339 with (set-char-table-range TABLE RANGE VALUE) and examine the value
1340 for a range with (char-table-range TABLE RANGE).
1342 *** Syntax tables are now represented as char-tables.
1343 All syntax tables other than the standard syntax table
1344 normally have the standard syntax table as their parent.
1345 Their subtype is `syntax-table'.
1347 *** Display tables are now represented as char-tables.
1348 Their subtype is `display-table'.
1350 *** Case tables are now represented as char-tables.
1351 Their subtype is `case-table'.
1353 *** The value of keyboard-translate-table may now be a char-table
1354 instead of a string. Normally the char-tables used for this purpose
1355 have the subtype `keyboard-translate-table', but that is not required.
1357 *** A new data type called a bool-vector is a vector of values
1358 that are either t or nil. To create one, do
1359 (make-bool-vector LENGTH INITIAL-VALUE)
1361 ** You can now specify, for each marker, how it should relocate when
1362 text is inserted at the place where the marker points. This is called
1363 the "insertion type" of the marker.
1365 To set the insertion type, do (set-marker-insertion-type MARKER TYPE).
1366 If TYPE is t, it means the marker advances when text is inserted. If
1367 TYPE is nil, it means the marker does not advance. (In Emacs 19.29,
1368 markers did not advance.)
1370 The function marker-insertion-type reports the insertion type of a
1371 given marker. The function copy-marker takes a second argument TYPE
1372 which specifies the insertion type of the new copied marker.
1374 ** When you create an overlay, you can specify the insertion type of
1375 the beginning and of the end. To do this, you can use two new
1376 arguments to make-overlay: front-advance and rear-advance.
1378 ** The new function overlays-in returns a list of the overlays that
1379 overlap a specified range of the buffer. The returned list includes
1380 empty overlays at the beginning of this range, as well as within the
1383 ** The new hook window-scroll-functions is run when a window has been
1384 scrolled. The functions in this list are called just before
1385 redisplay, after the new window-start has been computed. Each function
1386 is called with two arguments--the window that has been scrolled, and its
1387 new window-start position.
1389 This hook is useful for on-the-fly fontification and other features
1390 that affect how the redisplayed text will look when it is displayed.
1392 The window-end value of the window is not valid when these functions
1393 are called. The computation of window-end is byproduct of actual
1394 redisplay of the window contents, which means it has not yet happened
1395 when the hook is run. Computing window-end specially in advance for
1396 the sake of these functions would cause a slowdown.
1398 The hook functions can determine where the text on the window will end
1399 by calling vertical-motion starting with the window-start position.
1401 ** The new hook redisplay-end-trigger-functions is run whenever
1402 redisplay in window uses text that extends past a specified end
1403 trigger position. You set the end trigger position with the function
1404 set-window-redisplay-end-trigger. The functions are called with two
1405 arguments: the window, and the end trigger position. Storing nil for
1406 the end trigger position turns off the feature, and the trigger value
1407 is automatically reset to nil just after the hook is run.
1409 You can use the function window-redisplay-end-trigger to read a
1410 window's current end trigger value.
1412 ** The new function insert-file-contents-literally inserts the
1413 contents of a file without any character set translation or decoding.
1415 ** The new function safe-length computes the length of a list.
1416 It never gets an error--it treats any non-list like nil.
1417 If given a circular list, it returns an upper bound for the number
1418 of elements before the circularity.
1420 ** replace-match now takes a fifth argument, SUBEXP. If SUBEXP is
1421 non-nil, that says to replace just subexpression number SUBEXP of the
1422 regexp that was matched, not the entire match. For example, after
1423 matching `foo \(ba*r\)' calling replace-match with 1 as SUBEXP means
1424 to replace just the text that matched `\(ba*r\)'.
1426 ** The new keymap special-event-map defines bindings for certain
1427 events that should be handled at a very low level--as soon as they
1428 are read. The read-event function processes these events itself,
1429 and never returns them.
1431 Events that are handled in this way do not echo, they are never
1432 grouped into key sequences, and they never appear in the value of
1433 last-command-event or (this-command-keys). They do not discard a
1434 numeric argument, they cannot be unread with unread-command-events,
1435 they may not appear in a keyboard macro, and they are not recorded
1436 in a keyboard macro while you are defining one.
1438 These events do, however, appear in last-input-event immediately after
1439 they are read, and this is the way for the event's definition to find
1442 The events types iconify-frame, make-frame-visible and delete-frame
1443 are normally handled in this way.
1445 ** encode-time now supports simple date arithmetic by means of
1446 out-of-range values for its SEC, MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, and MONTH
1447 arguments; for example, day 0 means the day preceding the given month.
1448 Also, the ZONE argument can now be a TZ-style string.
1450 ** command-execute and call-interactively now accept an optional third
1451 argument KEYS. If specified and non-nil, this specifies the key
1452 sequence containing the events that were used to invoke the command.
1454 ** The environment variable NAME, if set, now specifies the value of
1455 (user-full-name), when Emacs starts up.
1457 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.29
1459 ** If you run out of memory.
1461 If you get the error message "Virtual memory exhausted", type C-x s.
1462 That way of saving files has the least additional memory needs. Emacs
1463 19.29 keeps a reserve of memory which it makes available when this
1464 error happens; that is to ensure that C-x s can complete its work.
1466 Once you have saved your data, you can exit and restart Emacs, or use
1467 M-x kill-some-buffers to free up space. If you kill buffers
1468 containing a substantial amount of text, you can go on editing.
1470 Do not use M-x buffer-menu to save or kill buffers when you are out of
1471 memory, because that needs a fair amount memory itself and you may not
1472 have enough to get it started.
1474 ** The format of compiled files has changed incompatibly.
1476 Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19.29 normally use a new format
1477 that will not work in older Emacs versions. You can compile files
1478 in the old format if you wish; see "Changes in compilation," below.
1480 ** Emacs 19.29 supports the DEC Alpha.
1482 ** Emacs runs on Windows NT.
1484 This port does not yet support windowing features. It works like a
1485 text-only terminal, but it does support a mouse.
1487 In general, support for non-GNU-like operating systems is not a high
1488 priority for the GNU project. We merged in the support for Windows NT
1489 because that system is expected to be very widely used.
1491 ** Emacs supports Motif widgets.
1493 You can build Emacs with Motif widgets by specifying --with-x-toolkit=motif
1494 when you run configure.
1496 Motif defines collections of windows called "tab groups", and uses the
1497 tab key and the cursor keys to move between windows in a tab group.
1498 Emacs naturally does not support this--it has other uses for the tab
1499 key and cursor keys. Emacs does not support Motif accelerators either,
1500 because it uses its normal keymap event binding features.
1502 We give higher priority to operation with a free widget set than to
1503 operation with a proprietary one.
1505 ** If Emacs or the computer crashes, you can recover all the files you
1506 were editing from their auto save files by typing M-x recover-session.
1507 This first shows you a list of recorded interrupted sessions. Move
1508 point to the one you choose, and type C-c C-c.
1510 Then recover-session asks about each of the files that were being
1511 edited during that session, asking whether to recover that file. If
1512 you answer y, it calls recover-file, which works in its normal
1513 fashion. It shows the dates of the original file and its auto-save
1514 file and asks once again whether to recover that file.
1516 When recover-session is done, the files you've chosen to recover
1517 are present in Emacs buffers. You should then save them.
1518 Only this--saving them--updates the files themselves.
1520 ** Menu bar menus now stay up if you click on the menu bar item and
1521 release the mouse button within a certain amount of time. This is in
1522 the X Toolkit version.
1524 ** The menu bar menus have been rearranged and split up to make for a
1525 better organization. Two new menu bar menus, Tools and Search,
1526 contain items that were formerly in the Files and Edit menus, as well
1527 as some that did not exist in the menu bar menus before.
1529 ** Emacs can now display on more than one X display at the same time.
1530 Use the command make-frame-on-display to create a frame, specifying
1531 which display to use.
1533 ** M-x talk-connect sets up a multi-user talk connection
1534 via Emacs. Specify the X display of the person you want to talk to.
1535 You can talk to any number of people (within reason) by using
1536 this command repeatedly to specify different people.
1538 Emacs does not make a fuss about security; the people who you talk to
1539 can use all Emacs features, including visiting and editing files. If
1540 this frightens you, don't use M-x talk-connect.
1542 ** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
1543 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
1546 ** When you start Emacs, you can now specify option names in
1547 long GNU form (starting with `--') and you can abbreviate the names.
1549 You can now specify the options in any order.
1550 The previous requirements about the order of options
1551 have been eliminated.
1553 The -L or --directory option lets you specify an additional
1554 directory to search for Lisp libraries (including libraries
1555 that you specify with the -l or --load options).
1557 ** Incremental search in Transient Mark mode, if the mark is already
1558 active, now leaves the mark active and does not change its position.
1559 You can make incremental search deactivate the mark once again with
1562 (add-hook 'isearch-mode-hook 'deactivate-mark)
1564 ** C-delete now deletes a word backwards. This is for compatibility
1565 with some editors in the PC world. (This key is not available on
1566 ordinary ASCII terminals, because C-delete is not a distinct character
1567 on those terminals.)
1569 ** ESC ESC ESC is now a command to escape from various temporary modes
1572 ** M-x pc-bindings-mode sets up bindings compatible with many PC editors.
1573 In particular, Delete and its variants delete forward instead of backward.
1574 Use Backspace to delete backward.
1576 C-Backspace kills backward a word (as C-Delete normally would).
1577 M-Backspace does undo.
1578 Home and End move to beginning and end of line
1579 C-Home and C-End move to beginning and end of buffer.
1581 ** The key sequence for evaluating a Lisp expression using the minibuffer
1582 is now ESC :. It used to be ESC ESC, but we moved it to make way for
1583 the ESC ESC ESC feature, on the grounds that people who evaluate Lisp
1584 expressions are experienced users and can cope with a change.
1585 If you prefer the old ESC ESC binding, put in your `~/.emacs':
1587 (global-set-key "\e\e" 'eval-expression)
1589 ** The f1 function key is now equivalent to the help key. This is
1590 done with key-translation-map; delete the binding for f1 in that map
1591 if you want to use f1 for something else.
1593 ** Mouse-3, in the simplest case, still sets the region. But now, it
1594 places the mark where point was, and sets point where you click.
1595 (It used to set the mark where you click and leave point alone.)
1597 If you position point with Mouse-1, then scroll with the scroll bar
1598 and use Mouse-3, Mouse-3 uses the position you specified with Mouse-1
1599 even if it has scrolled off the screen (and point is no longer there).
1600 This makes it easier to select a region with the mouse which is bigger
1603 Any editing of the buffer, and any cursor motion or scrolling for any
1604 reason other than the scroll bar, cancels the special state set up by
1605 Mouse-1--so that a subsequent Mouse-3 click will use the actual value
1608 ** C-mouse-3 now pops up a mode-specific menu of commands--normally
1609 the same ones available in the mode's own menu bar menus.
1611 ** C-mouse-2 now pops up a menu of faces, indentation, justification,
1612 and certain other text properties. This menu is also available
1613 through the menu-bar Edit menu. It is meant for use with Enriched
1616 *** You can use this menu to change the face of the region.
1617 You can also set the face of the region with the new M-g command.
1619 *** The menu also includes commands for indenting the region,
1620 which locally changes the values of left-margin and fill-column that
1623 *** All fill functions now indent every line to the left-margin. If
1624 there is also a fill-prefix, that goes after the margin indentation.
1626 *** Open-line and newline also make sure that the lines they create
1627 are indented to the left margin.
1629 *** It also allows you to set the "justification" of the region:
1630 whether it should be centered, flush right, and so forth. The fill
1631 functions (including auto-fill-mode) will maintain the justification
1632 and indentation that you request.
1634 *** The new function `list-colors-display' shows you what colors are
1635 available. This is also accessible from the C-mouse-2 menu.
1637 ** You can now save and load files including their faces and other
1638 text-properties by using Enriched-mode. Files are saved in an
1639 extended version of the MIME text/enriched format. You can use the
1640 menus described above, or M-g and other keyboard commands, to
1641 alter the formatting information.
1643 ** C-mouse-1 now pops up the menu for changing the frame's default font.
1645 ** You can input Hyper, Super, Meta, and Alt characters, as well as
1646 non-ASCII control characters, on an ASCII-only terminal.
1656 These are not ordinary key sequences; they operate through
1657 function-key-map, which means they can be used even in the
1658 middle of an ordinary key sequence.
1660 ** Outline minor mode and Hideif mode now use C-c @ as their prefix
1663 ** Echo area messages are now logged in the "*Messages*" buffer. The
1664 size of this buffer is limited to message-log-max lines.
1666 ** RET in various special modes for read-only buffers that contain
1667 lists of items now selects the item point is on. These modes include
1668 Dired, Compilation buffers, Buffer-menu, Tar mode, and Occur mode.
1669 (In Info, RET follows the reference near point; in completion list
1670 buffers, RET chooses the completion around point.)
1672 ** set-background-color now updates the modeline face in a special
1673 way. If that face was previously set up to be reverse video, the
1674 reverse of the default face, then set-background-color updates it so
1675 that it remains the reverse of the default face.
1677 ** The functions raise-frame and lower-frame are now commands.
1678 When used interactively, they apply to the selected frame.
1680 ** M-x buffer-menu now displays the buffer list in the selected window.
1681 Use M-x buffer-menu-other-window to display it in another window.
1683 ** M-w followed by a kill command now *does not* append the text in
1684 the kill ring. In consequence, M-w followed by C-w works as you would
1685 expect: it leaves the top of the kill ring matching the region that
1688 ** In Lisp mode, the C-M-x command now executes defvar forms in a
1689 special way: it unconditionally sets the variable to the specified
1690 default value, if there is one. Normal execution of defvar does not
1691 alter the variable if it already has a non-void value.
1693 ** In completion list buffers, the left and right arrow keys run the
1694 new commands previous-completion and next-completion. They move one
1695 completion at a time.
1697 ** While doing completion in the minibuffer, the `prior' or `pageup'
1698 key switches to the completion list window.
1700 ** When you exit the minibuffer with empty contents, the empty string
1701 is not put in the minibuffer history.
1703 ** The default buffer for insert-buffer is now the "first" buffer
1704 other than the current one. If you have more than one window, this
1705 is a buffer visible in another window. (Usually it is the buffer
1706 that C-M-v would scroll.)
1708 ** The etags program is now capable of recording tags based on regular
1709 expressions provided on the command line.
1711 This new feature allows easy support for constructs not normally
1712 handled by etags, such as the macros frequently used in big C/C++
1713 projects to define project-specific structures. It also enables the
1714 use of etags and TAGS files for languages not supported by etags.
1716 The Emacs manual section on Tags contains explanations and examples
1717 for Emacs's DEFVAR, VHDL, Cobol, Postscript and TCL.
1719 ** Various mode-specific commands that used to be bound to C-c LETTER
1722 *** In gnus-uu mode, gnus-uu-interactive-scan-directory is now on C-c C-d,
1723 and gnus-uu-interactive-save-current-file is on C-c C-z.
1725 *** In Scribe mode, scribe-insert-environment is now on C-c C-v,
1726 scribe-chapter is on C-c C-c, scribe-subsection is on C-c C-s,
1727 scribe-section is on C-c C-t, scribe-bracket-region-be is on C-c C-e,
1728 scribe-italicize-word is on C-c C-i, scribe-bold-word is on C-c C-b,
1729 and scribe-underline-word is on C-c C-u.
1731 *** In Gomoku mode, gomoku-human-takes-back is now on C-c C-b,
1732 gomoku-human-plays is on C-c C-p, gomoku-human-resigns is on C-c C-r,
1733 and gomoku-emacs-plays is on C-c C-e.
1735 *** In the Outline mode defined in allout.el,
1736 outline-rebullet-current-heading is now on C-c *.
1738 ** M-s in Info now searches through the nodes of the Info file,
1739 just like s. The alias M-s was added so that you can use the same
1740 command for searches in both Info and Rmail.
1742 ** iso-acc.el now lets you enter inverted-! and inverted-?
1743 with the sequences ~! and ~?.
1745 ** M-x compare-windows now pushes mark in both windows before
1746 it starts moving point.
1748 ** There are two new commands in Dired, A (dired-do-search)
1749 and Q (dired-do-query-replace). These are similar to tags-search and
1750 tags-query-replace, but instead of searching the list of files that
1751 appears in a tags table, they search all the files marked in Dired.
1753 ** Changes to dabbrev.
1755 A new function, `dabbrev-completion' (bound to M-C-/), expands the
1756 unique part of an abbreviation.
1758 Dabbrev now looks for expansions in other buffers, looks for symbols
1759 instead of words and it works in the minibuffer.
1761 Dabbrev can be customized to work for shell scripts, with variables
1762 that sometimes have and sometimes haven't a leading "$". See the
1763 variable 'dabbrev-abbrev-skip-leading-regexp'.
1765 ** In Rmail, the command rmail-input-menu has been eliminated. The
1766 feature of selecting an Rmail file from a menu is now implemented in
1769 ** Bookmarks changes.
1771 *** It now works to set bookmarks in Info nodes.
1773 *** Bookmarks can have annotations; type "C-h m" after doing
1774 "M-x list-bookmarks", for more information on annotations.
1776 *** The bookmark-jump popup menu function is now `bookmark-menu-jump', for
1777 those who bind it to a mouse click.
1779 *** The default bookmarks file name is now "~/.emacs.bmk". If you
1780 already have a bookmarks file, it will be renamed automagically when
1783 ** New package, ps-print.
1785 The ps-print package generates PostScript printouts of buffers or
1786 regions, and includes face attributes such as color, underlining,
1787 boldface and italics in the printed output.
1789 ** New package, msb.
1791 The msb package provides a buffer-menu in the menubar with separate
1792 menus for different types of buffers.
1794 ** `cpp.el' is a new library that can highlight or hide parts of a C
1795 file according to C preprocessor conditionals. To try it, run the
1796 command M-x cpp-highlight-buffer.
1798 ** Changes in CC mode.
1800 *** c-set-offset and related functions and variables can now accept
1801 variable symbols. Also ++ and -- which mean 2* positive and negative
1802 c-basic-offset respectively.
1804 *** New variable, c-recognize-knr-p, which controls whether K&R C
1805 constructs will be recognized. Trying to recognize K&R constructs is a
1806 time hog so if you're programming strictly in ANSI C, set this
1807 variable to nil (it should already be nil in c++-mode).
1809 *** New variable, c-hanging-comment-ender-p for controlling
1810 c-fill-paragraph's behavior.
1812 *** New syntactic symbol: statement-case-open. This is assigned to lines
1813 containing an open brace just after a case/default label.
1815 *** New variable, c-progress-interval, which controls minibuffer update
1816 message displays during long re-indention. This is a new feature
1817 which prints percentage complete messages at specified intervals.
1819 ** Makefile mode changes.
1821 *** The electric keys are not enabled by default.
1823 *** There is now a mode-specific menu bar menu.
1825 *** The mode supports font-lock, add-log, and imenu.
1827 *** The command M-TAB does completion of target names and variable names.
1829 ** icomplete.el now works more like a minor mode. Use M-x icomplete-mode
1830 to turn it on and off.
1832 Icomplete now supports an `icomplete-minibuffer-setup-hook', which is
1833 run on minibuffer setup whenever icompletion will be occurring. This
1834 hook can be used to customize interoperation of icomplete with other
1835 minibuffer-specific packages, eg rsz-mini. See the doc string for
1840 Use ediff-revision instead of vc-ediff. It also replaces rcs-ediff,
1841 for those who use that; if you want to use a version control package
1842 other than vc.el, you must set the variable
1843 ediff-version-control-package to specify which package.
1845 ** VC now supports branches with RCS.
1847 You can use C-u C-x C-q to select any branch or version by number.
1848 It reads the version number or branch number with the minibuffer,
1849 then checks out the file unlocked.
1851 Type C-x C-q again to lock the selected branch or version.
1852 When you check in changes to that branch or version, there are two
1855 -- If you've selected a branch, or a version at the tip of a branch,
1856 then the new version adds to that branch. If you wish to create a
1857 new branch, use C-u C-x C-q to specify a version number when you check
1860 -- If you've selected an inner version which is not the latest in its
1861 branch, then the new version automatically creates a new branch.
1863 ** VC now supports CVS as well as RCS and SCCS.
1865 Since there are no locks in CVS, some things behave slightly
1866 different when the backend is CVS. When vc-next-action is invoked
1867 in a directory handled by CVS, it does the following:
1869 If the file is not already registered, this registers it for version
1870 control. This does a "cvs add", but no "cvs commit".
1871 If the file is added but not committed, it is committed.
1872 If the file has not been changed, neither in your working area or
1873 in the repository, a message is printed and nothing is done.
1874 If your working file is changed, but the repository file is
1875 unchanged, this pops up a buffer for entry of a log message; when you
1876 finish the log message with C-c C-c, that checks in the resulting
1877 changes along with the log message as change commentary. A writable
1878 file remains in existence.
1880 If vc-next-action changes the repository file, it asks you
1881 whether to merge in the changes into your working copy.
1883 vc-directory, when started in a CVS file hierarchy, reports
1884 all files that are modified (and thus need to be committed).
1885 (When the backend is RCS or SCCS vc-directory reports all
1888 VC has no support for running the initial "cvs checkout" to get a
1889 working copy of a module. You can only use VC in a working copy of
1892 You can disable the CVS support as follows:
1894 (setq vc-master-templates (delq 'vc-find-cvs-master vc-master-templates))
1896 or by setting vc-handle-cvs to nil.
1898 This may be desirable if you run a non-standard version of CVS, or
1899 if CVS was compiled with FORCE_USE_EDITOR or (possibly)
1902 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
1904 *** Completion works with file names containing quoted characters.
1906 File names containing special characters (such as " ", "!", etc.) that are
1907 quoted with a "\" character are recognised during completion. Special
1908 characters are quoted when they are inserted during completion.
1910 *** You can use M-x comint-truncate-buffer to truncate the buffer.
1912 When this command is run, the buffer is truncated to a maximum number
1913 of lines, specified by the variable comint-buffer-maximum-size. Just
1914 like the command comint-strip-ctrl-m, this can be run automatically
1915 during process output by doing this:
1917 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
1918 'comint-truncate-buffer)
1920 ** Telnet mode buffer name changed.
1922 The buffer name for a Telnet buffer is now *telnet-HOST*, not
1923 *HOST-telnet*. This is for consistency with other Emacs packages.
1925 ** M-x man (man) is now faster and more robust. On systems where the
1926 entire man page is indented, the indentation is removed.
1928 The user option names that used to end in -p now end in -flag. The
1929 new names are: Man-reuse-okay-flag, Man-downcase-section-letters-flag,
1930 Man-circular-pages-flag. The Man-notify user option has been renamed to
1931 Man-notify-method and accepts one more value, `pushy', that just
1932 switches the current buffer to the manpage buffer, without switching
1933 frames nor changing your windows configuration.
1935 A new user option Man-fontify-manpage-flag disables fontification
1936 (thus speeding up man) when set to nil. Default is to fontify if a
1937 window system is used. Two new user options Man-overstrike-face
1938 (default 'bold) and Man-underline-face (default 'underline) can be set
1939 to the preferred faces to be used for the words that man overstrikes
1940 and underlines. Useful for those who like coloured man pages.
1942 Two new interactive functions are provided: Man-cleanup-manpage and
1943 Man-fontify-manpage. Both can be used on a buffer that contains the
1944 output of a `rsh host man manpage' command, or the output of an
1945 `nroff -man -Tman manpage' command to make them readable.
1946 Man-cleanup-manpage is faster, but does not fontify.
1948 ** The new function modify-face makes it easy to specify
1949 all the attributes of a face, all at once.
1951 ** Faces now support background stippling.
1953 Use the command set-face-stipple to specify the stipple-pattern for a
1954 face. Use face-stipple to access the specified stipple pattern. The
1955 existing face functions now handle the stipple pattern when
1958 If you specify one of the standard gray colors as a face background
1959 color, and your display doesn't handle gray, Emacs automatically uses
1960 stipple instead to get the same effect.
1962 ** Changes in Font Lock mode.
1966 Two new default faces are provided; `font-lock-variable-name-face' and
1967 `font-lock-reference-face'. The face `font-lock-doc-string-face' has
1968 been removed since it is the same as the existing
1969 `font-lock-string-face'. Where appropriate, fontification
1970 automatically uses these new faces.
1972 Fontification via commands `font-lock-mode' and
1973 `font-lock-fontify-buffer' is now cleanly interruptible (i.e., with
1974 C-g). If you interrupt during the fontification process, the buffer
1975 remains in its previous modified state and all highlighting is removed
1978 For C/C++ modes, Font Lock mode is much faster but highlights much
1979 more. Other modes are faster/more extensive/more discriminatory, or a
1980 combination of these.
1982 To enable Font Lock mode, add the new function `turn-on-font-lock' in
1983 one of the following ways:
1985 (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
1987 Or for any visited file with:
1989 (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'turn-on-font-lock)
1991 *** Supports color and grayscale displays
1993 Font Lock mode supports different ways of highlighting, depending on
1994 the type of display and background shade. Attributes (face color,
1995 bold, italic and underline, and display type and background mode) can
1996 be controlled either from Emacs Lisp or X resources.
1998 See the new variables `font-lock-display-type' and
1999 `font-lock-face-attributes'.
2001 *** Supports more modes
2003 The following modes are directly supported:
2005 ada-mode, asm-mode, bibtex-mode, c++-c-mode, c++-mode, c-mode,
2006 change-log-mode, compilation-mode, dired-mode, emacs-lisp-mode,
2007 fortran-mode, latex-mode, lisp-mode, mail-mode, makefile-mode,
2008 outline-mode, pascal-mode, perl-mode, plain-tex-mode, rmail-mode,
2009 rmail-summary-mode, scheme-mode, shell-mode, slitex-mode, tex-mode,
2012 See the new variables `font-lock-defaults-alist' and
2013 `font-lock-defaults'.
2015 Some modes support different levels of fontification. You can choose
2016 to use the minimum or maximum available decoration by changing the
2017 value of the new variable `font-lock-maximum-decoration'.
2019 Programmers are urged to make available to the community their own
2020 keywords for modes not yet supported. See font-lock.el for
2021 information about efficiency.
2025 The fast-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by saving font choices
2026 in associated cache files. When you visit a file with Font Lock mode
2027 and Fast Lock mode turned on for the first time, the file's buffer is
2028 fontified as normal. When certain events occur (such as exiting
2029 Emacs), Fast Lock saves the highlighting in a cache file. When you
2030 subsequently visit this file, its cache is used to restore the
2033 To use this package, put in your `~/.emacs':
2035 (add-hook 'font-lock-mode-hook 'turn-on-fast-lock)
2037 To control the use of caches, see the documentation for `fast-lock-mode'.
2039 ** You can tell pop-to-buffer to display certain buffers in the selected
2040 window rather than finding some other window to display them in.
2041 There are two variables you can use to specify these buffers.
2043 same-window-buffer-names holds a list of buffer names; if a buffer's
2044 name appears in this list, pop-to-buffer puts it in the selected window.
2046 same-window-regexps holds a list of regexps--if any one of them
2047 matches a buffer's name, then pop-to-buffer puts that buffer in the
2050 The default values of these variables are not nil: they list various
2051 buffers that normally appear, when you as for them, in the selected
2052 window. These include shell buffers, mail buffers, telnet buffers,
2053 and others. By removing elements from these variables, you can ask
2054 Emacs to display those buffers in separate windows.
2056 ** The special-display-buffer-names and special-display-regexps lists
2057 have been generalized. An element may now be a list. The car of the list
2058 is the buffer name or regular expression for matching buffer names.
2060 The cdr of the list can be an alist specifying additional frame
2061 parameters for use in constructing the special display frame.
2063 Alternatively, the cdr can have this form:
2067 where FUNCTION is a symbol. Then the frame is constructed by calling
2068 FUNCTION; its first argument is the buffer, and its remaining
2071 ** If the environment variable REPLYTO is set, its value is the default
2072 for mail-default-reply-to.
2074 ** When you send a message in Emacs, if you specify an Rmail file with
2075 the FCC: header field, Emacs converts the message to Rmail format
2076 before writing it. Thus, the file never contains anything but Rmail
2079 ** The new variable mail-from-style controls whether the From: header
2080 should include the sender's full name, and if so, which format to use.
2082 ** The new variable mail-personal-alias-file specifies the name of the
2083 user's personal aliases. This defaults to the file ~/.mailrc.
2084 mailabbrev.el used to have its own variable for this purpose
2085 (mail-abbrev-mailrc-file). That variable is no longer used.
2087 ** In Buffer-Menu mode, the d and C-d commands (which mark buffers for
2088 deletion) now accept a prefix argument which serves as a repeat count.
2090 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
2092 *** Reference keys can now be entered with TAB completion. All
2093 reference keys defined in that buffer and all labels that appear in
2094 crossreference entries are object to completion.
2096 *** Braces are supported as field delimiters in addition to quotes.
2097 BibTeX entries may have brace-delimited and quote-delimited fields
2098 intermixed. The delimiters generated for new entries are specified by
2099 the variables bibtex-field-left-delimiter and
2100 bibtex-field-right-delimiter on a buffer-local basis. Those variables
2101 default to braces, since it is easier to put quote accented characters
2102 (as the german umlauts) into a brace-delimited entry.
2104 *** The function bibtex-clean-entry can now be invoked with a prefix
2105 argument. In this case, a label is automatically generated from
2106 various fields in the record. If bibtex-clean-entry is invoked on a
2107 record without label, a label is also generated automatically.
2108 Various variables (all beginning with `bibtex-autokey-') control the
2109 creation of that key. The variable bibtex-autokey-edit-before-use
2110 determines, if the user is allowed to edit auto-generated reference
2111 keys before they are used.
2113 *** A New function bibtex-complete-string completes strings with
2114 respect to the strings defined in this buffer and a set of predefined
2115 strings (initialized to the string macros defined in the standard
2116 BibTeX style files) in the same way in which ispell-complete-word
2117 works with respect to words in a dictionary. Candidates for
2118 bibtex-complete-string are initialized from variable
2119 bibtex-predefined-strings and by parsing the files found in
2120 bibtex-string-files for @String definitions.
2122 *** Every reference/field pair has now attached a comment which
2123 appears in the echo area when this field is edited. These comments
2124 should provide useful hints for BibTeX usage, especially for BibTeX
2125 beginners. New variable bibtex-help-message determines if these help
2126 messages are to appear in the minibuffer when moving to a text entry.
2128 *** Inscriptions of menu bar changed from "Entry Types" to
2129 "Entry-Types" and "Bibtex Edit" to "BibTeX-Edit".
2131 *** The variable bibtex-include-OPTcrossref is now not longer a binary
2132 switch but a list of reference names which should contain a crossref
2133 field. E.g., you can tell bibtex-mode you want a crossref field for
2134 @InProceedings and @InBook entries but for no other.
2136 *** The function validate-bibtex-buffer was completely rewritten to
2137 validate if a buffer is syntactically correct. find-bibtex-duplicates
2138 is no longer a function itself but was moved into
2139 validate-bibtex-buffer.
2141 *** Cleaning a BibTeX entry tests, if necessary fields are there.
2142 E.g., if you tell bibtex-mode to include a crossref entry, some fields
2143 are optional which would be required without the crossref entry. If
2144 you now leave the crossref entry empty and do a bibtex-clean-entry
2145 with some now required fields left empty, version 2.0 of bibtex.el
2146 complains about the absence of these fields, whereas version 1.3
2149 *** Default value for variables bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries and
2150 bibtex-sort-ignore-string-entries is now t.
2152 *** All interactive functions are renamed to begin with `bibtex-'.
2154 *** Keybindings with \C-c\C-e entry changed for unification. Often
2155 used reference types are now on control-modified keys, mediocre used
2156 types are on unmodified keys, seldom used types are on shift-modified
2157 keys and almost never used types on meta-modified keys.
2159 * Configuration Changes in Emacs 19.29
2161 ** Emacs now uses directory /usr/local/share for most of its installed
2162 files. This follows a GNU convention for directory usage.
2164 ** The option --with-x11 is no longer supported.
2165 X11 is the only version of X that Emacs 19.29 supports;
2166 use --with-x if you need to request X support explicitly.
2167 (Normally this should not be necessary, since configure should
2168 automatically enable X support if X is installed on your machine.)
2170 ** If you use the site-init.el file to set the variable
2171 mail-host-address to a string in the dumped Emacs, that string becomes
2172 the default host address for initializing user-mail-address.
2173 It is used instead of the value of (system-name).
2175 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.29
2179 *** The range of integer values is now at least 2**28 on all machines.
2180 This means the maximum size of a buffer is at least 2**27-1,
2183 *** You can now use Common Lisp syntax for the backquote and comma
2184 macros. Thus, you can now write `(x ,y z) instead of (` (x (, y) z)).
2186 The old syntax is still accepted.
2188 *** The new function rassoc is like assoc, except that it compares the
2189 key against the cdr of each alist element, where assoc would compare
2190 it against the car of each alist element.
2192 *** The new function unintern deletes a symbol from an obarray. The
2193 first argument can be the symbol to delete, or a string giving its
2194 name. The second argument specifies the obarray (nil means the
2195 current default obarray).
2197 If the specified symbol is not in the obarray, or if there's no symbol
2198 in the obarray matching the specified string, unintern does nothing
2199 and returns nil. If it does delete a symbol, it returns t.
2201 *** You can specify an alternative read function for use by load and
2202 eval-region by binding the variable load-read-function to some other
2203 function. This function should accept one argument just like read.
2204 If load-read-function is nil, load and eval-region use ordinary read.
2206 *** The new function `type-of' takes any object as argument, and
2207 returns a symbol identifying the type of that object--one of `symbol',
2208 `integer', `float', `string', `cons', `vector', `marker', `overlay',
2209 `window', `buffer', `subr', `compiled-function',
2210 `window-configuration', `process'.
2212 *** When you use eval-after-load for a file that is already loaded, it
2213 executes the FORM right away. As before, if the file is not yet
2214 loaded, it arranges to execute FORM if and when the file is loaded
2215 later. The result is: if you have called eval-after-load for a file,
2216 and if that file has been loaded, then regardless of the order of
2217 these two events, the specified form has been evaluated.
2219 *** The Lisp construct #@NUMBER now skips the next NUMBER characters,
2220 treating them as a comment.
2222 You would not want to use this in a file you edit by hand, but it is
2223 useful for commenting out parts of machine-generated files.
2225 *** Two new functions, `plist-get' and `plist-put',
2226 allow you to modify and retrieve values from lists formatted as property-lists.
2227 They work like `get' and `put', but operate on any list.
2228 `plist-put' returns the modified property-list; you must store it
2229 back where you got it.
2231 *** The new function add-to-list is called with two elements,
2232 a variable that holds a list and a new element.
2233 It adds the element to the list unless it is already present.
2234 It compares elements using `equal'. Here is an example:
2236 (setq foo '(a b)) => (a b)
2238 (add-to-list 'foo 'c) => (c a b)
2240 (add-to-list 'foo 'b) => (c a b)
2244 ** Changes in compilation.
2246 Functions and variables loaded from a byte-compiled file
2247 now refer to the file for their doc strings.
2249 This has a few consequences:
2251 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2252 -- Reference to doc strings is a little slower (the same speed
2253 as reference to the doc strings of primitive and preloaded functions).
2254 -- The compiled files will not work in old versions of Emacs.
2255 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2256 find these doc strings.
2257 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2258 version), then further access to documentation strings will get
2261 The byte compiler now optionally supports lazy loading of compiled
2262 functions' definitions. If you enable this feature when you compile,
2263 loading the compiled file does not actually bring the function
2264 definitions into core. Instead it creates references to the compiled
2265 file, and brings each function's definition into core the first time
2266 you call that function, or when you force it with the new function
2269 Using the lazy loading feature has a few consequences:
2271 -- Loading the file is faster and uses less memory.
2272 -- Calling any function in the file for the first time is slower.
2273 -- If you move the compiled file after loading it, Emacs can no longer
2274 find the function definitions.
2275 -- If you alter the compiled file (such as by compiling a new
2276 version), then further access to functions not already loaded
2277 will get nonsense results.
2279 To enable the lazy loading feature, set up a non-nil file local
2280 variable binding for the variable `byte-compile-dynamic' in the Lisp
2281 source file. For example, put this on the first line:
2283 -*-byte-compile-dynamic: t;-*-
2285 It's a good idea to use the lazy loading feature for a file that
2286 contains many functions, most of which are not actually used by a
2287 given user in a given session.
2289 To turn off the basic feature of referring to the file for doc
2290 strings, set byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings to nil. You can do this
2291 globally, or for one source file by adding this to the first line:
2293 -*-byte-compile-dynamic-docstrings: nil;-*-
2297 *** Do not pass integer arguments to `concat' (or `vconcat' or
2298 `append'). We are phasing out the old unrecommended support for
2299 integers as arguments to these functions, in preparation for treating
2300 numbers as single characters in a future release. To concatenate
2301 numbers in string form, use `number-to-string' first, or rewrite the
2302 call to use `format' instead of `concat'.
2304 *** The new function match-string returns the string of text matched at
2305 the given parenthesized expression by the last regexp search, or nil
2306 if there was no match. If the last match was by `string-match' on a
2307 string, the string must be given. Therefore, this function can be
2308 used in place of `buffer-substring' and `substring', when using
2309 `match-beginning' and `match-end' to find match positions.
2311 (match-string N) or (match-string N STRING)
2313 *** The function replace-match now accepts an optional fourth argument,
2314 STRING. Use this after performing string-match on STRING, to replace
2315 the portion of STRING that was matched. When used in this way,
2316 replace-match returns a newly created string which is the same as
2317 STRING except for the matched portion.
2319 *** The new function buffer-substring-no-properties
2320 is like buffer-substring except that the string it returns
2321 has no text properties.
2323 *** The function `equal' now considers two strings to be different
2324 if they don't have the same text properties.
2328 *** all-completions now takes an optional fourth argument.
2329 If that argument is non-nil, completions that start with a space
2330 are ignored unless the initial string also starts with a space.
2331 (This used to happen unconditionally.)
2335 *** Local hook variables.
2337 There is now a clean way to give a hook variable a buffer-local value.
2338 Call the function `make-local-hook' to do this.
2340 Once a hook variable is buffer-local, you can add hooks to it either
2341 globally or locally. run-hooks runs the local hook functions
2342 of the current buffer, then all the global hook functions.
2344 The functions add-hook and remove-hook take an additional optional
2345 argument LOCAL which says whether to add (or remove) a local hook
2346 function or a global one.
2348 Local hooks use t as an element of the (local) value of the hook
2349 variable as a flag meaning to use the global value also.
2351 *** The new function local-variable-p tells you whether a particular
2352 variable is buffer-local in the current buffer or a specified buffer.
2354 ** Editing Facilities
2356 *** The function copy-region-as-kill no longer sets this-command;
2357 as a result, a following kill command will not normally append
2358 to the text saved by copy-region-as-kill.
2360 *** Regular expression searching and matching no longer performs full
2361 Posix backtracking by default. They now stop with the first match found
2362 instead of looking for the longest match--just as they did in Emacs 18.
2363 The reason for this change is to get higher speed.
2365 There are new functions you can use if you really want to search or
2366 match with Posix behavior: posix-search-forward,
2367 posix-search-backward, posix-looking-at, and posix-string-match. Call
2368 these just like re-search-forward, re-search-backward, looking-at, and
2373 *** The new variable `format-alist' defines file formats,
2374 which are ways of translating between the data in a file and things
2375 (text, text-properties, and possibly other information) in a buffer.
2377 `format-alist' has one element for each format. Each element is a
2379 (NAME DOC-STRING REGEXP FROM-FN TO-FN MODIFY MODE-FN)
2380 containing the name of the format, a documentation string, a regular
2381 expression which is used to recognize files in that format, a decoding
2382 function, an encoding function, a flag that indicates whether the
2383 encoding function modifies the buffer, and a mode function.
2385 FROM-FN is called to decode files in that format; it gets two args, BEGIN
2386 and END, and can make any modifications it likes, returning the new
2387 end position. It must make sure that the beginning of the file no
2388 longer matches REGEXP, or else it will get called again.
2389 TO-FN is called to encode a region into that format; it is also passed BEGIN
2390 and END, and either returns a list of annotations as in
2391 `write-region-annotate-functions', or modifies the region and returns
2392 the new end position.
2393 MODIFY, if non-nil, means the TO-FN modifies the region. If nil, TO-FN may
2394 not make any changes and should return a list of annotations.
2396 `insert-file-contents' checks the beginning of the file that it is
2397 inserting to see if it matches one of the regexps. If so, then it
2398 calls the decoding function, and then looks for another match. When
2399 visiting a file, it also calls the mode function, and sets the
2400 variable `buffer-file-format' to the list of formats that the file
2403 `write-region' calls the encoding functions for each format in
2404 `buffer-file-format' before it writes the file. To save a file in a
2405 different format, either set `buffer-file-format' to a different
2406 value, or call the new function `format-write-file'.
2408 Since some encoding functions may be slow, you can request that
2409 auto-save use a format different from the buffer's default by setting
2410 the variable `auto-save-file-format' to the desired format. This will
2411 determine the format of all auto-save files.
2413 *** The new function file-ownership-preserved-p tells you whether
2414 deleting a file and recreating it would keep the file's owner
2417 *** The new function file-regular-p returns t if a file
2418 is a "regular" file (not a directory, symlink, named pipe,
2419 terminal, or other I/O device).
2421 *** The new function file-name-sans-extension discards the extension
2422 of a file name. You call it with a file name, and returns a string
2423 lacking the extension.
2425 *** The variable path-separator is a string which says which
2426 character separates directories in a search path. It is ":"
2427 for Unix and GNU systems, ";" for MSDOG and Windows NT.
2429 ** Commands and Key Sequences
2431 *** Key sequences consisting of C-c followed by {, }, <, >, : or ; are
2432 now reserved for major modes. Sequences consisting of C-c followed by
2433 any other punctuation character are now meant for minor modes. We don't
2434 plan to convert all existing major modes to stop using those sequences,
2435 but we hope to keep them to a minimum.
2437 *** When the post-command-hook or the pre-command-hook gets an error, the error
2438 is silently ignored. Emacs no longer sets the hook variable to nil when this
2439 happens. Meanwhile, the hook functions can now alter the hook variable in
2440 a normal fashion; there is no need to do anything special.
2442 *** define-key, lookup-key, and various other functions for changing or
2443 looking up key bindings now let you write an event type with a list
2444 like (ctrl meta newline) or (meta ?d), as in XEmacs. (ctrl meta newline)
2445 is equivalent to the event type symbol C-M-newline, and (meta ?d)
2446 is equivalent to the character ?\M-d.
2448 *** The function event-convert-list converts a list such as
2449 (meta ?d) into the corresponding event type (a symbol or integer).
2451 *** In an interactive spec, `k' means to read a key sequence. In this
2452 key sequence, upper case characters and shifted function keys which
2453 have no bindings are converted to lower case if that makes them
2456 The new interactive code `K' reads a key sequence similarly, but does
2457 not convert the last event. `K' is useful for reading a key sequence
2458 to be given a binding.
2460 *** The variable overriding-local-map now has no effect on the menu bar
2461 display unless overriding-local-map-menu-flag is non-nil. This is why
2462 incremental search no longer temporarily changes the menu bars.
2464 Note that overriding-local-map does still affect the execution of key
2465 sequences entered using the menu bar. So if you use
2466 overriding-local-map, and a menu bar key sequence comes in, you should
2467 make sure to clear overriding-local-map before that key sequence gets
2468 looked up and executed. But this is what you'd normally do anyway:
2469 programs that use overriding-local-map normally exit and "put back"
2470 any event such as menu-bar that they do not handle specially.
2472 *** The new variable `overriding-terminal-local-map' is like
2473 overriding-local-map, but is specific to a single terminal.
2475 *** delete-frame events.
2477 When you use the X window manager's "delete window" command, this now
2478 generates a delete-frame event. The standard definition of this event
2479 is a command that deletes the frame that received the event, and kills
2480 Emacs when the last visible or iconified frame is deleted. You can
2481 rebind the event to some other command if you wish.
2483 *** Two new types of events, iconify-frame and make-frame-visible,
2484 indicate that the user iconified or deiconified a frame with the
2485 window manager. Since the window manager has already done the work,
2486 the default definition for both event types in Emacs is to do nothing.
2490 *** Certain Lisp variables are now local to an X terminal (in other
2491 words, all the screens of a single X server). The value in effect, at
2492 any given time, is the one that belongs to the terminal of the
2493 selected frame. The terminal-local variables are
2494 default-minibuffer-frame, system-key-alist, defining-kbd-macro, and
2495 last-kbd-macro. There is no way for Lisp programs to create others.
2497 The terminal-local variables cannot be buffer-local.
2499 *** When you create an X frame, for the `top' and `left' frame
2500 parameters, you can now use values of the form (+ N) or (- N), where N
2501 is an integer. (+ N) means N pixels to the right of the left edge of
2502 the screen and (- N) means N pixels to the left of the right edge. In
2503 both cases, N may be zero (exactly at the edge) or negative (putting
2504 the window partly off the screen).
2506 The function x-parse-geometry can return values of these forms
2509 *** The variable menu-bar-file-menu has been renamed to
2510 menu-bar-files-menu to match the actual item that appears in the menu.
2511 (All the other such variable names do match.)
2513 *** The new function active-minibuffer-window returns the minibuffer window
2514 currently active, or nil if none is now active.
2516 *** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
2517 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
2518 and delete-windows-on, if you specify 0 for the last argument,
2519 it means to consider all visible and iconified frames.
2521 *** When you set a frame's cursor type with modify-frame-parameters,
2522 you can now specify (bar . INTEGER) as the cursor type. This stands
2523 for a bar cursor of width INTEGER.
2525 *** The new function facep returns t if its argument is a face name
2526 (or if it is a vector such as is used internally by the Lisp code
2527 to represent a face).
2529 *** Each frame can now have a buffer-predicate function,
2530 which is the `buffer-predicate' frame parameter.
2531 When `other-buffer' looks for an alternative buffer, it considers
2532 only the buffers that fit the selected frame's buffer predicate (if it
2533 has one). This is useful for applications that make their own frames.
2535 *** When you create an X frame, you can now specify the frame parameter
2536 `display'. This says which display to put the frame on. The value
2537 should be a display name--a string of the form
2538 "HOST:DPYNUMBER.SCREENNUMBER".
2540 The functions x-server-... and x-display-... now take an optional
2541 argument which specifies the display to ask about. You can use either
2542 a display name string or a frame. A value of nil stands for the
2545 To close the connection to an X display, use the function
2546 x-close-connection. Specify which display with a display name. You
2547 cannot close the connection if Emacs still has frames open on that
2550 x-display-list returns a list indicating which displays Emacs has
2551 connections to. Its elements are display names (strings).
2553 *** The icon-type frame parameter may now be a file name.
2554 Then the contents of that file specify the icon bitmap to use
2557 *** The title of an Emacs frame, displayed by most window managers, is
2558 set from frame-title-format or icon-title-format. These have the same
2559 structure as mode-line-format.
2561 *** x-display-grayscale-p is a new function that returns non-nil if
2562 your X server can display shades of gray. Currently it returns
2563 non-nil for color displays (because they can display shades of gray);
2564 we may change it in the next version to return nil for color displays.
2566 *** The frame parameter scroll-bar-width specifies the width of the
2567 scrollbar in pixels.
2571 *** Creating a buffer with get-buffer-create does not obey
2572 default-major-mode. That variable is now handled in a separate
2573 function, set-buffer-major-mode. get-buffer-create and generate-new-buffer
2574 always leave the newly created buffer in Fundamental mode.
2576 Creating a new buffer by visiting a file or with switch-to-buffer,
2577 pop-to-buffer, and similar functions does call set-buffer-major-mode
2578 to select the default major mode specified with default-major-mode.
2580 *** You can now create an "indirect buffer". An indirect buffer shares
2581 its text, including text properties, with another buffer (the "base
2582 buffer"), but has its own major mode, local variables, overlays, and
2583 narrowing. An indirect buffer has a name of its own, distinct from
2584 those of the base buffer and all other buffers. An indirect buffer
2585 cannot itself be visiting a file (though its base buffer can be).
2586 The base buffer cannot itself be indirect.
2588 Use (make-indirect-buffer BASE-BUFFER NAME) to make an indirect buffer
2589 named NAME whose base is BASE-BUFFER. If BASE-BUFFER is an indirect
2590 buffer, its base buffer is used as the base for the new buffer.
2592 You can make an indirect buffer current, or switch to it in a window,
2593 just as you would a non-indirect buffer.
2595 The function buffer-base-buffer, given an indirect buffer, returns its
2596 base buffer. It returns nil when given an ordinary buffer (not
2599 The library `noutline' has versions of Outline mode and Outline minor
2600 mode which let you display different parts of the outline in different
2605 *** The functions call-process and call-process-region now allow
2606 you to direct error message output from the subprocess into a
2607 separate destination, instead of mixing it with ordinary output.
2608 To do this, specify for the third argument, BUFFER, a list of the form
2609 (BUFFER-OR-NAME ERROR-DESTINATION)
2610 BUFFER-OR-NAME specifies where to put ordinary output; it should
2611 be a buffer or buffer name, or t, nil or 0. This is what would
2612 have been the BUFFER argument, ordinarily.
2614 ERROR-DESTINATION specifies where to put the error output.
2615 nil means discard it, t means mix it with the ordinary output,
2616 and a string specifies a file name to write this output into.
2618 You can't specify a buffer to put the error output in; that is not
2619 easy to implement directly. You can put the error output into a
2620 buffer by sending it to a temporary file and then inserting the file
2623 *** Comint mode changes:
2625 **** The variable comint-completion-addsuffix can also be a cons pair
2626 of the form (DIRSUFFIX . FILESUFFIX), where DIRSUFFIX and FILESUFFIX are
2627 strings added on unambiguous or exact completion of directories and file
2628 names, respectively.
2632 *** You can now specify which values of the `invisible' property
2633 make text invisible in a given buffer. The variable
2634 `buffer-invisibility-spec', which is always local in all buffers,
2637 If its value is t, then any non-nil `invisible' property makes
2638 a character invisible.
2640 If its value is a list, then a character is invisible if its
2641 `invisible' property value appears as a member of the list, or if it
2642 appears as the car of a member of the list.
2644 When the `invisible' property value appears as the car of a member of
2645 the `buffer-invisibility-spec' list, then the cdr of that member has
2646 an effect. If it is non-nil, then an ellipsis appears in place of the
2647 character. (This happens only for the *last* invisible character in a
2648 series of consecutive invisible characters, and only at the end of a
2651 If a character's `invisible' property is a list, then Emacs checks each
2652 element of the list against `buffer-invisibility-spec'. If any element
2653 matches, the character is invisible.
2655 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' shows what text properties
2656 are in effect at point.
2658 *** Frame objects now exist in Emacs even on systems that don't support
2659 X Windows. You can create multiple frames, and switch between them
2660 using select-frame. The selected frame is actually displayed on your
2661 terminal; other frames are not displayed at all. The selected frame
2662 number appears in the mode line after `Emacs', except for frame 1.
2664 Switching frames on ASCII terminals is therefore more or less
2665 equivalent to switching between different window configurations.
2667 *** The new variable window-size-change-functions holds a list of
2668 functions to be called if window sizes change (or if windows are
2669 created or deleted). The functions are called once for each frame on
2670 which changes have occurred, with the frame as the sole argument.
2671 This takes place shortly before redisplay.
2673 *** The modification hook functions of overlays now work differently.
2674 They are called both before and after each change. This makes it
2675 possible for the functions to determine exactly what the change was.
2677 This change affects three overlay properties: the modification-hooks
2678 property, a list of functions called for deletions overlapping the
2679 overlay's range and for insertions inside it; the
2680 insert-in-front-hooks, a list of functions called for insertions at
2681 the beginning of the overlay; and the insert-behind-hooks, a list of
2682 functions called for insertions at the end of the overlay.
2684 Each function is called both before and after each change that it
2685 applies to. Before the change, it is called with four arguments:
2686 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY nil START END)
2687 START and END are the same arguments that the before-change-functions
2690 After the change, each function is called with five arguments:
2691 (funcall FUNCTION OVERLAY t START END OLDSIZE)
2692 The last arguments, START and END and OLDSIZE,
2693 are the same arguments that the after-change-functions receive.
2695 This means the function must accept either four or five arguments.
2697 *** You can set defaults for text-properties with the new variable
2698 `default-text-properties'. Its value is a property list; the values
2699 specified there are used whenever a character (or its category) does
2700 not specify a value.
2702 *** The `face' property of a character or an overlay can now be a list
2703 of face names. Formerly it had to be just one face name.
2705 *** Changes in handling the `intangible' text property.
2707 **** If inhibit-point-motion-hooks is non-nil, then `intangible' properties
2710 **** Moving to just before a stretch of intangible text
2711 is no longer special in any way. Point stays at that place.
2713 **** When you move point backwards into the midst of intangible text,
2714 point moves back to the beginning of that text. (It used to move
2715 forward to the end of that text, which was not very useful.)
2717 **** When moving across intangible text, Emacs stops wherever the
2718 property value changes. So if you have two stretches of intangible
2719 text, with different non-nil intangible properties, it is possible to
2720 place point between them.
2724 *** Overlay changes.
2726 **** The new function previous-overlay-change returns the position of
2727 the previous overlay start or end, before a specified position. This
2728 is the backwards-moving counterpart of next-overlay-change.
2730 **** overlay-get now supports category properties on an overlay
2731 the same way get-text-property supports them as text properties.
2733 Specifically, if an overlay does not have the property PROP that you
2734 ask for, but it does have a `category' property which is a symbol,
2735 then that symbol's PROP property is used.
2737 **** If an overlay has a non-nil `evaporate' property, it will be
2738 deleted if it ever becomes empty (i.e., when it spans no characters).
2740 **** If an overlay has a `before-string' and/or `after-string' property,
2741 these strings are displayed at the overlay's endpoints.
2745 *** The new variable fill-paragraph-function provides a way for major
2746 modes to override the filling of paragraphs. If this is non-nil,
2747 fill-paragraph calls it as a function, passing along its sole
2748 argument. If the function returns non-nil, fill-paragraph assumes it
2749 has done the job and simply passes on whatever value it returned.
2751 The usual use of this feature is to fill comments in programming
2754 *** Text filling and justification changes:
2756 **** The new variable use-hard-newlines can be used to make a
2757 distinction between "hard" and "soft" newlines; the fill functions
2758 will then never remove a newline that was manually inserted. Hard
2759 newlines are marked with a non-nil `hard' text-property.
2761 **** The fill-column and left-margin can now be modified by text-properties.
2762 Most lisp programs should use the new functions (current-fill-column) and
2763 (current-left-margin), which return the proper values to use for the
2766 **** There are new functions for dealing with margins:
2768 ***** Set-left-margin and set-right-margin (set the value for a region
2769 and re-fill). These functions take three arguments: two to specify
2770 a region, and the desired margin value.
2772 ***** Increase-left-margin, decrease-left-margin, increase-right-margin, and
2773 decrease-right-margin (change settings relative to current values, and
2776 ***** move-to-left-margin moves point there, optionally adding
2777 indentation or changing tabs to spaces in order to make that possible.
2778 beginning-of-line-text also moves past the fill-prefix and any
2779 indentation added to center or right-justify a line, to the beginning
2780 of the text that the user actually typed.
2782 ***** delete-to-left-margin removes any left-margin indentation, but
2783 does not change the property.
2785 **** The paragraph-movement functions look for the paragraph-start and
2786 paragraph-separate regexps at the current left margin, not at the
2787 beginning of the line. This means that those regexps should NOT use ^
2788 to anchor the search. However, for backwards compatibility, a ^ at
2789 the beginning of the regexp will be ignored, so most packages won't break.
2791 **** justify-current-line is now capable of doing left, center, or
2792 right justification as well as full justification.
2794 **** The fill functions can do any kind of justification based on the new
2795 `justification' text-property and `default-justification' variable,
2796 or arguments to the functions. They also have a new option which
2797 defeats the normal removal of extra whitespace.
2799 **** The new function `current-justification' returns the kind of
2800 justification used for the current line. The new function
2801 `set-justification' can be used to change it, including re-justifying
2802 the text of the region according to the new value.
2804 **** Filling and auto-fill are disabled if justification is `none'.
2806 **** The auto-fill-function is now called regardless of whether
2807 the fill-column has been exceeded; the function can determine on its
2808 own whether filling (or justification) is necessary.
2812 *** process-tty-name is a new function that returns the name of the
2813 terminal that the process itself reads and writes on (not the name of
2814 the pty that Emacs uses to talk with that terminal).
2816 *** Errors in process filters and sentinels are now normally caught
2817 automatically, so that they don't abort other Lisp programs.
2819 Setting debug-on-error non-nil turns off this feature; then errors in
2820 filters and sentinels are not caught. As a result, they can invoke
2821 the debugger, under the control of debug-on-error.
2823 *** Emacs now preserves the match data around the execution of process
2824 filters and sentinels. You can use search and match functions freely
2825 in filters and sentinels without explicitly bothering to save the
2830 *** The variable message-log-max controls how messages are logged in the
2831 "*Messages*" buffer. An integer value means to keep that many lines;
2832 t means to log with no limit; nil means disable message logging. Lisp
2833 code that calls `message' excessively (e.g. isearch.el) should probably
2834 bind this variable to nil.
2836 *** Display tables now have a new element, at index 261, specifying the
2837 glyph to use for the separator between two side-by-side windows. By
2838 default, this is the vertical bar character `|'. Probably the only
2839 other useful character to store for this element is a space, to make
2840 less visual separation between two side-by-side windows displaying
2841 related information.
2843 *** The new mode-line-format spec %c displays the current column number.
2845 *** The new variable blink-matching-delay specifies how long to keep
2846 the cursor at the matching open-paren, after you insert a close-paren.
2847 This is useful mainly on systems which can wait for a fraction of a
2848 second--you can then specify fractional values such as 0.5.
2850 *** Faster processing of buffers with long lines
2852 The new variable cache-long-line-scans determines whether Emacs
2853 should use caches to handle long lines more quickly. This variable is
2854 buffer-local, in all buffers.
2856 Normally, the line-motion functions work by scanning the buffer for
2857 newlines. Columnar operations (like `move-to-column' and
2858 `compute-motion') also work by scanning the buffer, summing character
2859 widths as they go. This works well for ordinary text, but if the
2860 buffer's lines are very long (say, more than 500 characters), these
2861 motion functions will take longer to execute. Emacs may also take
2862 longer to update the display.
2864 If cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, these motion functions cache
2865 the results of their scans, and consult the cache to avoid rescanning
2866 regions of the buffer until the text is modified. The caches are most
2867 beneficial when they prevent the most searching---that is, when the
2868 buffer contains long lines and large regions of characters with the
2869 same, fixed screen width.
2871 When cache-long-line-scans is non-nil, processing short lines will
2872 become slightly slower (because of the overhead of consulting the
2873 cache), and the caches will use memory roughly proportional to the
2874 number of newlines and characters whose screen width varies.
2876 The caches require no explicit maintenance; their accuracy is
2877 maintained internally by the Emacs primitives. Enabling or disabling
2878 the cache should not affect the behavior of any of the motion functions;
2879 it should only affect their performance.
2883 *** The function user-login-name now accepts an optional
2884 argument uid. If the argument is non-nil, user-login-name
2885 returns the login name for that user id.
2887 *** system-name, user-name, user-full-name and user-real-name are now
2888 variables as well as functions. The variables hold the same values
2889 that the functions would return. The new variable multiple-frames
2890 is non-nil if at least two non-minibuffer frames are visible. These
2891 variables may be useful in constructing the value of frame-title-format
2892 or icon-title-format.
2894 *** Changes in time-conversion functions.
2896 **** The new function format-time-string takes a format string and a
2897 time value. It converts the time to a string, according to the format
2898 specified. You can specify what kind of conversion to use with
2901 **** The new function decode-time converts a time value into a list of
2902 specific items of information: the year, month, day of week, day of
2903 month, hour, minute and second. (A time value is a list of two or
2906 **** The new function encode-time converts specific items of time
2907 information--the second, minute, hour, day, month, year, and time
2908 zone--into a time value.
2910 * Changes in Emacs 19.27
2912 There are no changes; however, here is one bug fix made in 19.26 that users
2913 think should be documented here.
2915 ** SPC and DEL in Info now handle menus consistently.
2917 SPC and DEL scroll through an entire subtree an Info manual. Once you
2918 scroll through a node far enough to reach a menu, SPC begins moving
2919 into the subnodes of the menu, starting with the first one. When you
2920 reach the end of a subnode, SPC moves into the next subnode, and so
2923 DEL more or less scrolls through the same text in reverse order.
2925 * User Editing Changes in Emacs 19.26
2927 ** In the X toolkit version, if you click on a menu bar item and
2928 release the button quickly outside the menu, the menu remains visible
2929 until you click or type something else. If you click on the menu, you
2930 select from the menu. Any other mouse click makes the menu disappear.
2931 Keyboard input gets rid of the menu and then is processed normally.
2933 "Quickly" means within double-click-time milliseconds.
2935 ** The C-x 5 commands to select a buffer in "another frame" now use an
2936 existing iconified frame, if any, deiconifying it. They also raise
2939 ** Region highlighting on a black-and-white-only display now uses
2940 underlining. Inverse-video had the problem that you couldn't see
2943 ** You can now change the height of a window by pressing mouse-1 on
2944 the mode line and dragging it up and down.
2946 ** If you set the environment variable LC_CTYPE to iso_8859_1 or
2947 iso-8859-1, Emacs automatically sets up for display and syntactic
2948 handling of the ISO Latin-1 character set.
2950 This does not automatically load any of the packages for input of
2951 these characters, because it's not yet clear what is right to do.
2952 You must still explicitly load either iso-transl or iso-acc.
2954 ** For a read-only buffer that is also modified, the mode line now displays
2957 ** M-prior (scroll-other-window-down) is a new command that works like
2958 M-next (and C-M-v) but scrolls in the opposite direction.
2960 M-home moves to the beginning of the buffer, in the other window.
2961 M-end moves to the end of the buffer, in the other window. These two
2962 commands, along with M-next and M-prior, form a series of commands for
2963 moving around in the other window.
2965 ** In change logs, the mail address is now delimited with <...> instead
2968 This makes it a little more convenient to extract the mail address for
2969 use in mailing a message.
2971 ** In Shell mode and other comint modes, C-a has now returned to
2972 its ordinary meaning: move to the beginning of the line.
2973 Use C-c C-a to move to the end of the prompt.
2975 ** If you set mail-signature to t to cause automatic insertion of
2976 your .signature file, you now get a -- before the signature.
2978 ** Setting rmail-highlighted-headers to nil entirely turns off
2979 highlighting in Rmail. However, if your motivation for doing this is
2980 that the highlighted text doesn't look good on your display, it might
2981 be better to change the appearance of the `highlight' face. Once
2982 you've done that, you may find Rmail highlighting is useful.
2984 ** In the calendar, mouse-2 is now used only for commands that apply to a date.
2985 If you click it when not on a date, it gives an immediate error.
2987 Mouse-3 in the calendar now gives a menu of commands that do not apply
2988 to a particular date.
2990 The D command displays diary entries from a specified diary file (not
2991 your standard diary file).
2993 ** In the gnus-uu package, the binding for gnus-uu-threaded-decode-and-view
2994 is now C-c C-v C-d, not C-c C-v C-h. Thus, C-c C-v C-h is now available
2995 for asking for a list of the subcommands of C-c C-v.
2997 ** You can now specify "who you are" for various Emacs packages by
2998 setting just one variable, user-mail-address. This currently applies
2999 to posting news with GNUS and to making change log entries. It may
3000 apply to additional Emacs features in the future.
3002 * Lisp-Level Changes in Emacs 19.26:
3004 ** The function insert-char now takes an optional third argument
3005 which, if non-nil, says the inserted characters should inherit sticky
3006 text properties from the surrounding text.
3008 ** The `diary' library has been renamed to `diary-lib'. If you refer
3009 to this library in your Lisp code, you must update the references.
3011 ** Sending text to a subprocess can read input from subprocesses if it
3012 has to wait because the destination subprocess's terminal input buffer
3015 It was already possible in unusual occasions for this operation to
3016 read subprocess input, but it did not happen very often. It is now
3017 more likely to happen.
3019 ** last-nonmenu-event is now bound to t around filter functions and sentinels.
3020 This is to ensure that y-or-n-p and yes-or-no-p use the keyboard by default.
3022 ** In mode lines, %+ now displays as % for unmodified read-only
3023 buffers. It is now the same as %* except in the case of a modified
3024 read-only buffer; in that case, %+ displays as *.
3026 The old meaning of %+ is now available on %&.
3027 It displays * for a modified buffer and - for an unmodified buffer,
3028 regardless of read-only status.
3030 ** You can now use `underline' in the color list of a face.
3031 It serves as a last resort, and says to underline the face
3032 (if previous color list elements can't be used).
3034 ** The new function x-color-values returns the list of color values
3035 for a given color name (a string). The list contains three integers
3036 which give the amounts of red, green and blue in the color: (R G B).
3038 ** In run-at-time, 0 as the repeat interval means "don't repeat".
3040 ** The variable trim-versions-without-asking has been renamed to
3041 delete-old-versions.
3043 ** The new function other-window-for-scrolling returns the choice of
3044 other window for C-M-v to scroll.
3046 ** Note that the function fceiling was mistakenly documented as fceil before.
3048 * Changes in cc-mode.el in Emacs 19.26:
3050 ** A new syntactic symbol has been added: substatement-open. It
3051 defines the open brace of a substatement block. These used to get:
3052 ((block-open ...) (substatement . ...)).
3054 Non-block substatement lines still get just ((substatement . ...))
3056 Note that the custom indent function c-adaptive-block-open has been
3057 removed as obsolete.
3059 ** You can now specify the `hanginess' of closing braces. See
3060 c-hanging-braces-alist.
3062 ** Recognizes try and catch blocks in C++. They are given the
3063 substatement syntactic symbol.
3065 ** should be generally more forgiving about non-GNU standard top-level
3066 construct definition styles (i.e. where the function/class/struct
3067 opening brace does not start in column zero).
3069 If you hang the braces that open a top-level construct on the right
3070 edge, and you find you still need to define defun-open-prompt (Emacs
3071 19) please let me know. Note that there may still be performance
3072 issues related to non-column zero opening braces.
3074 ** c-macro-expand is put on C-c C-e
3076 ** New style: "Default". Resets indentation to those shipped with
3079 ** internal defun c-indent-via-language-element has been renamed
3080 c-indent-line for compatibility with c-mode.el and awk-mode.
3082 ** new buffer-local variable c-comment-start-regexp for (potential)
3083 flexibility in adding new modes based on cc-mode.el
3085 * Changes in Emacs 19.25
3087 The variable x-cross-pointer-shape (which didn't really exist) has
3088 been renamed to x-sensitive-text-pointer-shape, and now does exist.
3090 * Changes in Emacs 19.24
3092 Here is a list of new Lisp packages introduced since 19.22.
3094 derived.el Define new major modes based on old ones.
3095 dired-x.el Extra Dired features.
3096 double.el New mode for conveniently inputting non-beyond chars.
3097 easymenu.el Create menus easily.
3098 ediff.el Snazzy diff interface.
3099 foldout.el A kind of outline mode designed for editing programs.
3100 gnus-uu.el UUdecode in GNUS buffers.
3101 ielm.el Interactively evaluate Lisp.
3102 This is a replacement for Lisp Interaction Mode.
3103 iso-cvt.el Conversion of beyond-ASCII characters between
3104 various different representations.
3105 jka-compr.el Automatic compression/decompression.
3106 mldrag.el Drag modeline to change heights of windows.
3107 mail-hist.el Provides history for headers of outgoing mail.
3108 rsz-mini.el Automatically resizing minibuffers.
3109 s-region.el Set region by holding shift.
3110 skeleton.el Templates for statement insertion.
3111 soundex.el Classifying words by how they sound.
3112 tempo.el Template insertion with hotspots.
3114 * User Editing Changes in 19.23.
3116 ** Emacs 19.23 uses Ispell version 3.
3118 Previous Emacs 19 versions used Ispell version 4. That version had
3119 improvements in storing the dictionary compactly, but these are not
3120 very important nowadays. Meanwhile, in parallel to the work on Ispell
3121 4, many useful features were added to Ispell 3. Until a few months
3122 ago, the terms on Ispell 3 did not let us use it; but they have now
3123 been changed, so now we are using it. We are dropping Ispell 4.
3125 ** Emacs 19.23 can run on MS-DOG. See the file MSDOS in the same
3126 directory as this file.
3128 ** Emacs 19.23 can work with an X toolkit. You must specify toolkit
3129 operation when you configure Emacs: use the option
3130 --with-x-toolkit=yes. (This option uses code developed by Lucid;
3131 thanks to Frederic Pierresteguy for helping to adapt it.)
3133 ** Emacs now has dialog boxes; yes/no and y/n questions automatically
3134 use them in commands invoked with the mouse. For more information,
3135 see below under "Lisp programming changes".
3137 ** Menus now display the keyboard equivalents (if any) of the menu
3138 commands in parentheses after the menu item.
3140 ** Kill commands, used in a read-only buffer, now move point across
3141 the text they would otherwise have killed. This way, you can use
3142 repeated kill commands to transfer text into the kill ring.
3144 ** There is now a global mark ring in addition to the mark ring that is local
3145 to each buffer. The global mark ring stores positions in any buffer. Any
3146 time the mark is set and the current buffer is different from the last time
3147 the mark was set, the new mark is pushed on the global mark ring as well.
3148 The new command C-x C-SPC (pop-global-mark) pops the global mark ring and
3149 jumps to the last mark pushed, first switching to that buffer.
3151 ** Query Replace is now available in the Edit menu.
3153 ** ESC no longer simply exits a Query Replace. It now exits the Query
3154 Replace and remains pending. Thus, ESC A and M-A are now equivalent
3157 To simply exit a Query Replace, type RET or Period.
3159 ** M-mouse-2 now puts point at the end of the yanked secondary selection.
3161 ** Mouse-1 in the mode line now simply selects the window above that
3162 mode line. Mouse-2 in the mode line selects that window and expands
3163 it to fill the frame it is in.
3165 ** You can now use mouse-2 in a Dired buffer or Tar mode buffer to find
3166 a file you click on, in a compilation buffer to go to a particular
3167 error message, and in a *Occur* buffer to go to a particular
3170 (It was already possible to do likewise in Info and in completion list
3173 What's more, the sensitive areas of the buffer now highlight when you
3174 move the mouse over them.
3176 ** In a completion list buffer, the command RET now chooses the completion
3177 that is around or next to point.
3179 ** If you specify the foreground color for the `mode-line' face, and
3180 mode-line-inverse-video is non-nil, then the default background color
3181 is the usual foreground color.
3183 ** revert-buffer now preserves markers pointing within the unchanged
3184 text (if any) at the beginning and end of the file.
3186 ** Version control checkin and checkout preserve all markers if the
3187 file does not contain any of the magic version header sequences that
3188 are updated automatically by RCS and SCCS. If such version headers
3189 are present, checkin and checkout preserve a marker unless it comes
3190 between two such sequences. (So it's a good idea to put all the
3191 header sequences close together.)
3193 ** When a large deletion shuts off auto save temporarily in a buffer,
3194 you can now turn it on again by saving the buffer with C-x C-s (as was
3195 possible in Emacs 18). You can also turn it on again with M-1 M-x
3196 auto-save (as has been possible in Emacs 19).
3198 ** C-x r d now runs the command delete-rectangle.
3200 ** The new command imenu shows you a menu of interesting places in the
3201 current buffer and lets you select one; then it moves point there.
3202 The definition of interesting places depends on the major mode, but
3203 typically this includes function definitions and such. Normally,
3204 imenu displays the menu in a buffer; but if you bind it to a mouse
3205 event, it shows a mouse popup menu.
3207 ** You can make certain chosen buffers, that normally appear in a
3208 separate window, appear in special frames of their own. To do this,
3209 set special-display-buffer-names to a list of buffer names; any buffer
3210 whose name is in that list automatically gets a special frame when it
3211 is to be displayed in another window.
3213 A good value to try is ("*compilation*" "*grep*" "*TeX Shell*").
3215 More generally, you can set special-display-regexps to a list of regular
3216 expressions; then each buffer whose name matches any of those regular
3217 expressions gets its own frame.
3219 The variable special-display-frame-alist specifies the frame
3220 parameters for these frames. It has a default value, so you don't
3223 ** If you set sentence-end-double-space to nil, the fill commands
3224 expect just one space at the end of a sentence. (If you want the
3225 sentence commands to accept single spaces, you must modify the regexp
3228 ** You can suppress the startup echo area message by adding text like
3229 this to your .emacs file:
3231 (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "YOUR-LOGIN-NAME")
3233 Simply setting inhibit-startup-echo-area-message to your login name is
3234 not sufficient to inhibit the message; Emacs explicitly checks whether
3235 .emacs contains an expression as shown above. Your login name must
3236 appear in the expression as a Lisp string constant.
3238 This way, you can easily inhibit the message for yourself if you wish,
3239 but thoughtless copying of your .emacs file will not inhibit the
3240 message for someone else.
3242 ** Outline minor mode now uses C-c C-o as a prefix instead of just C-c.
3244 ** In Outline mode, hide-subtree is now C-c C-d. (It was C-c C-h; but
3245 that is now a conventional way to ask for help about C-c commands.)
3247 ** There are two additional commands in Outline mode.
3249 hides all headers except the topmost N levels.
3251 hides everything about the body that point is in
3252 plus the headers leading up from there to the top of the tree.
3254 ** In iso-transl and iso-insert, the sequences for entering A-ring and
3255 the AE ligature are now just A and E (plus the initial C-x 8 or Alt).
3256 You used to have to enter AA or AE, after the C-x 8 prefix of course.
3257 Likewise for lower case a-ring and ae.
3259 ** iso-transl now defines convenient Alt keys as well as the C-x 8 prefix.
3260 Instead of prefixing a sequence with C-x 8, you can add Alt to the
3261 first character of the sequence. For example, Alt-" a is now a way
3262 to enter an a-umlaut.
3264 ** CC mode is a greatly improved mode for C and C++.
3265 See the following page.
3267 ** tcl mode is a new major mode. It provides features for
3268 editing, indenting and running tcl programs.
3270 ** Compilation minor mode lets you parse error messages in any buffer,
3271 not just a normal compilation output buffer. Type M-x
3272 compilation-minor-mode to enable the minor mode; then C-c C-c jumps to
3273 the source location for the error at point, as in the `*compilation*'
3274 buffer. If you use compilation-minor-mode in an Rlogin buffer, it
3275 automatically accesses remote source files by ftp.
3277 ** Comint and shell mode changes:
3279 *** Comint modes (including Shell mode, GUD modes, etc.) now bind
3280 C-M-l to the command comint-show-output. This command scrolls the
3281 buffer to show the last batch of output from the subprogram.
3283 *** Completion in Comint modes now truly operates on the string before
3284 point, rather than the word that point is within.
3286 *** Comint mode file name completion ignores those files that end with a
3287 string in the new variable comint-completion-fignore. This variable's
3288 default value is nil.
3290 *** Shell mode uses the variable shell-completion-fignore to set
3291 comint-completion-fignore. The default value is nil, but some
3292 people prefer ("~" "#" "%").
3294 *** The function `comint-watch-for-password-prompt' can be used to
3295 suppress echoing when a subprocess asks for a password. To use it,
3298 (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions
3299 'comint-watch-for-password-prompt)
3301 *** You can use M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m to strip ^M characters from
3304 *** In Shell mode, TAB now completes environment variables, if possible,
3305 and expands directory references.
3307 *** You can use M-x comint-run to execute any program of your choice in
3308 a comint mode. Some programs such as shells, rlogin, and debuggers
3309 have their own specialized modes; this command is one way to use
3310 comint to run programs for which no such specialized mode exits. (You
3311 can also run a shell with M-x shell and run the program of your choice
3312 under the shell--but that gives you the specializations of Shell
3315 ** When you run GUD (M-x gdb, M-x dbx, and so on), you can use TAB
3316 to do file name completion in the minibuffer.
3318 The "Complete" menu includes an item for directory expansion.
3320 ** GUD working with future versions of GDB will permit TAB for
3321 GDB-style symbol completion. This will work with GDB 4.13.
3323 ** Rmail no longer gets new mail automatically when you visit an Rmail
3324 file specified by name--not even if it is your primary Rmail file. To
3325 get new mail, type `g'. This feature is an advantage because you now
3326 have a choice of whether to get new mail. (This change actually
3327 occurred in an earlier version, but wasn't listed here then, since it
3328 made the code do what the documentation already said.)
3330 ** Rmail now highlights certain fields automatically, when you use X
3331 windows. The variable rmail-highlighted-headers controls which
3334 ** If you set rmail-summary-window-size to an integer, Rmail uses
3335 a window that many lines high for the summary buffer.
3337 ** rmail-input-menu is a new command that visits an Rmail file letting
3338 you choose which file with a mouse menu. rmail-output-menu is
3339 similar; it outputs the current message, using a mouse menu to choose
3340 which Rmail file. These commands use the variables
3341 rmail-secondary-file-directory and rmail-secondary-file-regexp.
3343 ** The mh-e package has been changed substantially.
3344 See the file ./MH-E-NEWS for details.
3346 ** The calendar and diary have new features.
3348 The menu bar for the calendar contains most of the calendar commands,
3349 arranged into logical categories.
3351 Mouse-2 now performs specific-date-related commands when clicked on a
3352 date in the calendar window and common three-month-related commands
3353 when clicked elsewhere in the calendar window.
3355 You can set up colored/shaded highlighting of holidays, diary entry
3356 dates, and today's date, by setting calendar-holiday-marker,
3357 diary-entry-marker, and calendar-today-marker to a face instead of a
3358 character. Using a special face is now the default if you are using a
3361 ** The appt package for displaying appointment reminders has new
3364 *** The appt alarm window stays for the full duration of
3365 appt-display-duration. It no longer disappears when you start typing
3368 *** You can change the way the appointment window is created/deleted by
3369 setting the variables appt-disp-window-function and
3370 appt-delete-window-function.
3372 For instance, these variables can be set to functions that display
3373 appointments in pop-up frames, which are lowered or iconified after
3374 appt-display-duration seconds.
3376 ** desktop.el can now save a list of buffer-local variables,
3377 and saves more global ones.
3379 ** Pascal mode has been completely rewritten. It now features
3380 completing of function names, variables and type definitions around
3381 current point (like M-TAB does with lisp-symbols). There's also an
3382 outline mode (M-x pascal-outline) that hides the bodies of all
3383 functions you're not working with.
3385 ** Edebug has a number of changes:
3387 *** Edebug syntax error reporting is improved.
3389 *** Top-level forms and defining forms other than defun and defmacro may
3390 now be debugged with Edebug.
3392 *** Edebug specifications may now contain body, &define, name, arg or
3393 arglist, def-body, and def-form, to support definitions.
3395 *** edebug-all-defuns is renamed to edebug-all-defs.
3396 def-edebug-form-spec is replaced by def-edebug-form whose arguments
3397 are unevaluated. The old names are still available for now.
3399 *** Frequency counts and coverage data may be displayed for functions being
3402 *** A global break condition is now checked at every stop point.
3404 *** The previous condition at a breakpoint may now be edited.
3406 *** A new "next" mode stops only after expression evaluation.
3408 *** A new command, top-level-nonstop, does not even stop for unwind-protect,
3411 * Changes in CC mode in Emacs 19.23.
3413 `cc-mode' provides ANSI C, K&R C, and ARM C++ language editing. It
3414 represents the merge of c++-mode.el and c-mode.el. cc-mode provides a
3415 new, more flexible indentation engine so that indentation
3416 customization is more intuitive. There are two steps to calculating
3417 indentation: first, CC mode analyzes the line for syntactic content,
3418 then based on this content it applies user defined offsets and adds
3419 this offset to the indentation of some previous line.
3421 The syntactic analysis determines if the line describes a `statement',
3422 `substatement', `class-open', `member-init-intro', etc. These are
3423 described in detail with C-h v c-offsets-alist. You can change the
3424 offsets interactively with C-c C-o (c-set-offsets), or
3425 programmatically in your c-mode-common-hook, which is run both by
3426 c-mode and c++-mode. You can also set up "styles" in the same way
3427 that you could with c-mode.el. The variable c-basic-offset controls
3428 the basic offset given to a level of indentation.
3430 If, for example, you wanted to change this style:
3436 printf ("its a foo\n");
3439 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3450 printf ("its a foo\n");
3453 printf ("don't know what it is\n");
3458 you could add the following to your .emacs file:
3460 (defun my-c-mode-common-hook ()
3461 (c-set-offset 'case-label 2)
3462 (c-set-offset 'statement-case-intro 2))
3463 (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'my-c-mode-common-hook)
3467 c-offsets-alist contains an association list of syntactic symbols and
3468 their relative offsets. Do a "C-h v c-offsets-alist" to get a list of
3469 all syntactic symbols currently defined, and their meanings. You
3470 should not change this variable directly; use the supplied interface
3471 commands c-set-offset and c-set-style.
3473 c-mode-common-hook is run by both c-mode and c++-mode during their
3474 common initializations. You should put any customizations that are
3475 the same for both C and C++ into this hook.
3477 The variable c-strict-semantics-p is used mainly for debugging. When
3478 non-nil, CC mode signals an error if it returns a syntactic symbol
3479 that can't be found in c-offsets-alist.
3481 If you want CC mode to echo the syntactic analysis for a particular
3482 line when you hit the TAB key, set c-echo-semantic-information-p to
3485 c-basic-offset controls the standard amount of offset for a level of
3486 indentation. You can set a syntactic symbol's offset to + or - as a
3487 short-hand for positive or negative c-basic-offset.
3489 c-comment-only-line-offset lets you control indentation given to lines
3490 which contain only a comment, in the case of C++ line style comments,
3491 or the introduction to a C block comment. Comment-only lines at
3492 column zero can be anchored there independent of the indentation given
3493 to other comment-only lines.
3495 c-block-comments-indent-p controls the style of C block comment
3496 re-indentation. If you put leading stars in front of comment
3497 continuation lines, you should set this variable to nil.
3499 c-cleanup-list is a list describing certain C and C++ constructs to be
3500 "cleaned up" as they are typed, but only when the auto-newline feature
3501 is turned on. In C++, make sure this variable contains at least
3502 'scope-operator so that double colons will not be separated by a
3505 Colons (`:') and braces (`{` and `}') are special in C and C++. For
3506 certain constructs, you may like them to hang on the right edge of the
3507 code, or you may like them to start a new line of code. You can use
3508 the two variables c-hanging-braces-alist and c-hanging-colons-alist
3509 to control whether newlines are placed before and/or after colons and
3510 braces when certain C and C++ constructs are entered. For example,
3511 you can control whether the colon that introduces a C++ member
3512 initialization list hangs on the right edge, starts a new line, or has
3513 no newlines either before or after it.
3515 c-special-indent-hook is run after a line is indented by CC mode. You
3516 can perform any custom indentations here.
3518 c-delete-function is the function that is called when a single
3519 character is deleted with the c-electric-delete command (DEL).
3521 c-electric-pound-behavior describes what happens when you enter the
3522 `#' that introduces a cpp macro.
3524 If c-tab-always-indent is neither t nor nil, then TAB inserts a tab
3525 when within strings, comments, and cpp directives, but it reindents
3526 the line unconditionally.
3528 c-inhibit-startup-warnings-p inhibits warnings about any old
3529 version of Emacs you might be running, which could be incompatible
3532 ** There are two new minor-mode features in CC mode: auto-newline and
3533 hungry-delete. Auto-newline inserts newlines automatically as you
3534 type certain constructs. Hungry-delete consumes all preceding
3535 whitespace (spaces, tabs, and newlines) when the delete key is hit.
3536 You can toggle auto-newline on and off on a per-buffer basis by
3537 hitting C-c C-a. You can toggle hungry-delete on and off by hitting
3538 C-c C-d. You can toggle them both on and off together with C-c C-t.
3540 ** Slash (`/') and star (`*') are now both electric characters.
3544 The new C-c C-o (c-set-offset) command can be used to interactively change
3545 the offset for a particular syntactic symbol.
3547 The new command C-c : (c-scope-operator) inserts the C++ scope operator in
3550 The new command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) indents the entire enclosing
3551 top-level function or class.
3553 The new command C-c C-s (c-show-semantic-information) echos the current
3554 syntactic analysis without re-indenting the current line.
3556 The new commands M-x c-forward-into-nomenclature and M-x
3557 c-backward-into-nomenclature (currently otherwise unbound to a key
3558 sequence), make movement easier when using the C++ variable naming
3559 convention of VariableNamesWithoutUnderscoresButEachWordCapitalized.
3561 ** Command from c-mode.el that have been renamed in cc-mode.el:
3563 electric-c-brace => c-electric-brace
3564 electric-c-semi => c-electric-semi&comma
3565 electric-c-sharp-sign => c-electric-pound
3566 mark-c-function => c-mark-function
3567 electric-c-terminator => c-electric-colon
3568 indent-c-exp => c-indent-exp
3569 set-c-style => c-set-style
3571 ** Variables from c-mode.el that are obsolete with cc-mode.el:
3574 c-brace-imaginary-offset
3578 c-continued-statement-offset
3579 c-continued-brace-offset
3581 * Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.23.
3583 ** To pop up a dialog box, call x-popup-dialog.
3584 It takes two arguments, POSITION and CONTENTS.
3586 POSITION specifies which frame to place the dialog box over;
3587 the dialog box always goes on the center of the frame.
3588 POSITION may be a mouse event, a window, a frame,
3589 or t meaning use the frame that the mouse is in.
3591 CONTENTS specifies the contents of the dialog box.
3592 It looks like a single pane of a popup menu:
3593 (TITLE ITEM1 ITEM2 ...), where each ITEM has the form (STRING . VALUE).
3594 The return value is VALUE from the chosen item.
3596 An ITEM may also be just a string--that makes a nonselectable item.
3597 An ITEM may also be nil--that means to put all preceding items
3598 on the left of the dialog box and all following items on the right.
3599 (By default, approximately half appear on each side.)
3601 If your Emacs is not using an X toolkit, then it cannot display a
3602 real dialog box; so instead it displays a pop-up menu in the center
3605 ** y-or-n-p, yes-or-no-p and map-y-or-n-p now use menus or dialog boxes
3606 to ask their question(s) if the command that is running was reached by
3609 If you want to control which way these functions work, bind the
3610 variable last-nonmenu-event around the call. These functions use the
3611 keyboard if that variable holds a keyboard event (actually, any
3612 non-list); they use the mouse if that variable holds a mouse event
3613 (actually, any list).
3615 ** The mouse-face property is now implemented, both in overlays and as
3616 a text property. It specifies a face to use when the mouse is in the
3617 range of text for which the property is specified.
3619 ** When text has a non-nil `intangible' property, you cannot move point
3620 within it or right before it. If you try, point actually moves to the
3621 end of the intangible text. Note that this means that backward-char
3622 is a no-op when there is an intangible character to the left of point.
3624 ** minibuffer-exit-hook is a new normal hook that is run when you
3625 exit the minibuffer.
3627 ** The variable x-cross-pointer-shape specifies the cursor shape to use
3628 when the mouse is over text that has a mouse-face property.
3630 ** The new variable interpreter-mode-alist specifies major modes to use
3631 for shell scripts that specify a command interpreter. Its elements
3632 look like (INTERPRETER . MODE); for example, ("perl" . perl-mode) is
3633 one element present by default. This feature applies only when the
3634 file name doesn't indicate which mode to use.
3636 ** If you use a minibuffer-only frame, set the variable
3637 minibuffer-auto-raise to t, and entering the minibuffer will then
3638 raise the minibuffer frame.
3640 ** If pop-up-frames is t, display-buffer now looks for an existing
3641 window in any visible frame, showing the specified buffer, and uses
3642 such a window in preference to making a new frame.
3644 ** In the functions next-window, previous-window, next-frame,
3645 previous-frame, get-buffer-window, get-lru-window, get-largest-window
3646 and delete-windows-on, if you specify `visible' for the last argument,
3647 it means to consider all visible frames.
3649 ** Mouse events now give the X and Y coordinates in pixels, rather than
3650 in characters. You can convert these values to characters by dividing by
3651 the values of (frame-char-width) and (frame-char-height).
3653 ** The new functions mouse-pixel-position and set-mouse-pixel-position
3654 read and set the mouse position in units of pixels. The existing
3655 functions mouse-position and set-mouse-position continue to work with
3656 units of characters.
3658 ** The new function compute-motion is useful for computing the width
3659 of certain text when it is displayed.
3661 ** The function vertical-motion now takes an option second argument WINDOW
3662 which says which window to use for the display calculations.
3664 vertical-motion always operates on the current buffer.
3665 It is ok to specify a window displaying some other buffer.
3666 Then vertical-motion uses the width, hscroll and display-table of
3667 the specified window, but still scans the current buffer.
3669 ** An error no longer sets last-command to t; the value of last-command
3670 does reflect the previous command (the one that got an error).
3672 If you do not want a particular command to be recognized as the
3673 previous command in the case where it got an error, you must code that
3674 command to prevent this. Set this-command to t at the beginning of
3675 the command, and set this-command back to its proper value at the end,
3678 (defun foo (args...)
3680 (setq this-command t)
3682 (setq this-command 'foo))
3686 (defun foo (args...)
3688 (let ((old-this-command this-command))
3689 (setq this-command t)
3691 (setq this-command old-this-command)))
3693 The undo and yank commands do this.
3695 ** If you specify an explicit title for a new frame when you create it,
3696 the title is used as the resource name when looking up X resources to
3697 control the shape of that frame. If you don't specify the frame title,
3698 the value of x-resource-name is used, as before.
3700 ** The frame parameter user-position, if non-nil, says that the user
3701 has specified the frame position. Emacs reports this to the window
3702 manager, to tell it not to override the position that the user
3705 ** Major modes can now set change-major-mode-hook to arrange for state
3706 to be cleaned up when the user switches to a new major mode. The function
3707 kill-all-local-variables runs this hook. For best results, make the hook a
3708 buffer-local variable so that it will disappear after doing its job and will
3709 not interfere with the subsequent major mode.
3711 ** The new variable overriding-local-map, if non-nil, specifies a keymap
3712 that overrides the current local map, all minor mode keymaps, and all
3713 text property keymaps. Incremental search uses this feature to override
3714 all other keymaps temporarily.
3716 ** A key definition in a menu keymap can now have additional structure:
3717 in addition to (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] . COMMAND) which was allowed
3718 before, the form (ITEMNAME [HELPSTRING] (...) . COMMAND) is
3719 allowed. (HELPSTRING is optional, and is not currently used.)
3721 Here (...) represents a sublist containing information about keyboard
3722 key sequences that run the same command COMMAND. Displaying the menu
3723 automatically creates and updates the sublist when appropriate; you
3724 need never set these up yourself.
3726 lookup-key, key-binding, and similar functions return just COMMAND,
3727 not the whole binding.
3729 To precompute this information for a given keymap, you can do
3730 (x-popup-menu nil KEYMAP).
3732 ** When you specify coordinates for x-popup-menu as a list ((XOFFSET
3733 YOFFSET) WINDOW), the coordinates are now measured in pixels.
3735 ** where-is-internal now takes just four arguments:
3736 DEFINITION KEYMAP FIRSTONLY NOINDIRECT.
3737 The single argument KEYMAP replaces two arguments KEYMAP and KEYMAP1.
3739 If KEYMAP is non-nil, where-is-internal searches only KEYMAP and the
3742 If KEYMAP is nil, where-is-internal searches all the currently active
3743 keymaps, but finds the active keymaps as if overriding-local-map were
3746 If you pass a list of the form (keymap) as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3747 searches only the global map. (This is not a special case--it follows
3748 from the specifications above.)
3750 If you pass the value of overriding-local-map as KEYMAP, where-is-internal
3751 searches in exactly the same was as command execution does.
3753 ** Use the macro define-derived-mode to define a new major mode that
3754 inherits the definition of another major mode. Here's how to define a
3755 command named hypertext-mode that inherits from the command text-mode:
3757 (define-derived-mode hypertext-mode text-mode "Hypertext"
3758 "Major mode for hypertext.\n\n\\{hypertext-mode-map}"
3759 (setq case-fold-search nil))
3761 (define-key hypertext-mode-map [down-mouse-3] 'do-hyper-link)
3763 The new mode has its own keymap, which inherits from that of the
3764 original mode. It also has its own syntax and abbrev tables, which
3765 are initialized by copying those of the original mode. It also has
3766 its own mode hook. All are given names made by appending a suffix
3767 to the name of the new mode.
3769 ** A syntax table can now inherit the data for some characters from
3770 standard-syntax-table, while specifying other characters itself.
3771 Syntax code 13 means "inherit this character from the standard syntax
3772 table." In modify-syntax-entry, the character `@' represents this code.
3774 The function `make-syntax-table' now creates a syntax table which
3775 inherits all letters and control characters (0 to 31 and 128 to 255)
3776 from the standard syntax table, while copying the other characters
3777 from the standard syntax table. Most syntax tables in Emacs are set
3780 This sort of inheritance is useful for people who set up character
3781 sets with additional alphabetic characters in the range 128 to 255.
3782 Just changing the standard syntax for these characters affects all
3785 ** The new function transpose-regions swaps two regions of the buffer.
3786 It preserves the markers in those two regions, so that they stay with
3787 the surrounding text as it is swapped.
3789 ** revert-buffer now runs before-revert-hook at the beginning and
3790 after-revert-hook at the end. These can be used by minor modes
3791 that need to clean up state variables.
3793 ** The new function get-char-property is like get-text-property, but
3794 checks for overlays with properties as well as for text properties.
3795 It checks for overlays first, in order of descending priority, and
3796 text properties last.
3798 get-char-property allows windows as the OBJECT argument, as well
3799 as buffers and strings. If you specify a window, then only overlays
3800 active on that window are considered.
3802 ** Overlays can have the `invisible' property.
3804 ** The function insert-file-contents now takes an optional fifth
3805 argument called REPLACE. If this is t, it means to replace the
3806 contents of the buffer (actually, just the accessible portion)
3807 with the contents of the file.
3809 This is better than simply deleting and inserting the whole thing
3810 because (1) it preserves some marker positions and (2) it puts less
3811 data in the undo list.
3813 ** The variable inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps specifies classes of
3814 file names for which -*- on the first line should not be looked for.
3816 ** The variables before-change-functions and after-change-functions
3817 hold lists of functions to call before and after a change in the
3818 buffer's text. They work much like before-change-function and
3819 after-change-function, except that they hold a list of functions
3820 instead of just one.
3822 These variables will eventually make before-change-function and
3823 after-change-function obsolete.
3825 ** The variable kill-buffer-query-functions holds a list of functions
3826 to be called with no arguments when a buffer is about to be killed.
3827 (That buffer is the current buffer when the function is called.)
3828 If any of the functions returns nil, the buffer is not killed
3829 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3831 ** The variable kill-emacs-query-functions holds a list of functions
3832 to be called with no arguments when you ask to exit Emacs.
3833 If any of the functions returns nil, the exit is canceled
3834 (and the remaining functions in the list are not called).
3836 ** The argument for buffer-disable-undo is now optional,
3837 like the argument for buffer-enable-undo.
3839 ** The new variable system-configuration holds the canonical three-part
3840 GNU configuration name for which Emacs was built.
3842 ** The function system-name now tries harder to return a fully qualified
3845 ** The variable emacs-major-version holds the major version number
3846 of Emacs. (Currently 19.)
3848 ** The variable emacs-minor-version holds the minor version number
3849 of Emacs. (Currently 23.)
3851 ** The default value of comint-input-autoexpand is now nil.
3852 However, Shell mode sets it from the value of shell-input-autoexpand,
3853 whose default value is `history'.
3855 ** The new function set-process-window-size specifies the terminal window
3856 size for a subprocess. On some systems it sends the subprocess a signal
3857 to let it know that the size has changed.
3859 ** %P is a new way to display a percentage in the mode line. It
3860 displays the percentage of the buffer text that is above the *bottom*
3861 of the window (which includes the text visible, in the window as well
3862 as the text above the top). It displays `Top' as well as the
3863 percentage if the top of the buffer is visible on screen.
3865 ** %+ in the mode line specs displays `*' if the buffer is modified,
3866 and otherwise `-'. It never displays `%', as `%*' would do; whether the
3867 buffer is read-only has no effect on %+.
3869 ** The new functions ffloor, fceiling, fround and ftruncate take a
3870 floating point argument and return a floating point result whose value
3871 is a nearby integer. ffloor returns the nearest integer below; fceiling,
3872 the nearest integer above; ftruncate, the nearest integer in the
3873 direction towards zero; fround, the nearest integer.
3875 ** Setting `print-escape-newlines' to a non-nil value now also makes
3876 formfeeds print as ``\f''.
3878 ** auto-mode-alist now has a new feature. If an element has the form
3879 (REGEXP FUNCTION t), and REGEXP matches the file name, then after calling
3880 FUNCTION, Emacs deletes the part of the file name that matched REGEXP
3881 and then searches auto-mode-alist again for a new match.
3883 This is useful for uncompression packages. An entry of this sort for
3884 .gz can uncompress the file and then put the uncompressed file in the
3885 proper mode according to the name sans .gz.
3887 ** The new function emacs-pid returns the process ID number of Emacs.
3889 ** user-login-name now consistently checks the LOGNAME environment
3890 variable before USER. user-original-login-name is obsolete, since it
3891 provides the same functionality. To ignore the environment variables,
3892 use user-real-login-name.
3894 ** There is a more general way of handling the system-specific X
3895 keysyms. Set the variable system-key-alist to an alist containing
3896 elements of the form (CODE . SYMBOL), where CODE is the numeric keysym
3897 code minus the "vendor specific" bit, and symbol is the name for the
3900 ** You can use the variable command-line-functions to set up functions
3901 to process unrecognized command line arguments. The variable's value
3902 should be a list of functions of no arguments. The functions are
3903 called successively until one of them returns non-nil.
3905 Each function should access the free variables argi (the current
3906 argument) and command-line-args-left (the remaining arguments). The
3907 function should return non-nil only if it recognizes and processes the
3908 argument in argi. If it does so, it may consume following arguments
3909 as well by removing them from command-line-args-left.
3911 ** There's a new way for a magic file name handler to run a primitive
3912 and inhibit handling of the file name. Here is how to do it:
3914 (let ((inhibit-file-name-handlers
3915 (cons 'ange-ftp-file-handler
3916 (and (eq inhibit-file-name-operation operation)
3917 inhibit-file-name-handlers)))
3918 (inhibit-file-name-operation operation))
3919 (apply this-operation args))
3921 The function find-file-name-handler now takes two arguments. The
3922 second argument is OPERATION, the operation for which the handler is
3925 People have suggested that the second argument should be optional, for
3926 backward compatibility. It would be nice if that were possible, but
3927 it is not. There is simply no way for find-file-name-handler to do
3928 the right thing without receiving the proper value for its second
3931 ** The variable completion-regexp-list affects the completion
3932 primitives try-completion and all-completions. They consider
3933 only the possible completions that match each regexp in the list.
3935 ** Case conversion in the function replace-match has been changed.
3937 The old behavior was this: if any word in the old text was
3938 capitalized, replace-match capitalized each word of the replacement
3941 The new behavior is this: if the first word in the old text is capitalized,
3942 replace-match capitalizes the first word of the replacement text.
3944 ** You can now specify a case table with CANON non-nil and EQV nil.
3945 Then the EQV part of the case table is deduced from CANON.
3947 ** The new function minibuffer-prompt takes no arguments and returns
3948 the current minibuffer prompt string.
3950 The new function minibuffer-prompt-width takes no arguments and
3951 returns the display width of the minibuffer prompt string.
3953 ** The new function frame-first-window returns the window at the
3954 upper left corner of a given frame.
3956 ** wholenump is a new alias for natnump.
3958 ** The variable installation-directory, if non-@code{nil}, names a
3959 directory within which to look for the `lib-src' and `etc'
3960 subdirectories. This is non-nil when Emacs can't find those
3961 directories in their standard installed locations, but can find them
3962 near where the Emacs executable was found.
3964 ** invocation-name and invocation-directory are now variables as well
3965 as functions. The variable values are the same values that the
3966 functions return: the Emacs program name sans directories, and the
3967 directory it was found in. (invocation-directory may be nil, if Emacs
3968 can't determine which directory it should be.)
3970 ** Installation change regarding version number counting.
3972 The version number of an Emacs executable contains three numbers.
3973 The first two describe the Emacs release and the third increments
3974 each time you build Emacs.
3976 Now the file version.el contains only the first two version numbers.
3977 The third component is now determined on the basis of the names of the
3978 existing executable files. This means that version.el is not altered
3983 ** The mouse click M-mouse-2 now inserts the current secondary
3984 selection (from Emacs or any other X client) where you click.
3985 It does not move point.
3986 This command is called mouse-yank-secondary.
3988 mouse-kill-secondary no longer has a key binding by default.
3989 Clicking M-mouse-3 (mouse-secondary-save-then-kill) twice
3990 may be a convenient enough way of killing the secondary selection.
3991 Or perhaps there should be a keyboard binding for killing the
3992 secondary selection. Any suggestions?
3996 *** `icomplete' provides character-by-character information
3997 about what you could complete if you type TAB.
3999 *** `avoid' moves the mouse away from point so that it doesn't hide
4002 *** `shadowfile' helps you update files that are supposed to be stored
4003 identically in different places (perhaps on different machines).
4005 ** C-h p now knows about four additional keywords: data, faces, mouse,
4008 ** The key for starting an inferior Lisp process, in Lisp mode,
4009 is now C-c C-z instead of C-c C-l.
4011 ** When the VC commands ask whether to save the buffer, if you say no,
4012 they signal an error. This is so that you won't operate on the wrong
4015 ** ISO Accents mode now supports `"s' as a way of typing German sharp s.
4017 ** By default, comint buffers (including Shell mode and debuggers)
4018 no longer try to scroll to keep the cursor on the bottom line.
4019 This feature was added in 19.21 but did not work smoothly enough.
4021 ** Emacs now handles the window manager "delete window" operation.
4023 ** Display of buffers with text properties is much faster now.
4025 ** The feature previously announced whereby `insert' does not inherit
4026 text properties from surrounding text was not fully implemented
4027 before; but now it is. use `insert-and-inherit' if you wish to
4028 inherit sticky properties from the surrounding text.
4030 ** The functions next-property-change, previous-property-change,
4031 next-single-property-change, and previous-single-property-change
4032 now take one additional optional argument LIMIT that is a position at
4033 which to stop scanning. If scan ends without finding the property
4034 change sought, these functions return the specified limit.
4036 The value returned by previous-single-property-change and
4037 previous-property-change, when they do find a change, is now one
4038 greater than what it used to be. It is the position between the two
4039 characters whose properties differ, which is one greater than the
4040 position of the first character found (while scanning back) with
4041 different properties.
4043 * User editing changes in version 19.21.
4045 ** ISO Accents mode supports four additional characters:
4046 A-with-ring (entered as /A), AE ligature (entered as /E),
4047 and their lower-case equivalents.
4049 * User editing changes in version 19.20.
4050 (See following page for Lisp programming changes.)
4052 Note that some of these changes were made subsequent to the Emacs 19.20
4053 editions of the Emacs manual and Emacs Lisp manual; therefore, if you
4054 have those editions, do read this page.
4056 ** Dragging with mouse button 1 now puts the selected region
4057 in the kill ring so you can paste it into other X applications.
4059 ** Double and triple clicks with button 1 now behave as in xterm,
4060 selecting the word or line surrounding where you click. If you drag
4061 after the last click, you can select a range of words or lines.
4063 ** You can use button 3 to extend a mouse-selected region, as in xterm.
4064 This works for regions selected either by dragging Mouse-1 or by
4065 multiple-clicking Mouse-1. Clicking Mouse-3 moves the end of the
4066 region that is (initially) nearer to where you click.
4068 If the selection was first made by multiple-clicking Mouse-1, and thus
4069 consists of entire words or lines, Mouse-3 preserves that state.
4071 As before, clicking Mouse-3 again in the same place kills the region
4074 ** The secondary selection commands, M-Mouse-1 and M-Mouse-3, have been
4077 ** You can now search for strings and regexps using the Edit menu bar menu.
4079 ** You can now access bookmarks using the Bookmark submenu in the File
4080 menu in the menu bar.
4082 ** ISO Accents mode, a buffer-local minor mode, provides a convenient
4083 way to type certain non-ASCII characters. It makes the characters `,
4084 ', ", ^, ~ and / serve as modifiers for the following letter. ` and '
4085 add accents, " adds an umlaut or dieresis, ^ adds a circumflex, ~
4086 adds a tilde, and / adds a slash to the following letter.
4088 If the following character is not a letter, or cannot be modified as
4089 requested, then both characters stand for themselves. If you
4090 duplicate the modifier accent character, that enters the corresponding
4091 ISO non-spacing accent character (thus, '' enters the ISO acute-accent
4092 character). To enter a modifier character itself, type it followed by
4095 This feature can be used whenever a key sequence is expected: for
4096 ordinary insertion, for searching, and for certain command arguments.
4098 A few special combinations:
4100 ~c => c with cedilla
4102 ~< => left guillemot
4103 ~> => right guillemot
4105 ** iso-transl.el is a new library that replaces iso-insert.el.
4106 It defines C-x 8 as an insertion prefix for the ISO characters
4107 between 128 and 255, much like iso-insert, except that iso-transl
4108 works even in searches and help commands--wherever a key sequence
4111 To define case-conversion for these characters for ISO 8859/1,
4112 load the library iso-syntax. (This is not new.)
4114 ** M-TAB in Text mode now runs the command ispell-complete-word
4115 which performs completion using the spelling dictionary.
4117 The spelling correction submenu now includes this command
4118 and another command which completes a word fragment (that is,
4119 it doesn't assume that the text to be completed starts at the
4120 beginning of a word.
4122 ** In incremental search, you can use M-y to yank the most recent kill
4123 into the search string.
4125 ** The new function ispell-message checks the spelling of a message
4126 you are about to send or post. It ignores text cited from other
4129 To automatically check all your outgoing messages, include the
4130 following line in your .emacs file:
4131 (setq news-inews-hook (setq mail-send-hook 'ispell-message))
4133 ** There is now a separate minibuffer history list for the names of
4134 extended commands. This history list is used by M-x when reading
4135 the command name. The motivation for this is to prevent command
4136 names from appearing in the history used for other minibuffer
4139 Note that the history list for entire commands that use the minibuffer
4140 is a separate feature. That history list records a command with all
4141 its arguments, and you must use C-x ESC ESC to access it.
4143 ** You can use the new command C-x v ~ VERSION RET to examine a
4144 specified version of a file that is maintained with version control.
4146 ** In Indented Text mode, only blank lines now separate paragraphs.
4147 Indented lines continue the paragraph that is in progress. This makes
4148 the user option variable adaptive-fill-mode have its intended effect.
4150 ** Local variable specifications in files for variables whose names end
4151 in `-hook' and `-function' are now controlled by the variable
4152 `enable-local-eval', just like the `eval' variable.
4154 ** C-x r j (jump-to-register) when restoring a frame configuration now
4155 makes all unwanted frames (existing frames not mentioned in the
4156 configuration) invisible.
4158 If you want to delete these unwanted frames, use a prefix argument for
4161 ** You can customize the calendar to display weeks beginning on
4162 Monday: set the variable `calendar-week-start-day' to 1.
4166 If you save messages to a file in Unix format while viewing a message
4167 with its whole header, this now copies to the file the entire header
4168 of each message copied.
4170 ** Comint mode changes.
4172 C-c C-e shows as much output as possible in the window.
4173 C-c RET copies an old input (the one at point)
4174 and places the copy after the latest prompt.
4175 C-c C-p and C-c C-n move through the buffer, stopping at places
4176 where the subshell prompted for input.
4177 C-c C-h lists the input history in a `*Help*' buffer.
4179 There are new menu bar items for completion/input/output/signal commands.
4181 Input behaviour is configurable. Variables control whether some windows
4182 showing the buffer scroll to the bottom before insertion. These are
4183 `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-input' and `before-change-function'. By default,
4184 insertion causes the selected window to scroll to the bottom before insertion
4187 Subprocess output now keeps point at the end of the buffer in each
4188 window individually if point was already at the end of the buffer in
4191 If `comint-scroll-show-maximum-output' is non-nil (which is the
4192 default), then scrolling due to arrival of output tries to place the
4193 last line of text at the bottom line of the window, so as to show as
4194 much useful text as possible. (This mimics the scrolling behavior of
4197 By setting `comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-output', you can opt for having
4198 point jump to the end of the buffer whenever output arrives--no matter
4199 where in the buffer point was before. If the value is `this', point
4200 jumps in the selected window. If the value is `all', point jumps in
4201 each window that shows the comint buffer. If the value is `other',
4202 point jumps in all nonselected windows that show the current buffer.
4203 The default value is nil, which means point does not jump to the end.
4205 Input history insertion is configurable. A variable controls whether only the
4206 first instance of successive identical inputs is stored in the input history.
4207 This is `comint-input-ignoredups'.
4209 Completion (bound to TAB) is now more general. Depending on context,
4210 completion now operates on the input history, on command names, or (as
4211 before) on filenames.
4213 Filename completion is configurable. Variables control whether
4214 file/directory suffix characters are added (`comint-completion-addsuffix'),
4215 whether shortest completion is acceptable when no further unambiguous
4216 completion is possible (`comint-completion-recexact'), and the timing of
4217 completion candidate listing (`comint-completion-autolist').
4219 Comint mode now provides history expansion. Insert input using `!'
4220 and `^', in the same syntax that typical shells use; then type TAB.
4221 This searches the comint input history for a matching element,
4222 performs substitution if necessary, and places the result in the
4223 comint buffer in place of the original input.
4225 History references in the input may be expanded before insertion into
4226 the input ring, or on input to the interpreter (and therefore
4227 visibly). The variable `comint-input-autoexpand' specifies which.
4229 You can make the SPC key perform history expansion by binding
4230 SPC to the command `comint-magic-space'.
4232 The command `comint-dynamic-complete-variable' does variable name
4233 completion using the environment variables as set within Emacs. The
4234 variables controlling filename completion apply to variable name
4235 completion too. This command is normally available through the menu
4240 Paragraph motion and marking commands (default bindings M-{, M-}, M-h) operate
4241 on output groups (i.e., shell prompt plus associated shell output).
4243 TAB now completes commands, as well as file names and expand history.
4244 Commands are searched for along the path that Emacs has on startup.
4246 C-c C-f now moves forward a command (`shell-forward-command') and
4247 C-c C-b now moves backward a command (`shell-backward-command').
4249 Command completion is configurable. The variables controlling
4250 filename completion in comint mode apply, together with a variable
4251 controlling whether to restrict possible completions to only files
4252 that are executable (`shell-command-execonly').
4254 The input history is initialised from the file name given in the
4255 variable `shell-input-ring-file-name'--normally `.history' in your
4258 Directory tracking is more robust. It can cope with command sequences
4259 and forked commands, and can detect the failure of directory changing
4260 commands in most circumstances. It's still not infallible, of course.
4262 You can now configure the behaviour of `pushd'. Variables control
4263 whether `pushd' behaves like `cd' if no argument is given
4264 (`shell-pushd-tohome'), pop rather than rotate with a numeric argument
4265 (`shell-pushd-dextract'), and only add directories to the directory
4266 stack if they are not already on it (`shell-pushd-dunique'). The
4267 configuration you choose should match the underlying shell, of course.
4269 * Emacs Lisp programming changes in Emacs 19.20.
4271 ** A new function `remove-hook' is now used to remove a hook that you might
4272 have added with `add-hook'.
4274 ** There is now a Lisp pretty-printer in the library `pp'.
4276 ** The partial Common Lisp support has been entirely reimplemented.
4278 ** When you insert text using `insert', `insert-before-markers' or
4279 `insert-buffer-substring', text properties are no longer inherited
4280 from the surrounding text.
4282 When you want to inherit text properties, use the new functions
4283 `insert-and-inherit' or `insert-before-markers-and-inherit'.
4285 The self-inserting character command does do inheritance.
4287 ** Frame creation hooks.
4289 The function make-frame now runs the normal hooks
4290 before-make-frame-hook and after-make-frame-hook.
4292 ** You can now use function-key-map to make a key an alias for other
4293 key sequences that can vary depending on circumstances. To do this,
4294 give the key a definition in function-key-map which is a function
4295 rather than a specific expansion key sequence.
4297 If the function reads input itself, it can have the effect of altering
4298 the event that follows. For example, here's how to define C-c h to
4299 turn the character that follows into a hyper character:
4301 (define-key function-key-map "\C-ch" 'hyperify)
4303 (defun hyperify (prompt)
4304 (let ((e (read-event)))
4305 (vector (if (numberp e)
4306 (logior (lsh 1 20) e)
4307 (if (memq 'hyper (event-modifiers e))
4309 (add-event-modifier "H-" e))))))
4311 (defun add-event-modifier (string e)
4312 (let ((symbol (if (symbolp e) e (car e))))
4313 (setq symbol (intern (concat string (symbol-name symbol))))
4316 (cons symbol (cdr e)))))
4318 The character translation function gets one argument, which is the
4319 prompt that was specified in read-key-sequence--or nil if the key
4320 sequence is being read by the editor command loop. In most cases
4321 you can just ignore the prompt value.
4323 ** Changes for reading and writing text properties.
4325 New low-level Lisp features make it possible to write Lisp programs to
4326 save text properties in files, and read text properties from files.
4327 You can program any file format you like.
4329 The variable `write-region-annotation-functions' should contain a list
4330 of functions to be run by `write-region' to encode text properties in
4331 some fashion as annotations to the text that is written.
4333 Each function in the list is called with two arguments: the start and
4334 end of the region to be written. These functions should not alter the
4335 contents of the buffer. Instead, they should return lists indicating
4336 annotations to write in the file in addition to the text in the
4339 Each function should return a list of elements of the form (POSITION
4340 . STRING), where POSITION is an integer specifying the relative
4341 position in the text to be written, and STRING is the annotation to
4344 Each list returned by one of these functions must be already sorted in
4345 increasing order by POSITION. If there is more than one function,
4346 `write-region' merges the lists destructively into one sorted list.
4348 When `write-region' actually writes the text from the buffer to the
4349 file, it intermixes the specified annotations at the corresponding
4350 positions. All this takes place without modifying the buffer.
4352 The variable `after-insert-file-functions' should contain a list of
4353 functions to be run each time a file's contents have been inserted into
4354 a buffer. Each function receives one argument, the length of the
4355 inserted text; point indicates the start of that text. The function
4356 should make whatever changes it wants to make, then return the updated
4357 length of the inserted text, as it stands after those changes. The
4358 value returned by one function is used as the argument to the next.
4359 These functions should always return with point at the beginning of
4362 The intended use of `after-insert-file-functions' is for converting
4363 some sort of textual annotations into actual text properties. But many
4364 other uses may be possible.
4366 We now invite users to begin implementing Lisp programs to store and
4367 retrieve text properties in files, using these new primitive features,
4368 and thus to experiment with various data formats and find good ones.
4370 We suggest not trying to handle arbitrary Lisp objects as property
4371 names or property values--because a program that general is probably
4372 difficult to write, and slow. Instead, choose a set of possible data
4373 types that are reasonably flexible, and not too hard to encode.
4375 ** Comint completion.
4377 Currently comint-dynamic-complete-command (and associated variable
4378 comint-after-partial-pathname-command) are set by default to complete a
4379 filename. Other comint-mode users should have their own functions to achieve
4380 this. For example, gud-mode could complete debugger commands. A completion
4381 function is provided solely for this reason (comint-dynamic-simple-complete).
4383 Other comint-mode users should bind comint-dynamic-complete (shell-mode does
4386 ** Comint history reference expansion
4388 Currently comint-input-autoexpand is 'history, which means only expand
4389 history on insertion to comint-input-ring. For non-shell modes, this is
4390 a strange default, since non-shells will not understand history references.
4391 Perhaps it would be better for the variable to be 'input, which means expand
4394 The value 'history might possibly be wrong even for shells, since the
4395 expansion will be done both by comint and the underlying shell (except sh, of
4396 course). It would be better for expansion to be done by one or the other,
4397 not both since they may (ahem) disagree. Since it is silly to put a literal
4398 history reference into comint-input-ring, perhaps it would be better for the
4399 variable to be 'input too.
4401 The reason the variable is not 'input by default is that I was attempting to
4402 adhere to The Principle of Least Astonishment. I didn't want to shock users
4403 by having their input change in front of their eyes.
4405 ** Argument delimiters and Comint mode.
4407 Currently comint-delimiter-argument-list is '(), which means no strings are
4408 to be treated as delimiters and arguments. In shell-mode, this variable is
4409 set to shell-delimiter-argument-list, '("|" "&" "<" ">" "(" ")" ";"). Other
4410 comint-mode users should set this variable too. For example, a lisp-type
4411 mode might want to set this to '("." "(" ")") or some such.
4413 ** Comint output hook.
4415 There is now a hook, comint-output-filter-hook, that is run-hooks'ed by the
4416 output filter, comint-output-filter. This is useful for scrolling (see
4417 below), but also things like processing output for specific text, output
4420 So that such output processing may be done efficiently, there is a new
4421 variable, comint-last-output-start, that records the position of the start of
4422 the lastest output inserted into the buffer (effectively the previous value
4423 of process-mark). Output processing functions should process the text
4424 between comint-last-output-start (or perhaps the beginning of the line that
4425 the position lies on) and process-mark.
4427 ** Comint scrolling.
4429 There is now automatic scrolling of process windows.
4431 Currently comint-scroll-show-maximum-output is t, which means when scrolling
4432 output put process-mark at the bottom of the window. There is a good case
4433 for it to be t, since the user is likely to want to see as much output as
4434 possible. But, then again, there is a comint-show-maximum-output command.
4436 ** Comint history retrieval.
4438 The input following point is not deleted when moving around the input history
4439 (with M-p etc.). Emacs maintainers may not like this. However, I feel this
4440 is a useful feature. The simple remedy is to put end-of-line in before
4441 delete-region in comint-previous-matching-input.
4443 The input history retrieval commands still wrap-around the input ring, unlike
4444 Emacs command history.
4446 * Changes in version 19.19.
4448 ** The new package bookmark.el records named bookmarks: positions that
4449 you can jump to. Bookmarks are saved automatically between Emacs
4452 ** Another simpler package saveplace.el records your position in each
4453 file when you kill its buffer (or kill Emacs), and jumps to the same
4454 position when you visit the file again (even in another Emacs
4455 session). Use `toggle-save-place' to turn on place-saving in a given file;
4456 use (setq-default save-place t) to turn it on for all files.
4458 ** In Outline mode, you can now customize how to compute the level of a
4459 heading line. Set `outline-level' to a function of no arguments which
4460 returns the level, assuming point is at the beginning of a heading
4463 ** You can now specify the prefix key to use for Outline minor mode.
4464 (The default is C-c.) Set the variable outline-minor-mode-prefix to
4465 the key sequence you want to use (as a string or vector).
4467 ** In Bibtex mode, C-c e has been changed to C-c C-b. This is because
4468 C-c followed by a letter is reserved for users.
4470 ** The `mod' function is no longer an alias for `%', but is a separate function
4471 that yields a result with the same sign as the divisor. `floor' now takes an
4472 optional second argument, which divides the first argument before the floor is
4475 ** `%' no longer allows floating point arguments, since the results were often
4476 inconsistent with integer `%'.
4478 * Changes in version 19.18.
4480 ** Typing C-z in an iconified Emacs frame now deiconifies it.
4482 ** hilit19 is a new library for automatic highlighting of parts of the
4483 text in the buffer, based on its meaning and context.
4485 ** Killing no longer sends the killed text to the X clipboard.
4486 And large strings are not put in the cut buffer either.
4487 The variable x-cut-buffer-max specifies the maximum number of characters
4488 to put in the cut buffer.
4490 ** The new command C-x 5 o (other-frame) selects different frames,
4491 successively, in cyclic order. It does for frames what C-x o
4494 ** The command M-ESC (eval-expression) has its own command history.
4496 ** The commands M-! and M-| for running shell commands have their own
4499 ** If the directory containing the Emacs executable has a sibling named
4500 `lisp', that `lisp' directory is added to the end of `load-path'
4501 (provided you don't override the normal value with the EMACSLOADPATH
4502 environment variable). This feature may make it easier to move
4503 an installed Emacs from place to place.
4505 ** M-x validate-tex-buffer now records the locations of mismatches
4506 found in the `*Occur*' buffer. You can go to that buffer and type C-c
4507 C-c to visit a particular mismatch.
4509 ** There are new commands in Shell mode.
4511 C-c C-n and C-c C-p move point to the next or previous shell input line.
4513 C-c C-d is now another way to send an end-of-file to the subshell.
4515 ** Changes to calendar/diary.
4517 Time zone data is now determined automatically, including the
4518 start/stop days and times of daylight savings time. The code now
4519 works correctly almost anywhere in the world.
4521 The format of the holiday specifications has changed and IS NO LONGER
4522 COMPATIBLE with the old (version 18) format. See the documentation of
4523 the variable calendar-holidays for details of the new, improved
4526 The hook `diary-display-hook' has been split into two:
4527 diary-display-hook which should be used ONLY for the display and
4528 `diary-hook' which should be used for appointment notification. If
4529 diary-display-hook is nil (the default), simple-diary-display is
4530 used. This allows the diary hooks to be correctly set with add-hook.
4532 The forms used for dates in diary entries and general display are no
4533 longer autoloaded, but set at load time; this means they will be set
4534 correctly based on values you assign to various variables.
4536 ** The functions x-rebind-key and x-rebind-keys have been deleted,
4537 because you can accomplish the same job by binding keys to keyboard
4540 ** Emacs now distinguishes double and triple drag events and double and
4541 triple button-down events. These work analogously to double and
4542 triple click events.
4544 Double drag events, if not defined, convert to ordinary click events.
4545 Double down events, if not defined, convert first to ordinary down
4546 events, which are then discarded if not defined. Triple events that
4547 are not defined convert to the corresponding double event; if that is
4548 also not defined, it may convert further.
4550 ** The new function event-click-count returns the number of clicks,
4551 from an event which is a list. It is 1 for an ordinary click, drag,
4552 or button-down event, 2 for a double event, and 3 or more for a triple
4555 ** The new function previous-frame is like next-frame, but moves
4556 around through the set of existing frames in the opposite order.
4558 ** The post-command-hook now runs even after commands that get an error
4559 and return to top level. As a consequence of the same change, this
4560 hook also runs before Emacs reads the first command. That might sound
4561 paradoxical, as if this hook were the same as the pre-command-hook.
4562 Actually, they are not similar; the latter runs before *execution* of
4563 a command, but after it has been read.
4565 ** You can turn off the text property hooks that run when point moves
4566 to certain places in the buffer, by binding inhibit-point-motion-hooks
4569 ** Inserting a string with no text properties into the buffer normally
4570 inherits the properties of the preceding character. You can now
4571 control this inheritance by setting the front-sticky and
4572 rear-nonsticky properties of a character.
4574 If you make a character's front-sticky property t, then insertion
4575 before the character inherits its properties. If you make the
4576 rear-nonsticky property t, then insertion after the character does not
4577 inherit its properties. You can regard characters as normally being
4578 rear-sticky and not front-sticky, and this is why insertion normally
4579 inherits from the previous character.
4581 If neither side of an insertion is suitably sticky, then the inserted
4582 text gets no properties. If both sides are sticky, then the inserted
4583 text gets the properties of both sides, with the previous character's
4584 properties taking precedence when both sides have a property in
4587 You can also specify stickiness for individual properties. To do so,
4588 use a list of property names as the value of the front-sticky property
4589 or the rear-nonsticky property. For example, if a character has a
4590 rear-nonsticky property whose value is (face read-only), then
4591 insertion after the character will not inherit its face property or
4592 read-only property (if any), but will inherit any other properties.
4594 The merging of properties when both sides of the insertion are sticky
4595 takes place one property at a time. If the preceding character is
4596 rear-sticky for the property, and the property is non-nil, it
4597 dominates. Otherwise, the following character's property value is
4598 used if it is front-sticky for that property.
4600 ** If you give a character a non-nil `invisible' text property, the
4601 character does not appear on the screen. This works much like
4604 The details of this feature are likely to change in future Emacs
4607 ** In Info, when you go to a node, it runs the normal hook
4608 Info-selection-hook.
4610 ** You can use the new function `invocation-directory' to get the name
4611 of the directory containing the Emacs executable that was run.
4613 ** Entry to the minibuffer runs the normal hook minibuffer-setup-hook.
4615 ** The new function minibuffer-window-active-p takes one argument, a
4616 minibuffer window, and returns t if the window is currently active.
4618 * Changes in version 19.17.
4620 ** When Emacs displays a list of completions in a buffer,
4621 you can select a completion by clicking mouse button 2
4624 ** Use the command `list-faces-display' to display a list of
4625 all the currently defined faces, showing what they look like.
4627 ** Menu bar items from local maps now come after the usual items.
4629 ** The Help menu bar item always comes last in the menu bar.
4631 ** If you enable Font-Lock mode on a buffer containing a program
4632 (certain languages such as C and Lisp are supported), everything you
4633 type is automatically given a face property appropriate to its
4634 syntactic role. For example, there are faces for comments, string
4635 constants, names of functions being defined, and so on.
4637 ** Dunnet, an adventure game, is now available.
4639 ** Several major modes now have their own menu bar items,
4640 including Dired, Rmail, and Sendmail. We would like to add
4641 suitable menu bar items to other major modes.
4643 ** The key binding C-x a C-h has been eliminated.
4644 This is because it got in the way of the general feature of typing
4645 C-h after a prefix character. If you want to run
4646 inverse-add-global-abbrev, you can use C-x a - or C-x a i g instead.
4648 ** If you set the variable `rmail-mail-new-frame' to a non-nil value,
4649 all the Rmail commands to send mail make a new frame to do it in.
4650 When you send the message, or use the menu bar command not to send it,
4651 that frame is deleted.
4653 ** In Rmail, the o and C-o commands are now almost interchangeable.
4654 Both commands check the format of the file you specify, and append
4655 the message to it in Rmail format if it is an Rmail file, and in
4656 inbox file format otherwise. C-o and o are different only when you
4659 ** The function `copy-face' now takes an optional fourth argument
4660 NEW-FRAME. If you specify this, it copies the definition of face
4661 OLD-FACE on frame FRAME to face NEW-NAME on frame NEW-FRAME.
4663 ** A local map can now cancel out one of the global map's menu items.
4664 Just define that subcommand of the menu item with `undefined'
4665 as the definition. For example, this cancels out the `Buffers' item
4666 for the current major mode:
4668 (local-set-key [menu-bar buffer] 'undefined)
4670 ** To put global items at the end of the menu bar, use the new variable
4671 `menu-bar-final-items'. It should be a list of symbols--event types
4672 bound in the menu bar. The menu bar items for these symbols are
4675 ** The list returned by `buffer-local-variables' now contains cons-cell
4676 elements of the form (SYMBOL . VALUE) only for buffer-local variables
4677 that have values. For unbound buffer-local variables, the variable
4678 name (symbol) appears directly as an element of the list.
4680 ** The `modification-hooks' property of a character no longer affects
4681 insertion; it runs only for deletion and modification of the character.
4683 To detect insertion, use `insert-in-front-hooks' and
4684 `insert-behind-hooks' properties. The former runs when text is
4685 inserted immediately preceding the character that has the property;
4686 the latter runs when text is inserted immediately following the
4689 ** Buffer modification now runs hooks belonging to overlays as well as
4690 hooks belonging to characters. If an overlay has a
4691 `modification-hooks' property, it applies to any change to text in the
4692 overlay, and any insertion within the overlay. If the overlay has a
4693 `insert-in-front-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the
4694 beginning boundary of the overlay. If the overlay has an
4695 `insert-behind-hooks' property, it runs for insertion at the end
4696 boundary of the overlay.
4698 The values of these properties should be lists of functions. Each
4699 function is called, receiving as arguments the overlay in question,
4700 followed by the bounds of the range being modified.
4702 ** The new `-name NAME' option directs Emacs to search for its X
4703 resources using the name `NAME', and sets the title of the initial
4704 frame. This argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4706 ** The new `-xrm DATABASE' option tells Emacs to treat the string
4707 DATABASE as the text of an X resource database. Emacs searches
4708 DATABASE for resource values, in addition to the usual places. This
4709 argument was added for consistency with other X clients.
4711 ** Emacs now searches for X resources in the files specified by the
4712 XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment
4713 variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written
4714 using Xt. Because of this change, Emacs will now notice system-wide
4715 application defaults files, as other X clients do.
4717 XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names
4718 separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names
4719 separated by colons.
4721 Emacs searches for X resources
4722 + specified on the command line, with the `-xrm RESOURCESTRING'
4724 + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable,
4725 - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it exists
4726 (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on),
4727 + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties
4728 provided by the server,
4729 - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults
4731 + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
4732 - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4733 (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if
4734 the LANG environment variable is set,
4735 - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
4736 - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set),
4738 + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH.
4740 The paths in the variables XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and
4741 XAPPLRESDIR may contain %-escapes (like the control strings passed to
4742 the Emacs lisp `format' function or C printf function), which Emacs expands.
4744 %N is replaced by the string "Emacs" wherever it occurs.
4745 %T is replaced by "app-defaults" wherever it occurs.
4746 %S is replaced by the empty string wherever it occurs.
4747 %L and %l are replaced by the value of the LANG environment variable; if LANG
4748 is not set, Emacs does not use that directory or file name at all.
4749 %C is replaced by the value of the resource named "customization"
4750 (class "Customization"), as retrieved from the server's resource
4751 properties or the user's ~/.Xdefaults file, or the empty string if
4752 that resource doesn't exist.
4755 if XFILESEARCHPATH is set to the value
4756 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N%C:/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N",
4757 and the LANG environment variable is set to
4759 and the customization resource is the string
4761 then, in the last step of the process described above, Emacs checks
4762 for resources in the first of the following files that is present and
4764 /usr/lib/X11/english/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4765 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs-color
4766 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs
4767 If the LANG environment variable is not set, then Emacs never uses the
4768 first element of the path, "/usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C", because it
4769 contains the %L escape.
4771 If XFILESEARCHPATH is unset, Emacs uses the default value
4772 "/usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4773 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs%C:\
4774 /usr/lib/X11/%L/app-defaults/Emacs:\
4775 /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Emacs"
4777 This feature was added for consistency with other X applications.
4779 ** The new function `text-property-any' scans the region of text from
4780 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is `eq' to
4781 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4782 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4784 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4787 ** The new function `text-property-not-all' scans the region of text from
4788 START to END to see if any character's property PROP is not `eq' to
4789 VALUE. If so, it returns the position of the first such character.
4790 Otherwise, it returns nil.
4792 The optional fifth argument, OBJECT, specifies the string or buffer to
4795 ** The function `delete-windows-on' now takes an optional second
4796 argument FRAME, which specifies which frames it should affect.
4797 + If FRAME is nil or omitted, then `delete-windows-on' deletes windows
4798 showing BUFFER (its first argument) on all frames.
4799 + If FRAME is t, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on the
4800 selected frame; other frames are unaffected.
4801 + If FRAME is a frame, then `delete-windows-on' only deletes windows on
4802 the given frame; other frames are unaffected.
4805 * Changes in version 19.16.
4807 ** When dragging the mouse to select a region, Emacs now highlights the
4808 region as you drag (if Transient Mark mode is enabled). If you
4809 continue the drag beyond the boundaries of the window, Emacs scrolls
4810 the window at a steady rate until you either move the mouse back into
4811 the window or release the button.
4813 ** RET now exits `query-replace' and `query-replace-regexp'; this makes it
4814 more consistent with the incremental search facility, which uses RET
4817 ** In C mode, C-c C-u now runs c-up-conditional.
4818 C-c C-n and C-c C-p now run new commands that move forward
4819 and back over balanced sets of C conditionals (c-forward-conditional
4820 and c-backward-conditional).
4822 ** The Edit entry in the menu bar has a new alternative:
4823 "Choose Next Paste". It gives you a menu showing the various
4824 strings in the kill ring; click on one to select it as the text
4825 to be yanked ("pasted") the next time you yank.
4827 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode and set `mark-even-if-inactive' to
4828 non-nil, then the region is highlighted in a transient fashion just as
4829 normally in Transient Mark mode, but the mark really remains active
4830 all the time; commands that use the region can be used even if the
4831 region highlighting turns off.
4833 ** If you type C-h after a prefix key, it displays the bindings
4834 that start with that prefix.
4836 ** The VC package now searches for version control commands in the
4837 directories named by the variable `vc-path'; its value should be a
4840 ** If you are visiting a file that has locks registered under RCS,
4841 VC now displays each lock's owner and version number in the mode line
4842 after the string `RCS'. If there are no locks, VC displays the head
4845 ** When using X, if you load the `paren' library, Emacs automatically
4846 underlines or highlights the matching paren whenever point is
4847 next to the outside of a paren. When point is before an open-paren,
4848 this shows the matching close; when point is after a close-paren,
4849 this shows the matching open.
4851 ** The new function `define-key-after' is like `define-key',
4852 but takes an extra argument AFTER. It places the newly defined
4853 binding after the binding for the event AFTER.
4855 ** `accessible-keymaps' now takes an optional second argument, PREFIX.
4856 If PREFIX is non-nil, it means the value should include only maps for
4857 keys that start with PREFIX.
4859 `describe-bindings' also accepts an optional argument PREFIX which
4860 means to describe only the keys that start with PREFIX.
4862 ** The variable `prefix-help-command' hold a command to run to display help
4863 whenever the character `help-char' follows a prefix key and does not have
4864 a key binding in that context.
4866 ** Emacs now detects double- and triple-mouse clicks. A single mouse
4867 click produces a pair events of the form:
4868 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4870 Clicking the same mouse button again, soon thereafter and at the same
4871 location, produces another pair of events of the form:
4872 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4873 (double-mouse-N POSITION 2)
4874 Another click will produce an event pair of the form:
4875 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4876 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 3)
4877 All the POSITIONs in such a sequence would be identical, except for
4880 To count as double- and triple-clicks, mouse clicks must be at the
4881 same location as the first click, and the number of milliseconds
4882 between the first release and the second must be less than the value
4883 of the lisp variable `double-click-time'. Setting `double-click-time'
4884 to nil disables multi-click detection. Setting it to t removes the
4885 time limit; Emacs then detects multi-clicks by position only.
4887 If `read-key-sequence' finds no binding for a double-click event, but
4888 the corresponding single-click event would be bound,
4889 `read-key-sequence' demotes it to a single-click. Similarly, it
4890 demotes unbound triple-clicks to double- or single-clicks. This means
4891 you don't have to distinguish between single- and multi-clicks if you
4894 Emacs reports all clicks after the third as `triple-mouse-N' clicks,
4895 but increments the click count after POSITION. For example, a fourth
4896 click, soon after the third and at the same location, produces a pair
4897 of events of the form:
4898 (down-mouse-N POSITION)
4899 (triple-mouse-N POSITION 4)
4901 ** The way Emacs reports positions of mouse events has changed
4902 slightly. If a mouse event includes a position list of the form:
4903 (WINDOW (PLACE-SYMBOL) (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4904 this denotes exactly the same position as the list:
4905 (WINDOW PLACE-SYMBOL (COLUMN . ROW) TIMESTAMP)
4906 That is, the event occurred over a non-textual area of the frame,
4907 specified by PLACE-SYMBOL, a symbol like `mode-line' or
4908 `vertical-scroll-bar'.
4910 Enclosing PLACE-SYMBOL in a singleton list does not change the
4911 position denoted, but the `read-key-sequence' function uses the
4912 presence or absence of the singleton list to tell whether or not it
4913 should prefix the event with its place symbol.
4915 Normally, `read-key-sequence' prefixes mouse events occurring over
4916 non-textual areas with their PLACE-SYMBOLs, to select the sub-keymap
4917 appropriate for the event; for example, clicking on the mode line
4918 produces a sequence like
4919 [mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4920 However, if lisp code elects to unread the resulting key sequence by
4921 placing it in the `unread-command-events' variable, it is important
4922 that `read-key-sequence' not insert the prefix symbol again; that
4923 would produce a malformed key sequence like
4924 [mode-line mode-line (mouse-1 POSN)]
4925 For this reason, `read-key-sequence' encloses the event's PLACE-SYMBOL
4926 in a singleton list when it first inserts the prefix, but doesn't
4927 insert the prefix when processing events whose PLACE-SYMBOLs are
4928 already thus enclosed.
4931 * Changes in version 19.15.
4933 ** `make-frame-visible', which uniconified frames, is now a command,
4934 and thus may be bound to a key. This makes sense because frames
4935 respond to user input while iconified.
4937 ** You can now use Meta mouse clicks to set and use the "secondary
4938 selection". You can drag M-Mouse-1 across the region you want to
4939 select. Or you can press M-Mouse-1 at one end and M-Mouse-3 at the
4940 other (this also copies the text to the kill ring). Repeating M-Mouse-3
4941 again at the same place kills that text.
4943 M-Mouse-2 kills the secondary selection.
4945 Setting the secondary selection does not move point or the mark. It
4946 is possible to make a secondary selection that does not all fit on the
4947 screen, by using M-Mouse-1 at one end, scrolling, then using M-Mouse-3
4950 Emacs has only one secondary selection at any time. Starting to set
4951 a new one cancels any previous one. The secondary selection displays
4952 using a face named `secondary-selection'.
4954 ** There's a new way to request use of Supercite (sc.el). Do this:
4956 (add-hook 'mail-citation-hook 'sc-cite-original)
4958 Currently this works with Rmail. In the future, other Emacs based
4959 mail-readers should be modified to understand this hook also.
4960 In the mean time, you should keep doing what you have done in the past
4961 for those other mail readers.
4963 ** When a regular expression contains `\(...\)' inside a repetition
4964 operator such as `*' or `+', and you ask about the range that was matched
4965 using `match-beginning' and `match-end', the range you get corresponds
4966 to the *last* repetition *only*. In Emacs 18, you would get a range
4967 corresponding to all the repetitions.
4969 If you want to get a range corresponding to all the repetitions,
4970 put a `\(...\)' grouping *outside* the repetition operator. This
4971 is the syntax that corresponds logically to the desired result, and
4972 it works the same in Emacs 18 and Emacs 19.
4974 (This change actually took place earlier, but we didn't know about it
4975 and thus didn't document it.)
4977 * Changes in version 19.14.
4979 ** To modify read-only text, bind the variable `inhibit-read-only'
4980 to a non-nil value. If the value is t, then all reasons that might
4981 make text read-only are inhibited (including `read-only' text properties).
4982 If the value is a list, then a `read-only' property is inhibited
4983 if it is `memq' in the list.
4985 ** If you call `get-buffer-window' passing t as its second argument, it
4986 will only search for windows on visible frames. Previously, passing t
4987 as the secord argument caused `get-buffer-window' to search all
4988 frames, visible or not.
4990 ** If you call `other-buffer' with a nil or omitted second argument, it
4991 will ignore buffers displayed windows on any visible frame, not just
4994 ** You can specify a window or a frame for C-x # to use when
4995 selects a server buffer. Set the variable server-window
4996 to the window or frame that you want.
4998 ** The command M-( now inserts spaces outside the open-parentheses in
4999 some cases--depending on the syntax classes of the surrounding
5000 characters. If the variable `parens-dont-require-spaces' is non-nil,
5001 it inhibits insertion of these spaces.
5003 ** The GUD package now supports the debugger known as xdb on HP/UX
5004 systems. Use M-x xdb. The variable `gud-xdb-directories' lets you
5005 specify a list of directories to search for source code.
5007 ** If you are using the mailabbrev package, you should note that its
5008 function for defining an alias is now called `define-mail-abbrev'.
5009 This package no longer contains a definition for `define-mail-alias';
5010 that name is used only in mailaliases.
5012 ** Inserted characters now inherit the properties of the text before
5013 them, by default, rather than those of the following text.
5015 ** The function `insert-file-contents' now takes optional arguments BEG
5016 and END that specify which part of the file to insert. BEG defaults to
5017 0 (the beginning of the file), and END defaults to the end of the file.
5019 If you specify BEG or END, then the argument VISIT must be nil.
5021 * Changes in version 19.13.
5023 ** Magic file names can now handle the `load' operation.
5025 ** Bibtex mode now sets up special entries in the menu bar.
5027 ** The incremental search commands C-w and C-y, which copy text from
5028 the buffer into the search string, now convert it to lower case
5029 if you are in a case-insensitive search. This is to avoid making
5030 the search a case-sensitive one.
5032 ** GNUS now knows your time zone automatically if Emacs does.
5034 ** Hide-ifdef mode no longer defines keys of the form
5035 C-c LETTER, since those keys are reserved for users.
5036 Those commands have been moved to C-c M-LETTER.
5037 We may move them again for greater consistency with other modes.
5039 * Changes in version 19.12.
5041 ** You can now make many of the sort commands ignore case by setting
5042 `sort-fold-case' to a non-nil value.
5044 * Changes in version 19.11.
5046 ** Supercite is installed.
5048 ** `write-file-hooks' functions that return non-nil are responsible
5049 for making a backup file if you want that to be done.
5050 To do so, execute the following code:
5052 (or buffer-backed-up (backup-buffer))
5054 You might wish to save the file modes value returned by
5055 `backup-buffer' and use that to set the mode bits of the file
5056 that you write. This is what `basic-save-buffer' does when
5057 it writes a file in the usual way.
5059 (This is not actually new, but wasn't documented before.)
5061 * Changes in version 19.10.
5063 ** The command `repeat-complex-command' is now on C-x ESC ESC.
5064 It used to be bound to C-x ESC.
5066 The reason for this change is to make function keys work after C-x.
5068 ** The variable `highlight-nonselected-windows' now controls whether
5069 the region is highlighted in windows other than the selected window
5070 (in Transient Mark mode only, of course, and currently only when
5073 * Changes in version 19.8.
5075 ** It is now simpler to tell Emacs to display accented characters under
5076 X windows. M-x standard-display-european toggles the display of
5077 buffer text according to the ISO Latin-1 standard. With a prefix
5078 argument, this command enables European character display iff the
5079 argument is positive.
5081 ** The `-i' command-line argument tells Emacs to use a picture of the
5082 GNU gnu as its icon, instead of letting the window manager choose an
5083 icon for it. This option used to insert a file into the current
5084 buffer; use `-insert' to do that now.
5086 ** The `configure' script now supports `--prefix' and `--exec-prefix'
5089 The `--prefix=PREFIXDIR' option specifies where the installation process
5090 should put emacs and its data files. This defaults to `/usr/local'.
5091 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in PREFIXDIR/bin
5092 (unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise).
5093 - The architecture-independent files go in PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION
5094 (where VERSION is the version number of Emacs, like `19.7').
5095 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5096 PREFIXDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION
5097 (where CONFIGURATION is the configuration name, like mips-dec-ultrix4.2),
5098 unless the `--exec-prefix' option says otherwise.
5100 The `--exec-prefix=EXECDIR' option allows you to specify a separate
5101 portion of the directory tree for installing architecture-specific
5102 files, like executables and utility programs. If specified,
5103 - Emacs (and the other utilities users run) go in EXECDIR/bin, and
5104 - The architecture-dependent files go in
5105 EXECDIR/lib/emacs/VERSION/CONFIGURATION.
5106 EXECDIR/bin should be a directory that is normally in users' PATHs.
5108 ** When running under X, the new lisp function `x-list-fonts'
5109 allows code to find out which fonts are available from the X server.
5110 The first argument PATTERN is a string, perhaps with wildcard characters;
5111 the * character matches any substring, and
5112 the ? character matches any single character.
5113 PATTERN is case-insensitive.
5114 If the optional arguments FACE and FRAME are specified, then
5115 `x-list-fonts' returns only fonts the same size as FACE on FRAME.
5119 * Changes in version 19.
5121 ** When you kill buffers, Emacs now returns memory to the operating system,
5122 thus reducing the size of the Emacs process. All the space that you free
5123 up by killing buffers can now be reused for other buffers no matter what
5124 their sizes, or reused by other processes if Emacs doesn't need it.
5126 ** Emacs now does garbage collection and auto saving while it is waiting
5127 for input, which often avoids the need to do these things while you
5130 The variable `auto-save-timeout' says how many seconds Emacs should
5131 wait, after you stop typing, before it does an auto save and a garbage
5134 ** If auto saving detects that a buffer has shrunk greatly, it refrains
5135 from auto saving that buffer and displays a warning. Now it also turns
5136 off Auto Save mode in that buffer, so that you won't get the same
5139 If you reenable Auto Save mode in that buffer, Emacs will start saving
5140 it again with no further warnings.
5142 ** A new minor mode called Line Number mode displays the current line
5143 number in the mode line, updating it as necessary when you move
5146 However, if the buffer is very large (larger than the value of
5147 `line-number-display-limit'), then the line number doesn't appear.
5148 This is because computing the line number can be painfully slow if the
5149 buffer is very large.
5151 ** You can quit while Emacs is waiting to read or write files.
5153 ** The arrow keys now have default bindings to move in the appropriate
5156 ** You can suppress next-line's habit of inserting a newline when
5157 called at the end of a buffer by setting next-line-add-newlines to nil
5160 ** You can now get back recent minibuffer inputs conveniently. While
5161 in the minibuffer, type M-p to fetch the next earlier minibuffer
5162 input, and use M-n to fetch the next later input.
5164 There are also commands to search forward or backward through the
5165 history for history elements that match a regular expression. M-r
5166 searches older elements in the history, while M-s searches newer
5167 elements. By special dispensation, these commands can always use the
5168 minibuffer to read their arguments even though you are already in the
5169 minibuffer when you issue them.
5171 The history feature is available for all uses of the minibuffer, but
5172 there are separate history lists for different kinds of input. For
5173 example, there is a list for file names, used by all the commands that
5174 read file names. There is a list for arguments of commands like
5175 `query-replace'. There are also very specific history lists, such
5176 as the one that `compile' uses for compilation commands.
5178 ** You can now display text in a mixture of fonts and colors, using the
5179 "face" feature, together with the overlay and text property features.
5180 See the Emacs Lisp manual for details. The Emacs Users Manual describes
5181 how to change the colors and font of standard predefined faces.
5183 ** You can refer to files on other machines using special file name syntax:
5188 When you do this, Emacs uses the FTP program to read and write files on
5189 the specified host. It logs in through FTP using your user name or the
5190 name USER. It may ask you for a password from time to time; this
5191 is used for logging in on HOST.
5193 ** Some C-x key bindings have been moved onto new prefix keys.
5195 C-x r is a prefix for registers and rectangles.
5196 C-x n is a prefix for narrowing.
5197 C-x a is a prefix for abbrev commands.
5200 C-x r SPC point-to-register (Was C-x /)
5201 C-x r j jump-to-register (Was C-x j)
5202 C-x r s copy-to-register (Was C-x x)
5203 C-x r i insert-register (Was C-x g)
5204 C-x r r copy-rectangle-to-register (Was C-x r)
5205 C-x r k kill-rectangle
5206 C-x r y yank-rectangle
5207 C-x r o open-rectangle
5208 C-x r f frame-configuration-to-register
5209 (This saves the state of all windows in all frames.)
5210 C-x r w window-configuration-to-register
5211 (This saves the state of all windows in the selected frame.)
5213 (Use C-x r j to restore a configuration saved with C-x r f or C-x r w.)
5215 C-x n n narrow-to-region (Was C-x n)
5216 C-x n p narrow-to-page (Was C-x p)
5217 C-x n w widen (Was C-x w)
5219 C-x a l add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-a)
5220 C-x a g add-global-abbrev (Was C-x +)
5221 C-x a i l inverse-add-mode-abbrev (Was C-x C-h)
5222 C-x a i g inverse-add-global-abbrev (Was C-x -)
5223 C-x a e expand-abbrev (Was C-x ')
5225 (The old key bindings C-x /, C-x j, C-x x and C-x g
5226 have not yet been removed.)
5228 ** You can put a file name in a register to be able to visit the file
5231 (set-register ?CHAR '(file . NAME))
5233 where NAME is the file name as a string. Then C-x r j CHAR finds that
5236 This is useful for files that you need to visit frequently,
5237 but that you don't want to keep in buffers all the time.
5239 ** The keys M-g (fill-region) and C-x a (append-to-buffer)
5240 have been eliminated.
5242 ** The new command `string-rectangle' inserts a specified string on
5243 each line of the region-rectangle.
5245 ** C-x 4 r is now `find-file-read-only-other-window'.
5247 ** C-x 4 C-o is now `display-buffer', which displays a specified buffer
5248 in another window without selecting it.
5250 ** Picture mode has been substantially improved. The picture editing commands
5251 now arrange for automatic horizontal scrolling to keep point visible
5252 when editing a wide buffer with truncate-lines on. Picture-mode
5253 initialization now does a better job of rebinding standard commands;
5254 it finds not just their normal keybindings, but any function keys
5257 ** If you enable Transient Mark mode, then the mark becomes "inactive"
5258 after every command that modifies the buffer. While the mark is
5259 active, the region is highlighted (under X, at least). Most commands
5260 that use the mark give an error if the mark is inactive, but you can
5261 use C-x C-x to make it active again. This feature is also sometimes
5262 known as "Zmacs mode".
5264 ** Outline mode is now available as a minor mode. This minor mode can
5265 combine with any major mode; it substitutes the C-c commands of
5266 Outline mode for those of the major mode. Use M-x outline-minor-mode
5267 to enable and disable the new mode.
5269 M-x outline-mode is unchanged; it still switches to Outline mode as a
5272 ** The default setting of `version-control' comes from the environment
5273 variable VERSION_CONTROL.
5275 ** The user option for controlling whether files can set local
5276 variables is now called `enable-local-variables'. A value of t means
5277 local-variables lists are obeyed; nil means they are ignored; anything
5278 else means query the user.
5280 The user option for controlling use of the `eval' local variable is
5281 now called is `enable-local-eval'; its values are interpreted like
5282 those of `enable-local-variables'.
5284 ** X Window System changes:
5286 C-x 5 C-f and C-x 5 b switch to a specified file or buffer in a new
5287 frame. Likewise, C-x 5 m starts outgoing mail in another frame, and
5288 C-x 5 . finds a tag in another frame.
5290 When you are using X, C-z now iconifies the selected frame.
5292 Emacs can now exchange text with other X applications. Killing or
5293 copying text in Emacs now makes that text available for pasting into
5294 other X applications. The Emacs yanking commands now insert the
5295 latest selection set by other applications, and add the text to the
5296 kill ring. The Emacs commands for selecting and inserting text with
5297 the mouse now use the kill ring in the same way the keyboard killing
5298 and yanking commands do.
5300 The option to specify the title for the initial frame is now `-name NAME'.
5301 There is currently no way to specify an icon title; perhaps we will add
5304 ** Undoing a deletion now puts point back where it was before the
5307 ** The variables that control how much undo information to save have
5308 been renamed to `undo-limit' and `undo-strong-limit'. They used to be
5309 called `undo-threshold' and `undo-high-threshold'.
5311 ** You can now use kill commands in read-only buffers. They don't
5312 actually change the buffer, and Emacs will beep and warn you that the
5313 buffer is read-only, but they do copy the text you tried to kill into
5314 the kill ring, so you can yank it into other buffers.
5316 ** C-o inserts the fill-prefix on the newly created line. The command
5317 M-^ deletes the prefix (if it occurs) after the newline that it
5320 ** C-M-l now runs the command `reposition-window'. It scrolls the
5321 window heuristically in a way designed to get useful information onto
5324 ** C-M-r is now reverse incremental regexp search.
5326 ** M-z now kills through the target character. In version 18, it
5327 killed up to but not including the target character.
5329 ** M-! now runs the specified shell command asynchronously if it
5330 ends in `&' (just as the shell does).
5332 ** C-h C-f and C-h C-k are new help commands that display the Info
5333 node for a given Emacs function name or key sequence, respectively.
5335 ** The C-h p command system lets you find Emacs Lisp packages by
5336 topic keywords. Here is a partial list of package categories:
5338 abbrev abbreviation handling, typing shortcuts, macros
5339 bib code related to the bib bibliography processor
5340 c C and C++ language support
5341 calendar calendar and time management support
5342 comm communications, networking, remote access to files
5343 docs support for Emacs documentation
5344 emulations emulations of other editors
5345 extensions Emacs Lisp language extensions
5346 games games, jokes and amusements
5347 hardware support for interfacing with exotic hardware
5348 help support for on-line help systems
5349 i14n internationalization and alternate character-set support
5350 internal code for Emacs internals, build process, defaults
5351 languages specialized modes for editing programming languages
5352 lisp Lisp support, including Emacs Lisp
5353 local code local to your site
5354 maint maintenance aids for the Emacs development group
5355 mail modes for electronic-mail handling
5356 news support for netnews reading and posting
5357 processes process, subshell, compilation, and job control support
5358 terminals support for terminal types
5359 tex code related to the TeX formatter
5360 tools programming tools
5361 unix front-ends/assistants for, or emulators of, UNIX features
5362 vms support code for vms
5365 More will be added soon.
5367 ** The command to split a window into two side-by-side windows is now
5368 C-x 3. It was C-x 5.
5370 ** M-. (find-tag) no longer has any effect on what M-, will do
5371 subsequently. You can no longer use M-, to find the next similar tag;
5372 you must use M-. with a prefix argument, instead.
5374 The motive for this change is so that you can more reliably use
5375 M-, to resume a suspended `tags-search' or `tags-query-replace'.
5377 ** C-x s (`save-some-buffers') now gives you more options when it asks
5378 whether to save a particular buffer. In addition to `y' or `n', you
5379 can answer `!' to save all the remaining buffers, `.' to save this
5380 buffer but not save any others, ESC to stop saving and exit the
5381 command, and C-h to get help. These options are analogous to those
5384 ** M-x make-symbolic-link does not expand its first argument.
5385 This lets you make a link with a target that is a relative file name.
5387 ** M-x add-change-log-entry and C-x 4 a now automatically insert the
5388 name of the file and often the name of the function that you changed.
5389 They also handle grouping of entries.
5391 There is now a special major mode for editing ChangeLog files. It
5392 makes filling work conveniently. Each bunch of grouped entries is one
5393 paragraph, and each collection of entries from one person on one day
5394 is considered a page.
5396 ** The `comment-region' command adds comment delimiters to the lines that
5397 start in the region, thus commenting them out. With a negative argument,
5398 it deletes comment delimiters from the lines in the region--this cancels
5399 the effect of `comment-region' without an argument.
5401 With a positive argument, `comment-region' adds comment delimiters
5402 but duplicates the last character of the comment start sequence as many
5403 times as the argument specifies. This is a way of calling attention to
5404 the comment. In Lisp, you should use an argument at least two, because
5405 the indentation convention for single semicolon comments does not leave
5406 them at the beginning of a line.
5408 ** If `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil, C-x 2 tries to avoid
5409 shifting any text on the screen by putting point in whichever window
5410 happens to contain the screen line the cursor is already on.
5411 The default is that `split-window-keep-point' is non-nil on slow
5414 ** M-x super-apropos is like M-x apropos except that it searches both
5415 Lisp symbol names and documentation strings for matches. It describes
5416 every symbol that has a match in either the symbol's name or its
5419 Both M-x apropos and M-x super-apropos take an optional second
5420 argument DO-ALL which controls the more expensive part of the job.
5421 This includes looking up and printing the key bindings of all
5422 commands. It also includes checking documentation strings in
5423 super-apropos. DO-ALL is nil by default; use a prefix arg to make it
5426 ** M-x revert-buffer no longer offers to revert from a recent auto-save
5427 file unless you give it a prefix argument. Otherwise it always
5428 reverts from the real file regardless of whether there has been an
5429 auto-save since thenm. (Reverting from the auto-save file is no longer
5430 very useful now that the undo capacity is larger.)
5432 ** M-x recover-file no longer turns off Auto Save mode when it reads
5433 the last Auto Save file.
5435 ** M-x rename-buffer, if you give it a prefix argument,
5436 avoids errors by modifying the new name to make it unique.
5438 ** M-x rename-uniquely renames the current buffer to a similar name
5439 with a numeric suffix added to make it both different and unique.
5441 One use of this command is for creating multiple shell buffers.
5442 If you rename your shell buffer, and then do M-x shell again, it
5443 makes a new shell buffer. This method is also good for mail buffers,
5444 compilation buffers, and any Emacs feature which creates a special
5445 buffer with a particular name.
5447 ** M-x compare-windows with a prefix argument ignores changes in whitespace.
5448 If `compare-ignore-case' is non-nil, then differences in case are also
5451 ** `backward-paragraph' is now bound to M-{ by default, and `forward-paragraph'
5452 to M-}. Originally, these commands were bound to M-[ and M-], but they were
5453 running into conflicts with the use of function keys. On many terminals,
5454 function keys send a sequence beginning ESC-[, so many users have defined this
5457 ** C-x C-u (upcase-region) and C-x C-l (downcase-region) are now disabled by
5458 default; these commands seem to be often hit by accident, and can be
5459 quite destructive if their effects are not noticed immediately.
5461 ** The function `erase-buffer' is now interactive, but disabled by default.
5463 ** When visiting a new file, Emacs attempts to abbreviate the file's
5464 path using the symlinks listed in `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5466 ** When you visit the same file in under two names that translate into
5467 the same name once symbolic links are handled, Emacs warns you that
5468 you have two buffers for the same file.
5470 ** If you wish to avoid visiting the same file in two buffers under
5471 different names, set the variable `find-file-existing-other-name'
5472 non-nil. Then `find-file' uses the existing buffer visiting the file,
5473 no matter which of the file's names you specify.
5475 ** If you set `find-file-visit-truename' non-nil, then the file name
5476 recorded for a buffer is the file's truename (in which all symbolic
5477 links have been removed), rather than the name you specify. Setting
5478 `find-file-visit-truename' also implies the effect of
5479 `find-file-existing-other-name'.
5481 ** C-x C-v now inserts the entire current file name in the minibuffer.
5482 This is convenient if you made a small mistake in typing it. Point
5483 goes after the last slash, before the last file name component, so if
5484 you want to replace it entirely, you can use C-k right away to delete
5487 ** Commands such as C-M-f in Lisp mode now ignore parentheses within comments.
5489 ** C-x q now uses ESC to terminate all iterations of the keyboard
5490 macro, rather than C-d as before.
5492 ** Use the command `setenv' to set an individual environment variable
5493 for Emacs subprocesses. Specify a variable name and a value, both as
5494 strings. This command applies only to subprocesses yet to be
5497 ** Use `rot13-other-window' to examine a buffer with rot13.
5499 This command does not change the text in the buffer. Instead, it
5500 creates a window with a funny display table that applies the code when
5501 displaying the text.
5503 ** The command `M-x version' now prints the current Emacs version; The
5504 `version' command is an alias for the `emacs-version' command.
5506 ** More complex changes in existing packages.
5508 *** `fill-nonuniform-paragraphs' is a new command, much like
5509 `fill-individual-paragraphs' except that only separator lines separate
5510 paragraphs. Since this means that the lines of one paragraph may have
5511 different amounts of indentation, the fill prefix used is the smallest
5512 amount of indentation of any of the lines of the paragraph.
5514 *** Filling is now partially controlled by a new minor mode, Adaptive
5515 Fill mode. When this mode is enabled (and it is enabled by default),
5516 if you use M-x fill-region-as-paragraph on an indented paragraph and
5517 you don't have a fill prefix, it uses the indentation of the second
5518 line of the paragraph as the fill prefix.
5520 Adaptive Fill mode doesn't have much effect on M-q in most major
5521 modes, because an indented line will probably count as a paragraph
5522 starter and thus each line of an indented paragraph will be considered
5523 a paragraph of its own.
5525 *** M-q in C mode now runs `c-fill-paragraph', which is designed
5526 for filling C comments. (We assume you don't want to fill
5527 the code in a C program.)
5529 *** M-$ now runs the Ispell program instead of the Unix spell program.
5531 M-$ starts an Ispell process the first time you use it. But the process
5532 stays alive, so that subsequent uses of M-$ run very fast.
5533 If you want to get rid of the process, use M-x kill-ispell.
5535 To check the entire current buffer, use M-x ispell-buffer.
5536 Use M-x ispell-region to check just the current region.
5538 Ispell commands often involve interactive replacement of words.
5539 You can interrupt the interactive replacement with C-g.
5540 You can restart it again afterward with C-u M-$.
5542 During interactive replacement, you can type the following characters:
5544 a Accept this word this time.
5545 DIGIT Replace the word (this time) with one of the displayed near-misses.
5546 The digit you use says which near-miss to use.
5547 i Insert this word in your private dictionary
5548 so that Ispell will consider it correct it from now on.
5549 r Replace the word this time with a string typed by you.
5551 When the Ispell process starts, it reads your private dictionary which
5552 is the file `~/ispell.words'. If you "insert" words with the `i' command,
5553 these words are added to that file, but not right away--only at the end
5554 of the interactive replacement process.
5556 Use M-x reload-ispell to reload your private dictionary from
5557 `~/ispell.words' if you edit it outside of Ispell.
5559 ** Changes in existing modes.
5561 *** gdb-mode has been replaced by gud-mode.
5563 The package gud.el (Grand Unified Debugger) replaces gdb.el in Emacs
5564 19. It provides a gdb.el-like interface to any of three debuggers;
5565 gdb itself, the sdb debugger supported on some Unix systems, or the
5566 dbx debugger on Berkeley systems.
5568 You start it up with one of the commands M-x gdb, M-x sdb, or
5569 M-x dbx. Each entry point finishes by executing a hook; gdb-mode-hook,
5570 sdb-mode-hook or dbx-mode-hook respectively.
5572 These bindings have changed:
5573 C-x C-a > gud-down (was M-d)
5574 C-x C-a < gud-up (was M-u)
5575 C-x C-a C-r gud-cont (was M-c)
5576 C-x C-a C-n gud-next (was M-n)
5577 C-x C-a C-s gud-step (was M-s)
5578 C-x C-a C-i gud-stepi (was M-i)
5579 C-x C-a C-l gud-recenter (was C-l)
5580 C-d comint-delchar-or-maybe-eof (was C-c C-d)
5582 These bindings have been removed:
5583 C-c C-r (was comint-show-output; now gud-cont)
5585 Since GUD mode uses comint, it uses comint's input history commands,
5586 superseding C-c C-y (copy-last-shell-input):
5587 M-p comint-next-input
5588 M-n comint-previous-input
5589 M-r comint-previous-similar-input
5590 M-s comint-next-similar-input
5591 M-C-r comint-previous-input-matching
5593 The C-x C-a bindings are also active in source files.
5595 *** The old TeX mode bindings of M-{ and M-} have been moved to C-c {
5596 and C-c }. (These commands are `up-list' and `tex-insert-braces';
5597 they are the TeX equivalents of M-( and M-).) This is because M-{
5598 and M-} are now globally defined commands.
5600 *** Changes in Mail mode.
5602 `%' is now a word-separator character in Mail mode.
5604 `mail-signature', if non-nil, tells M-x mail to insert your
5605 `.signature' file automatically. If you don't want your signature in
5606 a particular message, just delete it before you send the message.
5608 You can specify the text to insert at the beginning of each line when
5609 you use C-c C-y to yank the message you are replying to. Set
5610 `mail-yank-prefix' to the desired string. A value of `nil' (the
5611 default) means to use indentation, as in Emacs 18. If you use just
5612 C-u as the prefix argument to C-c C-y, then it does not insert
5613 anything at the beginning of the lines, regardless of the value of
5616 If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
5617 type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following:
5619 (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)
5621 This can go in your .emacs file.
5623 Word abbrevs don't expand unless you insert a word-separator character
5624 afterward. Any mail aliases that you didn't expand at insertion time
5625 are expanded subsequently when you send the message.
5627 *** Changes in Rmail.
5629 Rmail by default gets new mail only from the system inbox file,
5632 In Rmail, you can retry sending a message that failed
5633 by typing `M-m' on the failure message.
5635 By contrast, another new command M-x rmail-resend is used for
5636 forwarding a message and marking it as "resent from" you
5637 with header fields "Resent-From:" and "Resent-To:".
5639 `e' is now the command to edit a message.
5640 To expunge, type `x'. We know this will surprise people
5641 some of the time, but the surprise will not be disastrous--if
5642 you type `e' meaning to expunge, just turn off editing with C-c C-c
5645 Another new Rmail command is `<', which moves to the first message.
5646 This is for symmetry with `>'.
5648 Use the `b' command to bury the Rmail buffer and its summary buffer,
5649 if any, removing both of them from display on the screen.
5651 The variable `rmail-output-file-alist' now controls the default
5652 for the file to output a message to.
5654 In the Rmail summary buffer, all cursor motion commands select
5655 the message you move to. It's really neat when you use
5658 You can now issue most Rmail commands from an Rmail summary buffer.
5659 The commands do the same thing in that buffer that they do in the
5660 Rmail buffer. They apply to the message that is selected in the Rmail
5661 buffer, which is always the one described by the current summary
5664 Conversely, motion and deletion commands in the Rmail buffer also
5665 update the summary buffer. If you set the variable
5666 `rmail-redisplay-summary' to a non-nil value, then they bring the
5667 summary buffer (if one exists) back onto the screen.
5669 C-M-t is a new command to make a summary by topic. It uses regexp
5670 matching against just the subjects of the messages to decide which
5671 messages to show in the summary.
5673 You can easily convert an Rmail file to system mailbox format with the
5674 command `unrmail'. This command reads two arguments, the name of
5675 the Rmail file to convert, and the name of the new mailbox file.
5676 (This command does not change the Rmail file itself.)
5678 Rmail now handles Content Length fields in messages.
5680 *** `mail-extract-address-components' unpacks mail addresses.
5681 It takes an address as a string (the contents of the From field, for
5682 example) and returns a list of the form (FULL-NAME
5685 *** Changes in C mode and C-related commands.
5687 **** M-x c-up-conditional
5689 In C mode, `c-up-conditional' moves back to the containing
5690 preprocessor conditional, setting the mark where point was
5693 A prefix argument acts as a repeat count. With a negative argument,
5694 this command moves forward to the end of the containing preprocessor
5695 conditional. When going backwards, `#elif' acts like `#else' followed
5696 by `#if'. When going forwards, `#elif' is ignored.
5698 **** In C mode, M-a and M-e are now defined as
5699 `c-beginning-of-statement' and `c-end-of-statement'.
5701 **** In C mode, M-x c-backslash-region is a new command to insert or
5702 align `\' characters at the ends of the lines of the region, except
5703 for the last such line. This is useful after writing or editing a C
5706 If a line already ends in `\', this command adjusts the amount of
5707 whitespace before it. Otherwise, it inserts a new `\'.
5709 *** New features in info.
5711 When Info looks for an Info file, it searches the directories
5712 in `Info-directory-list'. This makes it easy to install the Info files
5713 that come with various packages. You can specify the path with
5714 the environment variable INFOPATH.
5716 There are new commands in Info mode.
5718 `]' now moves forward a node, going up and down levels as needed.
5719 `[' is similar but moves backward. These two commands try to traverse
5720 the entire Info tree, node by node. They are the equivalent of reading
5721 a printed manual sequentially.
5723 `<' moves to the top node of the current Info file.
5724 `>' moves to the last node of the file.
5726 SPC scrolls through the current node; at the end, it advances to the
5727 next node in depth-first order (like `]').
5729 DEL scrolls backwards in the current node; at the end, it moves to the
5730 previous node in depth-first order (like `[').
5732 After a menu select, the info `up' command now restores point in the
5733 menu. The combination of this and the previous two changes means that
5734 repeated SPC keystrokes do the right (depth-first traverse forward) thing.
5736 `i STRING RET' moves to the node associated with STRING in the index
5737 or indices of this manual. If there is more than one match for
5738 STRING, the `i' command finds the first match.
5740 `,' finds the next match for the string in the previous `i' command
5742 If you click the middle mouse button near a cross-reference,
5743 menu item or node pointer while in Info, you will go to the node
5744 which is referenced.
5746 *** Changes in M-x compile.
5748 You can repeat any previous compilation command conveniently using the
5749 minibuffer history commands, while in the minibuffer entering the
5750 compilation command.
5752 While a compilation is going on, the string `Compiling' appears in
5753 the mode line. When this string disappears, that tells you the
5754 compilation is finished.
5756 The buffer of compiler messages is in Compilation mode. This mode
5757 provides the keys SPC and DEL to scroll by screenfuls, and M-n and M-p
5758 to move to the next or previous error message. You can also use C-c
5759 C-c on any error message to find the corresponding source code.
5761 Emacs 19 has a more general parser for compiler messages. For example, it
5762 can understand messages from lint, and from certain C compilers whose error
5763 message format is unusual. Also, it only parses until it sees the error
5764 message you want; you never have to wait a long time to see the first
5765 error, no matter how big the buffer is.
5767 *** M-x diff and M-x diff-backup.
5769 This new command compares two files, displaying the differences in an
5770 Emacs buffer. The options for the `diff' program come from the
5771 variable `diff-switches', whose value should be a string.
5773 The buffer of differences has Compilation mode as its major mode, so you
5774 can use C-x ` to visit successive changed locations in the two
5775 source files, or you can move to a particular hunk of changes and type
5776 C-c C-c to move to the corresponding source. You can also use the
5777 other special commands of Compilation mode: SPC and DEL for
5778 scrolling, and M-n and M-p for cursor motion.
5780 M-x diff-backup compares a file with its most recent backup.
5781 If you specify the name of a backup file, `diff-backup' compares it
5782 with the source file that it is a backup of.
5784 *** The View commands (such as M-x view-buffer and M-x view-file) no
5785 longer use recursive edits; instead, they switch temporarily to a
5786 different major mode (View mode) specifically designed for moving
5787 around through a buffer without editing it.
5789 *** Changes in incremental search.
5791 **** The character to terminate an incremental search is now RET.
5792 This is for compatibility with the way most other arguments are read.
5794 To search for a newline in an incremental search, type LFD (also known
5797 **** Incremental search now maintains a ring of previous search
5798 strings. Use M-p and M-n to move through the ring to pick a search
5799 string to reuse. These commands leave the selected search ring
5800 element in the minibuffer, where you can edit it. Type C-s or C-r to
5801 finish editing and search for the chosen string.
5803 **** If you type an upper case letter in incremental search, that turns
5804 off case-folding, so that you get a case-sensitive search.
5806 **** If you type a space during regexp incremental search, it matches
5807 any sequence of whitespace characters. If you want to match just a space,
5810 **** Incremental search is now implemented as a major mode. When you
5811 type C-s, it switches temporarily to a different keymap which defines
5812 each key to do what it ought to do for incremental search. This has
5813 next to no effect on the user-visible behavior of searching, but makes
5814 it easier to customize that behavior.
5816 Emacs 19 eliminates the old variables `search-...-char' that used to
5817 be the way to specify the characters to use for various special
5818 purposes in incremental search. Instead, you can define the meaning
5819 of a character in incremental search by modifying `isearch-mode-map'.
5821 *** New commands in Buffer Menu mode.
5823 The command C-o now displays the current line's buffer in another
5824 window but does not select it. This is like the existing command `o'
5825 which selects the current line's buffer in another window.
5827 The command % toggles the read-only flag of the current line's buffer.
5829 The way to switch to a set of several buffers, including those marked
5830 with m, is now v. The q command simply quits, replacing the buffer
5831 menu buffer with the buffer that was displayed previously.
5833 ** New major modes and packages.
5835 *** The news reader GNUS is now installed.
5837 *** There is a new interface for version control systems, called VC.
5838 It works with both RCS and SCCS; in fact, you don't really have to
5839 know which one of them is being used, because it automatically deals
5842 Most of the time, the only command you have to know about is C-x C-q.
5843 This command normally toggles the read-only flag of the current
5844 buffer. If the buffer is visiting a file that is maintained with a
5845 version control system, the command still toggles read-only, but does
5846 so by checking the file in or checking it out.
5848 When you check a file in, VC asks you for a log entry by popping up a
5849 buffer. Edit the entry there, then type C-c C-c when it is ready.
5850 That's when the actual checkin happens. If you change your mind about
5851 the checkin, simply switch buffers and don't ever go back to the log
5854 To start using version control for a file, use the command C-x v v.
5855 This works like C-x C-q (performing the next logical version-control
5856 operation needed to change the file's writability) but it will also
5857 perform initial checkin on an unregistered file.
5859 By default, VC uses RCS if RCS is installed on your machine;
5860 otherwise, SCCS. If you want to make the choice explicitly, you can do
5861 it by setting `vc-default-back-end' to the symbol `RCS' or the symbol
5864 You can tell when a file you visit is maintained with version control
5865 because either `RCS' or `SCCS' appears in the mode line.
5867 *** A new Calendar mode has been added, the work of Edward M. Reingold.
5868 The mode can display the Gregorian calendar and a variety of other
5869 calendars at any date, and interacts with a diary facility similar to
5870 the UNIX `calendar' utility.
5872 *** There is a new major mode for editing binary files: Hexl mode.
5873 To use it, use M-x hexl-find-file instead of C-x C-f to visit the file.
5874 This command converts the file's contents to hexadecimal and lets you
5875 edit the translation. When you save the file, it is converted
5876 automatically back to binary.
5878 You can also use M-x hexl-mode to translate an existing buffer into hex.
5879 Do this if you have already visited a binary file.
5881 Hexl mode has a few other commands:
5883 C-M-d insert a byte with a code typed in decimal.
5884 C-M-o insert a byte with a code typed in octal.
5885 C-M-x insert a byte with a code typed in hex.
5887 C-x [ move to the beginning of a 1k-byte "page".
5888 C-x ] move to the end of a 1k-byte "page".
5890 M-g go to an address specified in hex.
5891 M-j go to an address specified in decimal.
5893 C-c C-c leave hexl mode and go back to the previous major mode.
5895 *** Miscellaneous new major modes include Awk mode, Icon mode, Makefile
5896 mode, Perl mode and SGML mode.
5898 *** Edebug, a new source-level debugger for Emacs Lisp functions.
5900 To use Edebug, use the command M-x edebug-defun to "evaluate" a
5901 function definition in an Emacs Lisp file. We put "evaluate" in
5902 quotation marks because it doesn't just evaluate the function, it also
5903 inserts additional information to support source-level debugging.
5907 (setq debugger 'edebug-debug)
5909 to cause errors and single-stepping to use Edebug instead of the usual
5910 Emacs Lisp debugger.
5912 For more information, see the Edebug manual, which should be included
5913 in the Emacs distribution.
5915 *** C++ mode is like C mode, except that it understands C++ comment syntax
5916 and certain other differences between C and C++. It also has a command
5917 `fill-c++-comment' which fills a paragraph made of comment lines.
5919 The command `comment-region' is useful in C++ mode for commenting out
5920 several consecutive lines, or removing the commenting out of such lines.
5922 *** A new package for merging two variants of the same text.
5924 It's not unusual for programmers to get their signals crossed and
5925 modify the same program in two different directions. Then somebody
5926 has to merge the two versions. The command `emerge-files' makes this
5929 `emerge-files' reads two file names and compares them. Then it
5930 displays three buffers: one for each file, and one for the
5933 If the original version of the file is available, you can make things
5934 even easier using `emerge-files-with-ancestor'. It reads three file
5935 names--variant 1, variant 2, and the common ancestor--and uses diff3
5938 You control the merging interactively. The main loop of Emerge
5939 consists of showing you one set of differences, asking you what to do
5940 about them, and doing it. You have a choice of two modes for giving
5941 directions to Emerge: "fast" mode and "edit" mode.
5943 In Fast mode, Emerge commands are single characters, and ordinary
5944 Emacs commands are disabled. This makes Emerge operations fast, but
5945 prevents you from doing more than selecting the A or the B version of
5946 differences. In Edit mode, all emerge commands use the C-c prefix,
5947 and the usual Emacs commands are available. This allows editing the
5948 merge buffer, but slows down Emerge operations. Edit and fast modes
5949 are indicated by `F' and `E' in the minor modes in the mode line.
5951 The Emerge commands are:
5953 p go to the previous difference
5954 n go to the next difference
5955 a select the A version of this difference
5956 b select the B version of this difference
5957 j go to a particular difference (prefix argument
5958 specifies which difference) (0j suppresses display of
5960 q quit - finish the merge*
5963 l recenter (C-l) all three windows*
5965 prefix numeric arguments
5966 d a select the A version as the default from here down in
5968 d b select the B version as the default from here down in
5970 c a copy the A version of the difference into the kill
5972 c b copy the B version of the difference into the kill
5974 i a insert the A version of the difference at the point
5975 i b insert the B version of the difference at the point
5976 m put the point and mark around the difference region
5977 ^ scroll-down (like M-v) the three windows*
5978 v scroll-up (like C-v) the three windows*
5979 < scroll-left (like C-x <) the three windows*
5980 > scroll-right (like C-x >) the three windows*
5981 | reset horizontal scroll on the three windows*
5982 x 1 shrink the merge window to one line (use C-u l to restore it
5984 x a find the difference containing a location in the A buffer*
5985 x b find the difference containing a location in the B buffer*
5986 x c combine the two versions of this difference*
5987 x C combine the two versions of this difference, using a
5988 register's value as the template*
5989 x d find the difference containing a location in the merge buffer*
5990 x f show the files/buffers Emerge is operating on in Help window
5991 (use C-u l to restore windows)
5992 x j join this difference with the following one
5993 (C-u x j joins this difference with the previous one)
5994 x l show line numbers of points in A, B, and merge buffers
5995 x m change major mode of merge buffer*
5996 x s split this difference into two differences
5997 (first position the point in all three buffers to the places
5998 to split the difference)
5999 x t trim identical lines off top and bottom of difference
6000 (such lines occur when the A and B versions are
6001 identical but differ from the ancestor version)
6002 x x set the template for the x c command*
6004 Normally, the merged output goes back in the first file specified.
6005 If you use a prefix argument, Emerge reads another file name to use
6006 for the output file.
6008 Once Emerge has prepared the buffer of differences, it runs the hooks
6009 in `emerge-startup-hooks'.
6011 *** Asm mode is a new major mode for editing files of assembler code.
6012 It defines these commands:
6014 TAB tab-to-tab-stop.
6015 LFD Insert a newline and then indent using tab-to-tab-stop.
6016 : Insert a colon and then remove the indentation
6017 from before the label preceding colon. Then tab-to-tab-stop.
6018 ; Insert or align a comment.
6020 *** Two-column mode lets you conveniently edit two side-by-side columns
6021 of text. It works using two side-by-side windows, each showing its
6024 Here are three ways to enter two-column mode:
6026 C-x 6 2 makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer. In the
6027 right-hand window it puts a buffer whose name is based on the current
6030 C-x 6 b BUFFER RET makes the current buffer into the left-hand buffer,
6031 and uses buffer BUFFER as the right-hand buffer.
6033 C-x 6 s splits the current buffer, which contains two-column text,
6034 into two side-by-side buffers. The old current buffer becomes the
6035 left-hand buffer, but the text in the right column is moved into the
6036 right-hand buffer. The current column specifies the split point.
6037 Splitting starts with the current line and continues to the end of the
6040 C-x 6 s takes a prefix argument which specifies how many characters
6041 before point constitute the column separator. (The default argument
6042 is 1, as usual, so by default the column separator is the character
6043 before point.) Lines that don't have the column separator at the
6044 proper place remain unsplit; they stay in the left-hand buffer, and
6045 the right-hand buffer gets an empty line to correspond.
6047 You can scroll both buffers together using C-x 6 SPC (scroll up), C-x
6048 6 DEL (scroll down), and C-x 6 RET (scroll up one line). C-x 6 C-l
6049 recenters both buffers together.
6051 If you want to make a line which will span both columns, put it in
6052 the left-hand buffer, with an empty line in the corresponding place in
6053 the right-hand buffer.
6055 When you have edited both buffers as you wish, merge them with C-x 6
6056 1. This copies the text from the right-hand buffer as a second column
6057 in the other buffer. To go back to two-column editing, use C-x 6 s.
6059 Use C-x 6 d to disassociate the two buffers, leaving each as it
6060 stands. (If the other buffer, the one that was not current when you
6061 type C-x 6 d, is empty, C-x 6 d kills it.)
6063 *** You can supply command arguments such as files to visit to an Emacs
6064 that is already running. To do this, you must do this in your .emacs
6066 (add-hook 'suspend-hook 'resume-suspend-hook)
6067 Also you must use the shellscript emacs.csh or emacs.sh, found in the
6070 *** Shell mode has been completely replaced.
6071 The basic idea is the same, but there are new commands available in
6074 TAB now completes the file name before point in the shell buffer.
6075 To get a list of all possible completions, type M-?.
6077 There is a new convenient history mechanism for repeating previous
6078 commands. Use the command M-p to recall the last command; it copies
6079 the text of that command to the place where you are editing. If you
6080 repeat M-p, it replaces the copied command with the previous command.
6081 M-n is similar but goes in the opposite direction towards the present.
6082 When you find the command you wanted, you can edit it, or just
6083 resubmit it by typing RET.
6085 You can also use M-r and M-s to search for (respectively) earlier or
6086 later inputs starting with a given string. First type the string,
6087 then type M-r to yank a previous input from the history which starts
6088 with that string. You can repeat M-r to find successively earlier
6089 inputs starting with the same string. You can start moving in the
6090 opposite direction (toward more recent inputs) by typing M-s instead
6091 of M-r. As long as you don't use any commands except M-r and M-s,
6092 they keep using the same string that you had entered initially.
6094 C-c C-o kills the last batch of output from a shell command. This is
6095 useful if a shell command spews out lots of output that just gets in
6098 C-c C-r scrolls to display the beginning of the last batch of output
6099 at the top of the window; it also moves the cursor there.
6101 C-a on a line that starts with a shell prompt moves to the end of the
6102 prompt, not to the very beginning of the line.
6104 C-d typed at the end of the shell buffer sends EOF to the subshell.
6105 At any other position in the buffer, it deletes a character as usual.
6107 If Emacs gets confused while trying to track changes in the shell's
6108 current directory, type M-x dirs to re-synchronize.
6110 M-x send-invisible reads a line of text without echoing it, and
6111 sends it to the shell.
6113 If you accidentally suspend your process, use M-x comint-continue-subjob
6116 *** There is now a convenient way to enable flow control on terminals
6117 where you can't win without it. Suppose you want to do this on
6118 VT-100 and H19 terminals; put the following in your `.emacs' file:
6120 (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")
6122 When flow control is enabled, you must type C-\ to get the effect of a
6123 C-s, and type C-^ to get the effect of a C-q.
6125 The function `enable-flow-control' enables flow control unconditionally.
6129 Dired has many new features which allow you to do these things:
6131 - Rename, copy, or make links to many files at once.
6133 - Make distinguishable types of marks for different operations.
6135 - Display contents of subdirectories in the same Dired buffer as the
6138 *** Setting and Clearing Marks
6140 There are now two kinds of marker that you can put on a file in Dired:
6141 `D' for deletion, and `*' for any other kind of operation.
6142 The `x' command deletes only files marked with `D', and most
6143 other Dired commands operate only on the files marked with `*'.
6145 To mark files with `D' (also called "flagging" the files), you
6146 can use `d' as usual. Here are some commands for marking with
6147 `*' (and also for unmarking):
6149 **** `m' marks the current file with `*', for an operation other than
6152 **** `*' marks all executable files. With a prefix argument, it
6153 unmarks all those files.
6155 **** `@' marks all symbolic links. With a prefix argument, it unmarks
6158 **** `/' marks all directory files except `.' and `..'. With a prefix
6159 argument, it unmarks all those files.
6161 **** M-DEL removes a specific or all marks from every file. With an
6162 argument, queries for each marked file. Type your help character,
6163 usually C-h, at that time for help.
6165 **** `c' replaces all marks that use the character OLD with marks that
6166 use the character NEW. You can use almost any character as a mark
6167 character by means of this command, to distinguish various classes of
6168 files. If OLD is ` ', then the command operates on all unmarked
6169 files; if NEW is ` ', then the command unmarks the files it acts on.
6171 *** Operating on Multiple Files
6173 The Dired commands to operate directly on files (rename them, copy
6174 them, and so on) have been generalized to work on multiple files.
6175 There are also some additional commands in this series.
6177 All of these commands use the same convention to decide which files to
6180 - If you give the command a numeric prefix argument @var{n}, it operates
6181 on the next @var{n} files, starting with the current file.
6183 - Otherwise, if there are marked files, the commands operate on all the
6186 - Otherwise, the command operates on the current file only.
6188 These are the commands:
6190 **** `C' copies the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6191 copy into, or (if copying a single file) a new name.
6193 If `dired-copy-preserve-time' is non-`nil', then copying sets
6194 the modification time of the new file to be the same as that of the old
6197 **** `R' renames the specified files. You must specify a directory to
6198 rename into, or (if renaming a single file) a new name.
6200 Dired automatically changes the visited file name of buffers associated
6201 with renamed files so that they refer to the new names.
6203 **** `H' makes hard links to the specified files. You must specify a
6204 directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the name
6207 **** `S' makes symbolic links to the specified files. You must specify
6208 a directory to make the links in, or (if making just one link) the
6209 name to give the link.
6211 **** `M' changes the mode of the specified files. This calls the
6212 `chmod' program, so you can describe the desired mode change with any
6213 argument that `chmod' would handle.
6215 **** `G' changes the group of the specified files.
6217 **** `O' changes the owner of the specified files. (On normal systems,
6218 only the superuser can do this.)
6220 The variable `dired-chown-program' specifies the name of the
6221 program to use to do the work (different systems put `chown' in
6224 **** `Z' compresses or uncompresses the specified files.
6226 **** `L' loads the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6228 **** `B' byte compiles the specified Emacs Lisp files.
6230 **** `P' prints the specified files. It uses the variables
6231 `lpr-command' and `lpr-switches' just as `lpr-file' does.
6233 *** Shell Commands in Dired
6235 `!' reads a shell command string in the minibuffer and runs the shell
6236 command on all the specified files. There are two ways of applying a
6237 shell command to multiple files:
6239 - If you use `*' in the command, then the shell command runs just
6240 once, with the list of file names substituted for the `*'.
6242 Thus, `! tar cf foo.tar * RET' runs `tar' on the entire list of file
6243 names, putting them into one tar file `foo.tar'. The file names are
6244 inserted in the order that they appear in the Dired buffer.
6246 - If the command string doesn't contain `*', then it runs once for
6247 each file, with the file name attached at the end. For example, `!
6248 uudecode RET' runs `uudecode' on each file.
6250 To run the shell command once for each file but without being limited
6251 to putting the file name inserted in the middle, use a shell loop.
6252 For example, this shell command would run `uuencode' on each of the
6253 specified files, writing the output into a corresponding `.uu' file:
6255 for file in *; uuencode $file $file >$file.uu; done
6257 The working directory for the shell command is the top level directory
6258 of the Dired buffer.
6260 *** Regular Expression File Name Substitution
6262 **** `% m REGEXP RET' marks all files whose names match the regular
6265 Only the non-directory part of the file name is used in matching. Use
6266 `^' and `$' to anchor matches. Exclude subdirs by hiding them.
6268 **** `% d REGEXP RET' flags for deletion all files whose names match
6269 the regular expression REGEXP.
6271 **** `% R', `% C', `% H', `% S'
6273 These four commands rename, copy, make hard links and make soft links,
6274 in each case computing the new name by regular expression substitution
6275 from the name of the old file. They effectively perform
6276 `query-replace-regexp' on the selected file names in the Dired buffer.
6278 The commands read two arguments: a regular expression, and a
6279 substitution pattern. Each selected file name is matched against the
6280 regular expression, and then the part which matched is replaced with
6281 the substitution pattern. You can use `\&' and `\DIGIT' in the
6282 substitution pattern to refer to all or part of the old file name.
6284 If the regular expression matches more than once in a file name,
6285 only the first match is replaced.
6287 Normally, the replacement process does not consider the directory names;
6288 it operates on the file name within the directory. If you specify a
6289 prefix argument of zero, then replacement affects entire file name.
6291 To apply the command to all files matching the same regexp that you
6292 use in the command, mark those files with `% m REGEXP RET', then use
6293 the same regular expression in `% R'. To make this easier, `% R' uses
6294 as a default the last regular expression specified in a `%' command.
6296 *** Dired Case Conversion
6298 **** `% u' renames each of the selected files to an upper case name.
6300 **** `% l' renames each of the selected files to a lower case name.
6302 *** File Comparison with Dired
6304 **** `=' compares the current file with another file (the file at the
6305 mark), by running the `diff' program. The file at the mark is given
6308 **** `M-=' compares the current file with its backup file. If there
6309 are several numerical backups, it uses the most recent one. If this
6310 file is a backup, it is compared with its original.
6312 The backup file is the first file given to `diff'.
6314 *** Subdirectories in Dired
6316 You can display more than one directory in one Dired buffer.
6317 The simplest way to do this is to specify the options `-lR' for
6318 running `ls'. That produces a recursive directory listing showing
6319 all subdirectories, all within the same Dired buffer.
6321 You can also insert the contents of a particular subdirectory with the
6322 `i' command. Use this command on the line that describes a file which
6323 is a directory. Inserted subdirectory contents follow the top-level
6324 directory of the Dired buffer, just as they do in `ls -lR' output.
6326 If the subdirectory's contents are already present in the buffer, the
6327 `i' command just moves to it (type `l' to refresh it). It sets the
6328 Emacs mark before moving, so C-x C-x takes you back to the old
6329 position in the buffer.
6331 When you have subdirectories in the Dired buffer, you can use the page
6332 motion commands C-x [ and C-x ] to move by entire directories.
6334 The following commands move up and down in the tree of directories
6335 in one Dired buffer:
6337 **** C-M-u Go up to the parent directory's headerline.
6339 **** C-M-d Go down in the tree, to the first subdirectory's
6342 **** C-M-n Go to next subdirectory headerline, regardless of level.
6344 **** C-M-p Go to previous subdirectory headerline, regardless of
6347 *** Hiding Subdirectories
6349 "Hiding" a subdirectory means to make it invisible, except for its
6350 headerline. Files inside a hidden subdirectory are never considered
6351 by Dired. For example, the commands to operate on marked files ignore
6352 files in hidden directories even if they are marked.
6354 **** `$' hides or unhides the current subdirectory and move to next
6355 subdirectory. A prefix argument serves as a repeat count.
6357 **** `M-$' hides all subdirectories, leaving only their header lines.
6358 Or, if at least one subdirectory is currently hidden, it makes
6359 everything visible again. You can use this command to get an overview
6360 in very deep directory trees or to move quickly to subdirectories far
6363 *** Editing the Dired Buffer
6365 **** `l' updates the specified files in a Dired buffer. This means
6366 reading their current status from the file system and changing the
6367 buffer to reflect it properly.
6369 If you use this command on a subdirectory header line, it updates the
6370 contents of the subdirectory.
6372 **** `g' updates the entire contents of the Dired buffer. It preserves
6373 all marks except for those on files that have vanished. Hidden
6374 subdirectories are updated but remain hidden.
6376 **** `k' kills all marked lines (not the files). With a prefix
6377 argument, it kills that many lines starting with the current line.
6379 This command does not delete files; it just deletes text from the Dired
6382 If you kill the line for a file that is a directory, then its contents
6383 are also deleted from the buffer. Typing `C-u k' on the header line
6384 for a subdirectory is another way to delete a subdirectory from the
6387 *** `find' and Dired.
6389 To search for files with names matching a wildcard pattern use
6390 `find-name-dired'. Its arguments are DIRECTORY and
6391 PATTERN. It selects all the files in DIRECTORY or its
6392 subdirectories whose own names match PATTERN.
6394 The files thus selected are displayed in a Dired buffer in which the
6395 ordinary Dired commands are available.
6397 If you want to test the contents of files, rather than their names, use
6398 `find-grep-dired'. This command takes two minibuffer arguments,
6399 DIRECTORY and REGEXP; it selects all the files in
6400 DIRECTORY or its subdirectories that contain a match for
6401 REGEXP. It works by running `find' and `grep'.
6403 The most general command in this series is `find-dired', which lets
6404 you specify any condition that `find' can test. It takes two
6405 minibuffer arguments, DIRECTORY and FIND-ARGS; it runs `find' in
6406 DIRECTORY with using FIND-ARGS as the arguments to `find' specifying
6407 which files to accept. To use this command, you need to know how to
6410 ** New amusements and novelties.
6412 *** `M-x mpuz' displays a multiplication puzzle, in which each letter
6413 stands for a digit, and you must determine which digit. The puzzles
6414 are determined randomly, so they are always different.
6416 *** `M-x gomoku' plays the game Gomoku with you. It needs more work.
6418 *** `M-x spook' adds a line of randomly chosen keywords to an outgoing
6419 mail message. The keywords are chosen from a list of words that
6420 suggest you are discussing something subversive.
6422 The idea is that the NSA reads all messages that contain keywords
6423 suggesting they might be interested, and that adding these lines could
6424 help to overload them. I would guess that they have modified their
6425 program by now to ignore these lines of keywords; perhaps the program
6426 can be updated if some clever hacker can determine what criterion they
6429 ** Installation changes
6431 *** The configure script has been provided to help with the
6432 installation process. It takes the place of editing the Makefiles and
6433 src/config.h, and can often guess the appropriate operating system to
6434 use for a particular machine type. See INSTALL for a more detailed
6435 description of the steps required for installation.
6437 *** If you create a Lisp file named `site-start.el', Emacs loads the file
6438 whenever it starts up.
6440 *** A new Lisp variable, `data-directory', indicates the directory
6441 containing the DOC file, tutorial, copying agreement, and other
6442 familiar `etc' files. The value of `data-directory' is a simple string.
6443 The default should be set at build time, and the person installing
6444 Emacs should place all the data files in this directory. The `help.el'
6445 functions that look for docstrings and information files check this
6446 variable. All Emacs Lisp packages should also be coded so that they
6447 refer to `data-directory' to find data files.
6449 *** The PURESIZE definition has been moved from config.h to its own
6450 file, puresize.h. Since almost every file of C source in the
6451 distribution depends on config.h, but only alloc.c and data.c depend
6452 on puresize.h, this means that changing the value of PURESIZE causes
6453 only those two files to be recompiled.
6455 *** The makefile at the top of the Emacs source tree now supports a
6456 `dist' target, which creates a compressed tar file suitable for
6457 distribution, using the contents of the source tree. Object files,
6458 old file versions, executables, DOC files, and other
6459 architecture-specific or easy-to-recreate files are not included in
6462 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.4. For Lisp changes in (the first
6463 * release of) Emacs 19, see the file LNEWS.
6465 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6466 Copyright information:
6468 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6470 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6471 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6472 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6473 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6475 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6476 of this document, or of portions of it,
6477 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6478 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6482 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"